Fayette County herald. [volume] (Washington [Washington Court House], Fayette County, O. [Ohio]) 1860-1???, 1871-11-02
A TERRlRLE RETRIBurIoN.

A TERRIBLE RETRIBUTIoN.
The city of Chicago, often called the
"Queen of the West" is now a heap
of mouldering ruins. Perhaps no city
on the American continent was so de-
void of a high toned society, and so
given to immortality as the once proud
city of Chicago. The character of it's
people, if we are to judge from the pop
ular verdict, was very loose, aud pos
sessed no one trait to commend it to
the respect and confidence of an en-
lightened public sentiment. Men and
women there were actors and actresses
on vast stage of profigacy and ex-
travagance. Religion was a mockery
with them, and every instinct of NOR
alItY was lost in the great whirlpool Of
social recklessness and turpitude; it
was modern Sodom and Gomorrah.
and truly it has met the fate of its an
cient prototype. The magnitude of
the evils which afflicted that city. can
never be properly estimated until the
full measure of its wickedness is
brought to light; and no human can
tell the utter absence of morality from
its habits and customs until the whole
truth is known. We have been aecus-
toned to regard that city, in social
and moral point of view, as a stigma
upon all the teachings of that good
Book, which foret0ld long years ago
| its destruction, and the destruction
of all its like and kind The marriage
tie, the most sacred of all human OBJ
! legations, was no more regarded in
| Chicago than the demoniae walls of a
! forest brute, or the wild sobs Of q
| Gagged lioness. The men were, almost
without exception, a mass of libertines,
and the women in the same proportion,
o bevy of fashionable poems, whose
careers were as furious and flimsy as
the petro!euses, of Paris. There were
good men and women in Chicago, but
their examples and influences amount
ed to nothing. They could no more
arrest the mad tide of fashion and
recklessness than pop gun could bat
ter down the Chinese wall they were
merely the few stars that shone forth
from amid dar, ness so terrible thai
its blackness makes the heart sick al
its observation, and almost stiles thu
very air we breath. Human chastity
"eSo a OoDO LliONhCAy anu Tie D1OOuS
of Chicago assailed it with the mos
relentless cruelty, until it succumbec
beneath the wild onslaught of the gam
ing den. the assignatiOn house ant
base lucre. Indeed, so fatal to virtue
and morality had the city become
that it was sought by the reckless hus
band and the ''indescreet" wife as tn,
palladium of their domestic troubles
and from its confines have such beer
turned loose upon the bottOmless Sc
of remorse, with every tie of the hear
severed, and no hopes of life save a
outlaws and prostitutes. It has bee
scourged it may be that hencefort
Chicago will learn a lesson from til
terrible evils which have brodgh
about this Christening. 1t we're far bet
ter that those heaps ofruins should re
main forever as they are than tba
another foul element should b.
reared over them, and another ours
rise above the destroyed monsters o
vice and pollution.
= We have thus witnessed in one brie
. year the destruction of the two princi
pal cities of vice-Paris in the Eas
i and Chicago in the West-and surel
if men and women. can be made an
e better than they are, these awful re
tributions must mean something tc
ward the accomplishment of so desir:
a BILE a triumph. We ympathize deel
lr with the innocent people of Chicago
would to Heaven they could have bee
e spared but we shall hope that tt
Chicago of hereafter will be quite a
improvement on the Chicago that ha
Il been. a