The Potter journal and news item. [volume] (Coudersport, Pa.) 1872-1874, 1873-05-23

/ impetuous streams.
But, if you have sufficient curiosi-
ty and will take the pains to look in
to them, you will find them veritable
little ways for small folk TO live and
die in.
AS sample, there is Needle Lane.
1t is broad enough, to be sure, to al.
low the sewing-girls who are hived
in it to draw their threads; but still
so narrow that only the smallest
wages can ever get into it. Now and
then some benevolent sunbeam
spends an hour or two there, looking
after pale geraniums and consump-
tive roses, or trying to start smile
on pools of dirty water, that only re-
spond with a ghastly grin. 1t must
have been at one end of this narfaw.
low way that the poetical ear of
Tom Hood caught the pathetic tones
of his familiar dirge-
stitch, stitch, stitch,
Through poverty, hunger and dirt,
Sewing at once, with double thread,
a shroud as well as a shirt"
But somehow ignorance, vice and
misery are able to flourish in these
lanes. They even seem 10 find abun-
dant entrance and f;lcile progress
where intelligence, morality and hap
piness cannot possibly squeeze
through.
Some Of the good people who ale
given to preaching say; Go now into
these placrs and build there 4 church,
so shall that purifying institution
cleanse the whole neighborhood.
But would it not be almost as SEN
sible, good people, to create somehow
an outward current from those neigh
borhoods, that should set, at least
every Sunday, toward the squares
and avenues, to disembogue into the
fine churches already butt and only
about half full? Is it not the philos-
ophy Of salvation to get people out
Of themselves?
If you were to make feast for
your poor neighbors, which would
You do? Would you take your we'll
filed baskets into the lanes and
spread the loaves and roasts on those
little dmgy tables; 'or would you
open your own house, with the gay
sunlight flashing on piles of clean
crocbery, glowing in the bright col
ors of velvet carpets and dancing on
pictured wall and tinted ceiling?
OF course, it would depend upon
the object you had in view, you
aimed to compromise with obligation
you would doubtless take the feast
in baskets. But, if you had the uH-
usual grace to do the godlike thing,
you would probably invite in TIE
needy guests.
The tfuest results Of religion can
not be secured SO well 10y sending
missionaries into Mud Alley as by
getting the people out of the alley
into Broad Avenue. 1t is the 2lley
itself that breeds moral pestilence.
The Kingdom Of Heaven does not
commission its messengers to stand
at the entrance and fling in a hand
full of tracts on Total Depravity, as
the method and means ofconversion
but reach inward, rather, the white
hand of charity and drag out the de-
pravity INTO some clean place, where
/ the sun shines and the water runs,
ard there can be washing Of faces
and souls
To be sure, there is no statute
commanding the wealth Of the land
to give itself any concern about these
lanes. 1t may be necessary to hire
policemen to show their stars occa-
sionally in such vicinites, for the
purpose of order and personal secu-
rity, just as anybody will help pay
for cuain TO keep a bear out of
mischief.
But the main idea is understood
to be self defense. If there is danger
of cholera, require the health officers
to do their duty, for the protection
of the avenues. Or, if ignorance,
vice and wretchedness are likely to
infect the fine neighborhoods, why.
of course, look after them.
But this whole theory of protect
ing Broad Way against Narrow
Lane as the partial method of social
economy is false and vicious, to say
nothing of injustice.
When the Third Napoleon wished
to prevent mobs and barricades, he