The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1880-09-25
CERTAIN TENDENCIES of the DAY
BY EGBERT l.. BANGS.


The blood cannot long be tainted with
impunity without our noticing plain in
dications of disease upon the surface.
Every sore that comes to the surface is a
proof that somewhere and somehow sin
has been committed against the laws of
health. The great body polite, and the
body i'll which a single soul dwells, are
wonderfully alike. Social sins and social
corruption are so many evidences of bad
blood. Hamlet said, There is some
thing rotten in the State of Denmark"
No one can follow the current events of
the day, reading the details of crime,
without seeing that there is something
rotten in the state of society.
The whole surface of society at the
present time is fearfully blotched and
spotted with fiery signs that impure blood
is coursing through the veins and arteries
of the body polite. History is a grand
study, because it takes us to the birth
hour Of a people, to the cradle of u ma
ton and sometimes it takes us to the
funeral of a nation. When we read of
commissions as mighty as the upheaval Of
Mount Etna, we are led to ask if there
can be in society," as now constituted, any
dangerous elements that may set history
to repeating itself with destructive pow
cr. We are living in peculiar times and
in the midst of peculiar tendencies. Look
- T., :, I1o41 -
great rallying point for all the dangerous
classes that infest society. The vote of
the purest man that ever lived weighs
no more than that Of the vilest rake. An
American gentleman once called upon
Thomas Carlyle, and was greeted i'll the
following manner: g Weel, sir, and so yc
come frae that big country where the
vote of the grandest scoundrcl on airth
is equal to that of Jesus Christ The
outlook on the suffrage question is not
as encouraging as it was years ago. We
have thrown open new avenues to the
ballot-box, and have hedged about that
high privilege with hardly any restriction
whatever, and there are those who are
saying, "Place aur ddmes," make room
for the women at the ballot-boS, and let
them vote, too.
The relations between capital and labor
are unpleasant. There is no more diff
cult economical question before the pub
lie than how to adjust them; for there
are more men who have their labor to
offer in the market of the world than
there are who have capital to employ it.
We have been for years under the pres
sure of hard times, and the pressure of
hard times brings even an honest man
almost to the hard condition of a colorcd
brother in Georgia, who said, II nebber
seed such times since been born; work
all day and steal all night, and blessed if
| can hardly make a livin'."
81 do not altogether like your coun-
try" said young Englshman to an
American. "Why not - because
You have no gentry in it, "What do
you mean by gentry9'' "WeI, you
KNOW" replied the Englishman, ''well,
gentry, you know, are those who never
do any work themselves, and whose faith
ers before them never did any All.
then," exclaimed the American, 'we
have plenty of gentry in America: but
we don't call them gentry; we call them
tramps.. The country swarms with such
gentry. In some localities the tramps
who rap at the back-door far outnumber
the callers who ring the bell at the front.
Their petitions for aid sometimes lack
the element of logical consistency
Madam said one of this rowing fra
ternity, "would you give ne an old pair
of trousers, for Tn starving to death.
They roam about from place to place, and
depredations can testify that "on the
Sabbath day they go through the corn
and pluck the ears Of corn and eat, and
they 90 through the orchards and hen
yards in the same way, treating all things
they want as 4 sea captain said the i'll
habitants of Dahomey did when he was
asked, DO they keep the Sabbath %
YES said he, land everything else
they can lay their hands on Tramps
are an organized body. Let a riot break
out in any of our large cities, and how
quickly would a wild throng of tramps
come pouring in to rob and plumber.
The pauper differs from the tramp
The class that he belongs to lacks the
element of malignant ugliness; but the
have is, at least, indirectly 4 source of
some danger. The world is full of tsn$
some good, and others good for nothing.
Squalid poverty has taken a seat, and
not a back seat either among the isms;
and so we have pdupcr ism, and of all the
isns in the world this has the largest and
most unovely following. Look at it
once, and as the long, unwashed, IN
combed and tattered line passes, You can
see in it Il resurrection of Falstatf's
army: and of that army Falstaff said,
No eve hath seen such scarecrows;
there's but a shirt ana half in all my
company. and the half shirt is two nap
kins tackled together and thrown over the
shoulders. without sleeves. And the
shirt-to say the truth-stolen from my
host at St. Adams" We must recognize
the fact that we have i'll our country I
large number of persons who eat ana
drink at other peoples expense. Facts
are very Stubborn things. Let us for
moment look ut some stubborn facts III
regard to paupcrism. In 1870 our pepu-
lation was IS, 900 600. During that year
ZIG. 600 persons were supported as pan
pers. Divide that number up and see
how it averages. This is the result
Each community of 800 persons has on
its hands, all the time, one person who
lives at their expense. Our pauperS are
the dead wood of society. They contrl-
butte little or nothing to the real strength
of the country. Hence, even in the most
passive condition they can be put i'll. even
if they only sit still and eat while the
tax-payers pour food into the immense
hopper of their hungry mouths, they are
a source of danger.
Let us turn now from our paupsrs and
consider another feature i'll the condition
of the country. We are told i'll the report
of the ninth census what our population
is, and we have a right to infer from that.
that we now number not far from 90
% NJ ,1,,,fr