Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1881-09-19
ABUSE OF TRUST FUNDS.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM A DlSH0h-
EST BOARD OF EDUCATION.
Brooklyn's Capacity for Crims-Who Has
Suffered-CIoser Inspection Of Public
Business Needed-Go Not in The
Way of Temptation-wrash
Tempered With Charity.
SERMON BY REV 7. DEWITT TAlMAeE.

called forth by the malfeasance in office
in the Brooklyn Board of Education.
Subj .ct-"Abuse of Trust Funds"
TEXT: Exodus Xxx Is: "Thou shalt not seal. ~
1 am glad that on the morning OF the
afternoon in which We are to sit at the
holy sacrament l am to discuss a great
question of public morals. 1t is high
time that the Lords table be no longer
a hiding. place for men who are recreant
in their lives, and that they should learn
that while the communion table is a
place for all sincere pelitents according
to the old Reformed Dutch Church lit
urgy-the church in which l was born
all thieves, adulterers, drunkards,
whoremongers, usurers and gamesters
eat and drink damnation to themselves.
The only argument against christianity
that has ever been any damage is the
inconsistency of its professors, and We
must all admit it is very depressing
thing for men of the world to look over
on communion Sabbath and see at the
Lords table those who are known to be
sharpers in trade, Shylocks in bargain,
unchaste OF speech or practice, thumb
screws OF cruelty and every way untrust-
worthy. One OF the cryingevils to-day is
The abuse OF trust funds. Almost every
one on larger or smaller scale during the
course of his life is entrusted with mon
eys belonging to others. For time he
becomes the safety deposit. He is an
administrator and has in his hands the
interests OF the family OF deceased
friend; or he is an attorney and through
bis custody goes the payment from
debtor to creditor: or he Is financial
agent and collects for house who com
pensated him for the responsibility
taken; or he is the treasurer of a charit-
able institution and holds the amounts
contributed for the poor, or he Is an oifi.
cial OF city, State or nation and taxes, or
subsidies, or salaries or supplies are in
his keeping. Such trusts are as sacred
as God can make them. They hold the
concentrated and multiplied condolences
OF others. Upon the faithiulness OF such
holders OF trust funds rests the support
OF bereaved households or the morals OF
defendants or the right moving OF a
thousand wheels of useful mechanism.
A man may do what he will with hi5
own, but he who abuses trust funds
commits in that one act theft,
fasehood, usury, and becomes
in the intensity OF that
word a miscreant. There are wild
ows and orphans innumerable with
nothing between them and starvation
but a sewing machine, or held at the
vortex of destruction by nothing but
the thread OF needle, red with their
own hearts blood, who were left at the
death OF the husband and father with
competency. What became OF it? The
administrators or executors sacrificed II,
running risks with it which they would
not have dared to encounter in their
own affairs. Some man by the sweat ot
his brow gets enough to support his
family, then dies, and in six months all
is gone down in the stock speculating
rapids of Wall street. 1t is 80 safe to
gamble with other peoples money! II
unsuCct sSful you have put no hing in
of your own, and yon can 60 round and
apologize to the innocents who know
nothing about business affairs; while ii
you gain you can pocket all or most OF
the result, 10 per cent, 20 per cent, 80
per cent, Is per cent, and they will be
satisfied with six per cent, the lawful
interest OF the State OF New York.
EAgain and again administrators have
Withdrawn money from sa wings banks
and trust companies and have disposed
OF the homestead so that all might be
put into the vortex of Wall street. There
is not city in the United States which
has not suffered from the abuse OF trust
funds. Where is the court house or the
jail or the postoffice or the city hall or
the hospital in which there has not been
what is called "job." Long before the
new court house OF New York had been
completed it had cost Sl2, 100000 Five
million six hundred and thirty.three
thousand dollars for furniture. For plas-
tering and repairs 81 $4,000 For plumb
ing and gas works 81, ,23l,Sl7. For avn.
ings S23, ,553 The bills for three months
amounted to the little sum OF $l3, l5l,-
1873. There was not an honest brick or
stone or lath or nail or foot Of plumbing
or inch OF plastering or chair or inkstand
in the whole establishment. Such set
of thieves were discouragement to all
other cities aspiring to villany. Brook
lvn sat, modest and overshadowed.
But we are coming up at last. Only
live us time and opportunity and We
will steal as we'll as New York. We
have Just now acquitted ourselves OF a
theft which shows vast capacity OF
crime. Two hundred thousand dollars
at least, on their way to educate the ris
ing generation, diverted into private
pockets. OF the outrage ther3 is no
possibility of doubt. But l charge you
to hold in the rendition of your judg.
ment till the high tribunals OF the city
have explored this matter. 1t is fear.
ful thing to accuse innocent men and
afterwards find that you were mistaken,
but too late to correct the wrong done.
We must hold all men innocent till they
are proved guilty. But no man in pub
lie or out of it has a right to let the
crime itself go without arraignment and
ansthema. There are two or three
things that make this iniquity especially
aggravsting. The first wrong is to all
tax payers. In the great struggle OF life
the tax bill comes to many all over
worked man and many any invalid
woman as a torture. All the year round
it is q matter of calculation how to meet
that crisis. But it is pay or be sold
out," "pay or give up your home" ""pay
or sacrifice all you have previously
gained" 1t seems at the collector s
Office an easy thing as the money is
handed through the business window
and the receipt returned, but God only
knows the anxieties and the tug and the
sweat and the pang that made that pay.
ment possible. There is much blood.
money, that has been stolen in that
100000 Of purloining. Another aggra.
walton is in the TACT that the public
school teachers have been pushed and
crowded in their livelihood by this
fraud. Enough moneys have been ap-
propristed for educational purposes but
that which ought to have gone to the
support OF the men and women who
are putting brain and nerve and life into
the education of the young has gone into
the hands OF the scoundrelly, the sala-
ries of teachers lowered and lowered into
positive suffering because the treasury
was in the hands of plunderers. 1t will
never be known, how much the families
in this city have suffered in consequence
OF the necessitated economy in fixing
teachers' salaries. 1t is of course true
in many cases that the young teacher