Democratic messenger., 1881-11-12

that excite talk, will spare Brooklyn
comparison with Salt Lake. But as to
ordinary things: have walked through
the streets of Salt Lake City, by day
and by night, without seeing what in
the streets of New York or Brooklyn,
excites no comment. Polygamy is un-
natural and wrong, no doubt of that,
for Nature brings into the world some
thing over twenty-five boys for every
twenty girls, But Is not a state of
society unnatural and wrong in which
there are thousands and thousands of
girls for whom no husband ever offers?
Can we brag of q state of society in
which one citizen can load his wife with
more diamonds than an Indian chief
can put beads on his squaw, while many
other citizens are afraid to marry lest
they can not support wife a state of
society III which prostitution fourishes?
Civilization Is advancing day by day;
never was such progress as we are
making. Yet divorces are increasing
and insanity is increasing. What is the
goal of q civilization that tends toward
free love and the madhouse
This is most highly civilized COM
munity. There is not bear nor wolf
on Manhattan Island, save in menag-
erie. Yet it is easier, where they are
worst, to guard against bears and
wolves than it is to guard against the
human beasts of prey that roam this
island. In this highly civilized city
every lower window has to be barred,
every door locked and bolted even
door mats, not worth twenty-five cents,
you will see chained to the steps. Stop
for moment in a crowd and your
watch is gone as If by magic; shirt-studs
are taken from their owners bosoms,
and ear rings are cut from ladies' ears.
Even standing army of policemen do
not prevent highway robbery; there
are populous districts that to walk
through after nightfall is a risk, and
where you have far more need to go
armed and to be wary than in the back
woods. There are dens into which
men are lured only to be drugged and
robbed, sometimes to be murdered. All
the resources of science and inventive
genius are exhausted in making bur-
glar proof strong rooms aid safes, yet,
rs the steel plate becomes thicker and
harder, so does the burglars tool be-
come keener. If the combination lock
can not be picked it is blown open.
If not crack large enough for the in
air pump is applied and vacuum is
created So that those who in the
heart of civilization would guard their
treasures safely must come back to the
most barbarous device, and either
themselves, or by proxy, sleeplessly
stand guard. What sort of civilization
is this? In what does civilization essen
TALLY consist if not in civility-that is to
say, in respect for the rights of person
and of property?
Yet this is not all, nor the worst.
These are but the grosser forms of that
spirit that in the midst of civilization
compels every one to stand on guard.
What is the maxim of business inter-
course among the most highly respect
able classes? That if you are swindled
it will be your own fault that you must
treat every man you have dealings with
as though he but wanted the chance to
cheat and rob you. CaUedt emptOr.
"Let the buyer beware" If man
steal few dollars he may stand a chance
of going to the penitentiary. read the
other day of a man who was sent to the
penitentiary for stealing four cents from
horse-c car company. But, if he steal
million by business methods, he is
courted and tiattered, even though he
steal the poor little savings which wash
erwomen and sewing girls have brought
to him in trust, even though he rob
widows and orphsns of the security
which dead men have struggled and
stinted to provide.
This is most Christian city. There
are churches and churches. All sorts
of churches, where are preached all sorts
of religions, save that which once in
Galilee taught the arrant socialistic doc
trine that it is easier for camel to pass
through the eye of a needle than for
rich man to enter the kingdom of God !;
all save that which once in Jerusalem
drove the money-changers from the
temple. Churches of brown and gray
and yellow stone, lifting toward heaven
in such noble symmetry that architec-
ture seems invocation and benison
where, on stained-glass windows, glow
angel and apostle, and the entering light
is dimmed to soft glory; where such
music throbs and supplicates and bursts
in Joy as once in st. Sophia ravished the
souls of heathen Mortimer churches
where richly cushioned pews let for the
very highest prices, and the auctioneer
determines who shall sit in the foremost
seats; churches outside of which on
Sunday stand long lines of carriages, on
each carriage a coachman. And there
are white marble churches, so pure and
shapely that the stone seems to have
bloomed and fowered-the concrete ex-
preston of grand, sweet thought.
Churches restful to the very eye, and
into which the weary and heavy-laden
can enter and join in the worship of
their Creator for no larger an admission
fee than it costs on the Bowery to see
the bearded lady or the Zulu giant eight
feet high. And then there are mission
churches, run expressly for poor people,
where it does not cost cent. There is
no lack of churches. There are, in fact,
more churches than there are people
who care to attend them. And there
are likewise Sunday-schools, and big
religious "book concerns" and tract
societies, and societies for spreading the
light of the Gospel among the heathen
in foreign parts.
Yet, land a heather on the Battery
with money in his pocket, and he will
be robbed of the last cent of it before he
is day older. "By their fruits shall
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