News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1882-11-16
A SORE PICTURE.
Dead Children at the Morgue-An
Episode of New York City Life.


Dead Children at the Morgue-An
Episode of New York City Life.
Twelve dead children were lying at
the Morgue this morning awaiting trans
portation to the Potter's Field. They
were sent to the Morgue by the poor,
who are unable to pay for their burial.
A Daily Paper.
No better satire on the actual condi-
ton of social affairs under our local,
State and National Government has
been developed than the revelation con-
tanned in the above paragraph. We are
accustomed to boast of our gigantic
buildings, our vast railroads, our thriv-
ing commerce and our men of wealth.
We pride ourselves on the multitude of
our church edifices, and devots large
share of our time and money to their
maintenance. We pretend to be civil
lied Christian community, and our men
of learning are still haggling over the
questions of eternal punishment and
the Immortality of the soul.
The press devotes columns to the de-
Fiction of single Individual from the
articles of sectarian faith, while upper
society palpitates in velvet pews to the
strains of the oratorio that echo from
the expensive choir.
The children of the poor are taken to
he id IN ho %
Field. This is not in Africa or Japan
it is in New York. In the crown city of
the Republic, where four men in the
short period of fifty years have been
able to accumulate and control $780,
900, 900, or one-balf of the entire me-
diurn of ri ro-l In+i~--- - .
"A''--- ~ = -.....u.ou, where the estimated
value of single church organization
property exceeds $75, 600, 900; where the
actual income of single Individual is
over 81, 900 a day; where profigate
young man spent eighteen hundred dol
lars for supper for two;" where ten
men each own horse valued at $50, 900;
where a private lady possesses jewels
costing 100000; where leader of
fashion pays $4,000 for party dress
here, in modern Babylon, the children
of the poor are tax en- to the Morgue and
| buried in the Potter's Field.
Their innocent eyes opened upon a
scene of squalid misery. Their first
breath drew in the noxious vapors of
disease and death from gloomy baunts
where cold starvation rides upon the
wind. Their pinched and furrowed
faces, old with premature distress; their
shriveled hands and ieshless fingers
reach out in vain for the succor that
never comes. Their eyes are hollow,
and the deep, dark circles beneath the
half-closed lids tells the story of their
childish pain. The bright sunshine, the
pure air, clear sky and invigorating
food was not for them. They are chill
dren of the poor brought to the Morgue
to be buried in the Potter's Field.
No consecrated ground will receive
their moldering dust. It was not the
prattle of gladstone voices greeting a
fond parents ears that ushered in their
helpless lives. 1t was the smothered
sob of parents heart who knew too
we'll the nature of the hungry wolf that
Iurked about the door. The strong
arms of the father could not avert the
danger or fight the unequal battle with
starvation, disease and death. The
victim of false political system, en-
riching the few at the expense of the
many, knew too well the worldly out
look for his child. A citizen of the
Republic, his daily toll the keystone of
it's strength and greatness, while he the
slave, must needs be chained to the
mill-wheel of the rich. Pressed by
legislative enactment to defray the ex-
penses of the nation and taxed to penury
in order to maintain the farce. The
fruit of his efforts, diverted from its
rightful channel and absorbed by
band of monetary dictators who grow
fat at his expense. The open robbery
of his rights, sanctioned by law and
upheld by the benighted students of
political economy, denied the first
principles bequeathed in the Constitu-
ton; the right to life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness becomes to him
an empty name.
Think not that the impulses of the
human heart lave left the man. The
blood that pulses through his veins is
not white or cold. It beats with human
throb and wrings his soul in agony
when he thinks of the sad and deserted
spot that must hold the lifeless form of
his murdered child. II the spirits of
the dead do hover above unhallowed
ground, what an unseen congregation
there must be at the Potter's Field.
Think of those mute and ghostly chill
dren, ye churches with room enough
and to spare Could you not provide
a decent burial for the poor mans
child? Your property is exempt from
taxation which the poor man pays.
Gould you not return moiety of the in
demnity you receiver Let the wealthy
congregations answer.
Creators of al wealth, forget not the
lesson. Your child may yet be taken
to the Morgue. A radical wrong in the
system of government cries out for re-
construction. You and your children
are drifting to the Potter's Field through
the operation of unjust laws, framed for
your eternal subsection and welded upon
you through the corrupt use of money
in the interests of a monopolistic class,
whose means and methods are as wrong
as they are Infamous in the sight of
God and man. GRACE CoURTLAND.
Preserved CitrOn Melon.