The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1885-07-22
A GREAT SOCIAL EVIL.
Towards Visw Of the Vicious Life Of New
York and Other Cities.
The ssPam Mall Gazette's" Exposures and
How Far They Apply to the Life of
Every Great City--What Leg
isIatiOn Can Do.
IHownrd.s 80 York Lctter.l

in Philadelphia as i'm New York, in London
as in Boston, imagine you will not be par
ticularly amazed TO know that one leading
periodical dealer in this city has received
over thousand orders for the four issues of
the Pail Mall Gazette containing the infam-
Gus disclosures of infamy in English society,
with which the civilized world has rung dur
ing the past week
This publication will bring England face TO
face with question that is as old as man.
kind, with which philosophers have struggled
and over which publicists have quarrelled
for hundreds of years, and that is the ques-
ton of the best mode OF legally controlling
a great and common evil and combining its
bad physical effects. This, in a country as
free rs ours where there are in city the
size of New York not less than 10000 vagrant
children, of whom three-tifthS are little girls
between the ages of five and fifteen years,
subject TO no discipline, under the most bale
full influences, open to every temptation,
knowing nothing of a future, sick OF the
present and disgusted by the past, means
much. You who are happy, whose lives
have been under sunshine, over whom the
gentle influences of affection and love have
watched, ought to think while of these bit
4
There are sad mysteries under the surface
of this CAV world, lives over which the very
shadow of death continually throws itself.
The day is short for us all, but for some it
will be pleasant thought when we turn our
last look upon our own that we have eaSed a
few aching hearts and brought peace and new
hope to the dark lives OF some whom men
had forgotten TO cast out.
CRIME AND vAGRANcY.
Experience shows that often numbers of
these poor children are i'll clothed SO desti-
tute that they are ashamed to peep in the
door of a church even, still more to attend a
school. Those who recognize the authority
of a mother are either compelled to beg or
IveIOn the street From the ranks of these
children our low dance-houses are recruited.
The more attractive of them are led without
much temptation to the higher plains OF de-
grading existence. The life of rag-picker, a
garbage seeker in the street soon wears off
girls mOdesty and prepares her for worse &C.
Cupation.
Men who go from cabin to cabin who seek
out every cellar and take in tenement houses,
who stand at sickbeds and deathbeds admin
iStering consolation and advice are discour-
aged by features they encounter on every
turn, and they know not what to do. They
become accustomed to scenes of misery and
houses of mourning are more natural to them
than houses of feasting. What are we to ex-
pect of children born in paternal piggerieS
who live in damp dark easements, half
starved, wretchedly pOor2 Our authorities
have done something, our industrial schools
have done much, but the rock against which
they all run, around which they can find no
path over which they can't climb is the
solid, unquestioned fact that of these vagrant
girls, large majority, sooner or later, find
themselves in the sink of physical disaster
and moral death.
WHAT THE LAW CAN DO
The merely philosophical inquiries or even
the physician regarding humanity in a
worldly way, comes naturally to the cOnclu-
sion that this Offense is one of the inevitable
evils which always have followed, and al
ways will follow the track of civilization
that it is to be looked upon, like smallpox
or scarlet fever, as a disease of civilized man,
and is to be treated accordingly, by a phys
ical and scientific means and must be con-
trolled, as it can not be uproOted by legisla-
ton. Or they regard it as they do intOxica-
tiOn. as the effect of miSdirected natural de-
sire, which is everywhere thought TO be q
legitimate object both of permission or rec
ognitiOn by government, as well as of check
by rigid laws. If medical men, their minds
are almost exclusively directed toward the
trightful effect on society and upon the in
nOcent of disease. They see that legislation
would at once check the ravages from these
terrible maladies, and that a system of IL
censes such as is practiced in continental
cities would prevent them from spreading
through society and Furnishing those who
had never sinned.
As scientific healers of human maladies.
they feel that anything is gain which less
ems human suffering, controls disease and
keeps up the general health of the commune
ty. Their position, too, has been strength
ened by the foolish and superstitious argu-
ments of their opponents. 1t has been
claimed that some disorders are a peculiar
and supernatural punishment for sin and
wrong doing; that by interfering with their
legitimate action on tn e guilty we presume
to diminish the punishments inflicted by
the Almighty; and, in 50 far Is can cure
or restrain these diseases we lessen one great
law which nature and Providence have
placed before the infractiOn OF the law of
virtue. The medical man, however, replies
very pertinently that he has nothing to do
With the Divine laws; that his business is to
cure human diseases and lessen human suf-
fering wherever he finds them and that govt,
or rheumatism, or diptheria, or scarlet fever
are as much ''punishments' as the diseases
OF vice.
THE MEDICAL MANS VIEWS.
If he refused to visit the patient whenever
he thought that his sins had brought upon
him his disease he would have very little oc-
cupatiOn, and mankind would receive very
little alienation from the medical art. Nor
is he even called upon to refuse to cure pa
tient who he knows will Immediately begin
again his evil courses. The physician i not
a Judge or an executioner. He has nothing
to do but cure and alleviate. Influenced by
this aspect of his duty, the medical man al
most universally advocates licenses to evil
doors, based on medical examination, and a
strict legal control OF the participants in
this offense.
On the other hand, those who deal with
the moral aspects of the case. and who know
the class that are ruined, body and soul, by
this criminal business, have a profound
dread of anything which the young should
appear to legalize, or approve. or even recOg-
nize il. The worst evil is to the woman, and
the worst element in that is moral rather
than physical, The man has the tremen-
dous responsibility on his soul of doing his
part in helping to plunge a human being
into the lowest depths of misery and moral
degradation. He has also the moral respon-
sibility which the Divine law OF purity
places on each individual and the further
burden of possibly causing disease hereafter
TO the innocent and yirtuous. But the wo-
man who pursues this as business has sell
dom any hopes in this world either of men
tai or moral health.
The class, as a class, are the most desperate