The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1885-07-22
NEEDED MORAL REFORMS.


While it can not be assumed that the
world is more immoral or wicked now than
at any time in the past, certain it is that
immortality and vice are frightGIlly preva-
lent. even in those countries which boast OF
the highest civilization. Although the
English speaking world is amazed and hor-
rlfied at the recent disclosures of the vice
and depravity of modern London, where
practices most vile are INDUCED in by the
aristocracy and nobility, yet are these sins
as great and crimes of much singular
character as gross, perhaps daily, happening
in all the larger cities of our own America.
The daily papers TEEN with accounts of
rape, incest, infiedlity, and the whole cata-
losue of kindred sins, until one is non
seated with the reading of such occurrences,
or would be, were not the sensibilities
blunted to a large extent because of the
number and frequency of these happenings.
The lesson fought is, the need of the most
efficient remedy for these evils applied ener-
getically and promptly. Measures are being
adopted and executed now in London which
will go far toward eraeicating the secret vices
so tellingly exposed there by the Pail Mall
Gazette. We need the same in this country,
and the matter should be taken hold of by
the churches and all people who believe that
virtue alone is purity and should rule
the world. Chicago and New York
are as immoral as London and cursed with
practices as hideous; nor is it hidden behind
screens or concealed from the public gaze.
st. Louis and Cincinnati are nearly, if not
quite, as bad. How can children be properly
brought up where the most vicious and de-
PRAYED of humanity like hyenas stalk
abroad in the night time and ply their nefai
Gus vocation? Certain streets in these cities
are the regular thoroughfares of lewd wo-
men and girls who solicit the company of
boys and men whom they invite to their
rooms near by. Their actions are most
brazen, nor are they at all inter-
fered with by the police. Their
rooms are often in the upper
stories of magnificent blocks, the lower
stories of which are occupied by stores and
offices, where are employed many boys and
youths, who are thus subjected to all the
temptations of these influences which are de-
mOralizing in the extreme. The result is
victims by the thousands who fall and help
swell the multitude of moral lepers.
In our own city of indianapolis, as stated
by contemporary, there have been found
and reported no houses of ill-fame, six as
signation houses and others suspected. Who
frequent these and keep them up? How
many girls and young women are inmates?
How many youths and men are visitors to
these abodes of iniquity?
Is not this fearful showing? What more
is needed to indicate the moral degradation
in our cities? What sad commentary on
our boosted progress and civilization in this
nineteenth century 1t is not enough to say
that the world is better now than in the
prohigate days which darkens English his
tory; or those in France previous to the Rev
olution, when the vicious and irresponsible
aristocracy laid brutal hands on virgin purity,
and in violation of every sacred right COM
PEELED the daughters of the middle and lower
classes to take part in scenes of lewdness and
debauchery, the very recital of which makes
ones nerves tingle with indignation, and the
cheek of manhood to burn with shame for such
gross acts of human wrong and oppression.
The moral turpitude of our day is not of that
kind; but its influences are debasing and its
effects even farther reaching than those in
famies of former ages, which were curse
that brought their own retrihution.
A subject so near and vital to our future
welfare as civilized and Christianized nations
should be taken hold of with gloveless hands.
Any modesty which shrinks from this is
false. Monster evils are only throttled by
vigorous effort, and for the sake of our own
and future generations this matter should be
taken in hand and the means applied which
are needed to purify our moral atmosphere.