The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1885-08-22

81 !
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w. r. STEAD.
The Courageous Editor of the Pail
Mall Gazette.
We give an authentic and recent likeness
of W. T. Stead, editor of the Pail Mall Ga.
xette, London, who has shown oil the worlC
how eminently depraved are some men who
figure in the highest London society. The
uames of these despoilers of innocence and
virtue have not been made public as yet
but what Mr.. Stead has said to their meas
u.eless disgrace has been substantiated BY
the Investigations of a committee consist
ing of some of the most eminent represent.
alive men of England. One result of the
disclosures made is the probability that
Parliament will legislate in the direction OF
Offering greater protection to poverty and
innocence against the hideous spoliation
wrought by wealth and power allied to gross
sensuality.
Mr.. Stead was born at Howden, in the
county Of Northumberland, in 1850. He
was educated chiefly at home by his father,
who was q Congregational minister of hum
BILE means, but at IL years of age was sent
from homo to school. After remaining
there two years he began to earn hts liveli-
hood. His first employment was in the
Russian Consulate at Tyne.
Discovering an extraordinary aptitude and
love for journalistic work, he next found
employment on newspaper, and when
only q years old was given the position OF
editor Of a daily Radical journal published
at Darlington, Durham, q town situated
about forty miles south of Newcastle. From
this position he was called to be assistant
editor of the Pail Moll Gazette, under John
Morley, the celebrated writer and editor.
When Mr.. Morley resigned his position,
Mr.. Stead was promoted to it. His incum.
benoy Of the chair Of one Of the most influ-
entail papers in Europe has been chiefly re-
markable for his consistent championship
Of Russia in the Afghan dispute, and, mere
particularly, for the shocking discoveries
and exposures he has made Of wickednssd
in high places.
OUR LETTER FROM BROADBRiM.
What Shall we Do with the Children Of
the Poor-Pilgrimage to Gen. Grants
Tomb-Knee Breeches Becoming FASH
ionable-Diaplay of Live Stock, etc.
NEW YORK, August 8. 1855.
EDITOR CHEF:
1t is nearly sixty years since Robert NAL
thus gave to the world his great work on
Political Economy, in which he broaches a
number of principles which have made his
name famous among the philosophers OF
these latter days; and the more we think
the matter over the more We are inclined
to believe that Nautilus and Martineau we're
right. For years past 1 have been trying
to figure out the intimate family connec-
ton between poverty and population.
walk about this city, and in the neighbor-
hoods where poverty and crime abound
children swarm like the locusts of Egypt.
The other day took stroll through the
streets that radiate from the Five Points.
The point of radiation is Paradise Park,
though why it is so called confess can
not tell; only the conclusion is forced upon
you, that Paradise and Sheol are not very
far apart. It is almost exactly in the centre
of the Sixth Ward, ward of unsavory rep
utation for century past, and which TO-
acters to the square foot than any other
ward in the city. The lowest refuse of our
foreign population is here; it is the strong
hold of the Italians and Chinese. In all OF
these streets the children swarm by the
thousands. stood leaning against a lamp
post on the corner of Mott and Bayard
streets, and l counted, in groups of five
and ton, one hundred and eighty six chill.
dren, the oldest of whom could not have
been over ten years of age. None of them
we're we'll clad and clean; many of them
we're In rags and dirty; but it is vacation
now and all the children are in the streets
60 along the Fifth avenue and the streets
that branch from it on Murray Hill, among
the brown stone and marble palaces where
Dives dwells and Croesus lives, and scarce
ly meet child, and those do meet ere
like hot-house plants, and the nurse that
accompanies them seems to be afraid thai
the winds of Heaven may visit their faces
too roughly. The gutter-snipes of the
slums, turned adrift on the streets in the
early morning, unwashed, unkempt and
uncared for, are growing up in our mids,
by hundreds of thousands, and we are
forced to ask ourselves what is going to be.
come of them. Certain it is that no powe,
in our midst as yet has grappled success
fully with this important question.
1t is supposed that the Christian church is
doing much for their welfare, bnt here is a
plain statement staring us in the face. IN
the city of New York there are about four
hundred places of various kinds dedicated
to public worship; some of these Will only
seat couple of hundred, being held by re-
ligious and semi-religious societies m
rooms or halls; very few will hold thou
sand. and there are five or SIX that might
possiblv hold two thousand; but the four
hundred places of worship it full to over
aov;no would not contain two hundred
and fifty thousand OF our people, leaving