St. Landry democrat., 1885-05-30

Un6 glDDeG SOOOu Oh mouHV w dSu1uS Gon
and the other on the Himalayas it would
| not be any more conspicuous.
About fifteen years ag we had an illus
| trious instance of how God let's man go
only to make his undoing the more i'm
pressive as a moral lesson. First an honest
chair maker, then Alderman, then Member
of Congress, then Supervisor of the city,
then School Commissioner, then State Sem
ator, then Commissioner of the Depart
ment of Public Works. On and up, steal
ing thousands of dollars here and thou
sands of dollars there, swindling on the
| largest scale of malfeasance ever witnessed
in this country, SO thatthe new City Court
| house Of New York is monument of mu-
nicipal crime, having cost more than the
Capitol at Washington or the Parliament
Houses of London, and running the city
debt from $3S,0O0,000 to $97000,000. Now
he stands high up in Authorization.
Country seats, terraced and arbored and
parterred to the waters brink Horses
enough to stock Kings equerry. Grooms
and postillions in full rig. Wine cellars
enough to make whole Legislatures drunk.
New York politics and finance in his
vest pocket. He winked, and officials went
down. He lifted his little finger, and igno-
ramuses took high place. He whispered,
and at Albany and Washington people said
it Numbered. Higher up, and higher up,
until pandemonium seemed about to adj
iourn to this world, and there was some
prospect that in the Satanic realm there
would be change of administration, and
that Apollyon after holding dominion so
long would have an earthly competitor
To bring all to climax, wedding came
in tho house of that man. Diamonds as
large as hickory nuts. A pin of sixty
diamonds representing sheaves of wheat.
Musicians in semicircle, half hidden by
greatharp of flowers. Ships of flowers.
Forty silver sets, one of them with 24O
pieces. One wedding dress that cost $1,000.
A famous ibertine, who owned several
Long Island Sound steamboats,, and not
long before he was shot for his crimes; sent
as wedding present to that house a
frosted silver iceberg with representations
of Arctic bears walking on icicle
handles and ascending the spoons. Never
such convocation of bronzes, of pictures,
of shawls. The highest rate of New York
splendor rolled in upon the scene, and re-
coiled never again to rise SO high. But at
the moment when all observation of earth
and hell was concentered upon the scene,
eternal justice, impersonated in that Won
der of the American Bar, Charles O'Conor,
got on the track of the offender. First,
arrest; then indictment; then sentence of
twelve years imprisonment on Blackwell's
Island; then suit against him for $6,000,-
600; then Ludlow-stre jail; then return
under the tight grip of the constabulary and
death from broken heart in prison cell.
Allowed to go on until all the world learn
ed as never before that the way of the
transgressor is hard, that dishonesty does
not pay permanent dividends, that man
had better be an Industrious chair-maker
on days wages than a fraudulent Com
missioner of Public Works with all his
pockets crammed with plumber.
AN HISTORICAL EXAMPLE.
How proudly in history sounded the
name of William the Conqueror, Intimi-
dator of France and Anjou and Brittany,
Victor at Hastings, snptching the English
crown, driving people from their homes
that he might have a game forest, making
Doomsday Book by which the land was
put under despotic espionage, to avenge
joke at his obesity; proclaiming war,
trampling harvest-felds and whey ards I'M
der cavalry hoof until nations were horror
struck. But at that apex of renown, while
he was riding one day his horse put its fore
foot on a hot cinder and plunged, wound
ing the rider against the pommelTof the
saddle so that he died, his son fastening
to England to get the crown before his
fathers breath ceased. The I'm
perial corpse, coffinless, carried in
cart, and most of the attendants
leaving it in the street at a fire.
alarm that they might go and see the
confagration. The burial in the church
built by the Conqueror interrupted by
some one who cried: Bishop, the man
whom thou hast praised was robber; the
very ground on which we are standing is
mine, and is the site where my fathers
house stood. He took it from me by vio-
lence to build this church upon it. | re-
claim it as my right, and in the name of
God forbid you to bury him here or cover
him with my glebe." $50 up" said the
ambition Of William, the Conqueror. $50
up by way of throne. Go up by way of
criminality. Go up by way of revenge. y
"Come down." says God, "Come down
by the way Of miserable death. Come
down by the way of ignominious obse-
quies. Come down in the sight of all ma
tions. Come clear down. Come forever
down.
So all around us, though on smaller
scale, the wicked are allowed to live so
that their overthrow may be the more im-
pressive, memorable and cltmacteric.
SATAN.
And what say Of sin may be said Of
Satan, its author, sometimes called Abad-
don, the dragon, the serpent, Apollyon, the
nrinca of the nnrver Of the air That thnra