Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-10-03
DRIVEN AWAY BIZ THE DEVIL
Congregation Leaves the Church on
Account of It's Surroundings.
The Episcopal Church is Empty but
the Dens are Full.
Unsafe to Allow Young People on the
Street After Dark.

NEW YORK, Sept. 30.-'Like a good
deed IN a naughty world, St. Clement S
Protestant Episcopal Church, in West 3rd
street, stands solitary In neighborhood
which has almost entirely been given over
to houses of low drinking dives. and the
most Infamous resorts of vice.
Improbable as it may seem in a Chris
tian city. that boasts of the finest police
force in the world, it is nevertheless true
that that the congregation of St. Clement 5
church has been compelled to abandon the
Sunday evening service because of the mob
of street walkers that have taken posses
sion Of that portion Of the city. and who
take advantage of the hours of darkness to
indulge In the most outrageous violations
of denency.
For over fifty years the good people
OF st. Clements congregation have wor
shipped IN the modest church edifce in
West Third street, near Sixth avenue.
Until within a few years there was not a
house IN Third street, west of Wooster
street, which was not of most respectable
character. They were commodious old man.
siOns, which had once been the abode of
the wealth and fashion of the city. They
were owned in most cases by their occu-
pants. Some Of them were gradually
transformed into boarding houses of the
shabby-genteel sort, but there was never
anything about the reighborhood which
was not quiet and law abiding.
But there has come a lamentable change.
Vicious resorts of the most depraved char
acter were opened on Third street east of
South Fifth avenue. They have spread
like some disgusting contagion until nearly
all the respectable residents of the vicinity
have been driven away, and now house
OF decent character is rare exception.
ST. Clements parishioners have been
forced to move away because honest men
and YlrtuOus matrOns could no longer rear
their families In nest of criminals. st.
Clement once boasted one of the largest
and most select congregations of any
Episcopal church in the city, and now it
has become the smallest.
At last so brazen has become the vile
wretches who rule the street that the rec
tor Of the parish, the Rev Theodore n.
Eaton, has been compelled to announce
that hereafter there will be no more Sun
day evening worship In the old church
Yes, said Pastor Eaton yesterday, as he
smiled sadly, 1--WE shall have to move. We
do not hold services on Sunday evenings
any more because the members of the
congregation will not walk through the
streets after dark. They must keep their
daughters and their young children at
home, they say, because they will not per-
NIT them to be insulted or to witness the
demoralizing scenes which are enacted all
around us.
Yes, our congregation is small one,
and is growing smaller, and it is certainly
due IN q very great measure, to the de-
graduation which has come upon West
Third street. We shall have to give up
the one sided fight, suppose, and move
further up town. We have discussed the
matter but nothing has been done yet We
are loath to leave our old home where we
have been for more than half century
There is a public school on Wooster
street, just below whole block of disrep-
utable houses, and scores of children have
to pass these vile places four or five times
a day"
The few respectable citizens who have
held their ground in this vicinity have
from time to time complained to the police
OF this precinct, but nothing has ever come
of it. Capt. Brogan, of the Mercer street
station, responsible for this district, and
he cannot but be aware of the character of
the houses on West Third street, near
South Fifth avenue.