The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1891-06-04

c1dlS were only Dl0Ql08 nIBHGF 1OE uOIb
crime. It is no compliment to public
authority when we have in all the cities
Of the country, walking abroad, men
and women notorious for criminality,
unwhipped of justice. They are pointed
out to you in the street day by day.
There you find what are called the
fences, the men who stand between
the thief and the honest man, sheltering
the thief, and at great price handing
over the goods to the owner to whom they
belong. There you will find those who
are called the ''skinners, +" the men who
hover around Wall street, with great
sleight-o in bonds and stocks.
There you find the funeral thieves the
people who go and sit down and mourn
with families and pick their pockets.
And there you find the confidence
men," who borrow money of you be-
cause they have a dead child in the
house and want to bury it, when they
never had a house or family; or they
want to go to England and get large
property there, and they want you to
pay their way, and they will send the
There are the 'harbor thieves,
the ''shoplifters, the 'pickpockets, +"
famous all over the cities. Hundreds
of them with their faces in the
''Rogues' Gallery" yet doing nothing
for the last five or ten years but de-
fraud society and escape justice. When
these people go unarrested and unpun~
ished, it is putting high premium upon
vice, and saying to the young criminals
of this country: "What a safe thing it
is to be great criminal" Let the law
swoop upon them. Let it be known in
this country that crime will have no
quarter, that the detectives are after it,
that the police club is being brandished.
that the iron door of the prison is being
opened, that the judge is ready to call
on the case. Too great leniency to
criminals is too great severity to so
ciety.
Again: In your effort to arrest this
plague of crime, you need to consider
the idle population. Of course, do
not refer to the people who are getting
OLD, or to the sick, or to those who can
not get work; but tell you to look out
for those athletic men and women who
will not work. When the French noble
man was asked why he kept busy when
he had so large property, he said: II
keep on engraving SO l slay not hang
myself. do not care who the man is,
you can not afford to be idle. tits from
the idle classes that the criminal classes
are madeup. Character, like water, gets
putrid if it stands still too long. Who
can wonder that in this world, where
there is so much to do, and all the hosts
of earth and Heaven and hell are plung-
ing into the conflict, and angles are fly
ing, and God is at work, and the uni
verse is aqualze with the marching and
counter-marching, that God lets His in
dignation fall upon man who chooses
idleness? have watched these do-noth-
ings who spend their time stroking their
boards, and retouching their toilet and
criticising Industrious people, and
pass their days and nights in
bar rooms and club houses, lounging
and smoking and chewing and card
playing. They are not only useless,
but they are dangerous. How hard it
is for them to while away the hour |!
Alas for them If they do not know
| how to while away an hour, what will
they dowhen they have all eternity on
their hands. These men for awhile
smoke the best cigars, and wear the
best clothes, and move in the highest
spheres; but I have noticed that very
soon they come down to the prison, the
aims house, or stop at the gallows.
have preached this sermon for four
or five practical reasons: Because I
want You to know who are the uproot-
ing classes of society. Because I want
you to be more discriminating IN your
charities. Because I want your hearts
open with generosity, and your hands
open with charity. Because / want you
to be made the sworn friends of all CITY
evangelizatlon, and all newsboys' lodg-
| lighthouses, and all children's aid So
eieties and Dorcas societies, under the
| slxillful manipulation of wives and moth
ers and sisters and daughters; let the
spare garments of your wardrobe be
fitted to the limbs of the wan and shiv-
| ering. ] should not wonder if that hat
| that you give should come back a Jew
eled coronet, or if that garment that
you hand out from your wardrobe
should mysteriously be whitened. and
somehow wrought into the Saviour's
own robe, so in the last day He would
run His hand over it and say: 81 was
naked, and Ye clothed Me-" That
would be putting your garments to
glorious uses.
But more than that, 1 have preached
the sermon because I thought in the
contrast you would see how very kindly
God had dealt with you, and I thought
that thousands of you would go to your
comfortable homes and sit at your
well-flled tables and at the warm reg
listers, and look at the round faces of
your children, and then you would
burst into tears at the review of
Gods goodness to you, and that you
would go to your room and lock
| the door, and kneel down and say: 20
Lord, have been an migrate; make me
Thy child. o Lord, there are so many
hungry and unclad and unsheltered to-
day, thank Thee Chat all my life Thou
| hast taken such good care of me- n