The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1891-04-13

! These men for awhile smoke the best cigars,
Z and wear the best clothes. and move In the
/ highest spheres; but / have noticed that
very soon they come down to the prison,
The slmshouse, or stop E: the sallo"s.
/ The police stations Of this cluster Of cities
furnish annually between two and three
hundred Thousand lodgings For the most
| part these two and three hundred thousand
| lodgings are furnished to able-bOdied men
and women-people as able TO work as you
/ and / are. When they are received no
! longer at one police station, because they
are 'repeaters, they go to some other sta
I ton, and so they keep moving around.
| They get their food at house doors, stealing
/ what they can lay their hands on in the
/ front basement while the servant is spread
| ing the bread in the back basement They
will not work. Time and again, IN the
country districts, they have wanted hum
/ dreds and thousands of labOrers. These
men will not go. They do not want
| to work | have tried them. l have
| set them TO saving wood in nv cellar to
see whether they wanted to work. offered
to pay them well for it | have heard the
saw going for about three minutes, and
! then | went down, and 10! the wood, but no
saw They are the pest Of society, and they
stand in the way of the Lords poor, who
ought to be helped-and must be helped, and
will be helped. While there are thousands
of industrious men who cannot get any
work these men who do not want any
work come in and make that plea. / am
in favor Of the restoration of the old
fashioned whipping-post for just this one
class of men who will not work; sleeping at
night at public expense in the station house;
during the day, getting their food at your
doorstep. Imprisonment does not scare
them. They would like it. Black
wells Island or Sing Sing would be
comfortable home for them. They
IL - IL. l~.,al
for they like thin soup, il they cannot get
mock-turtle. l propose this for them: on
one side of them put some healthy work; on
the other side put raw-hide. and let them
take their choice. | Ike for that class Of
people the scant bill of fare that Paul wrote
out for the Thessalonian loafers: IF any
work not, neither shall he eat" By what
law of God or man is it right that you and
/ should toll day in and day out, until our
hands are blistered and arms ache and our
brain gets numb. and then be called upon
to support, what in the United States are
about two million loafersl They are a
very dangerous class. Let the public
authorities keep their eyes on them.
Again: Among the uprooting classes l
place the oppressed poor. Poverty, to
certain extent, Is Christening; but after
that when it drv es a man to the wall, and
be hears his children cry in vain for bread,
it sometimes makes him desperate. | think
that there are thousands Of honest men
| lacerated into vagabondism. There are
men crushed under burdens for which they
are not half paid. While there is no excuse
| for criminallty, even in oppression, state
| ID as a simple fact that much of the scoun-
drelism of the community is consequent
upon ill-treatment. There are many men
and women battered and bruised and stung
until the hour of despair has come and they
stand with the ferocity of wild beast,
which, pursued until it can run no longer,
turns round. foaming and bleeding, to fight
the hounds.
There is vast underground New York
and Brooklyn life that is appalling and
shameful. 1t wallows and steams with
putrefaction. You 60 down the stairs.
which are wet and decayed with filth, and
at the bottom you find the poor victims on
the floor. cold, sick, three-fourths dead,
sinking into a still darker corner under the
CLEAN of the lantern of the police. There
has not been breath of fresh air in that
room for five years, literally. The broken
| sewer empties its contents upon them, and
| they lie at night in the swimming filth.
| There they are, men, women, chill
dren; blacks. whites; Mary Magdalen
| without her repentance, and Lazarus
without his God. These are the dives into
| which the pickpockets and the thieves go,
| as well as great many who would like a
different life but cannot get it. These places
| are the sores Of the city, which bleed per-
| petual corruption. They are the underlying
| volcano that threatens us with a Caracas
earthquake. IL rolls and roars aud surges
and heaves and rocks and blasphemes and
| dies. And there are only two outlets for it:
the police court and the potter's field. In
| other words, they must either go to prison or
to hell o, you never saw it, you say.
You never will see it until on the day when
| those staggering wretches shall come up in
the light of the judgment throne, and while
all hearts are being revealed, God Will ask
you what you did to help them.
There is another layer of poverty and
destltution, not so squalid, but almost as
helpless. You hear the incessant waling
for bread and clothes and fire. Their eyes
are sunken. Their cheek bones stand out.
Their hands are damp with slow consump-
ton. Their flesh is pulled up with drop
sizes. Their breath is like that Of the char
mel house. They hear the roar of the
wheels of fashion overhead, and the gay
laughter of men and maidens, and wonder
why God gave to others so much and tC
them little. Some of them thrust into
an intidelity like that of the poor German
girl who, when told in the midst of her
wretchedness that God was good, said
mo, no good God. just look at me. Nc
good God"
In this cluster of cities, whose cry OF
| want Interpret. there are SAID TO be, as la
as | can figure it up from the reports, abou
three hundred thousand honest poor who
are dependent upon individual, city, and
state charities If all their voices coulc
come up at once, it would be groan tina
would shake the foundations of the city
and bring all earth and heaven to tht
rescue. But, for the most part, it suffer-
unexpressed. 1t sits in silence, crashing it
teeth and sucking the blood of its OWL
arteries, waiting for the judgment day. o
should not wonder if ON that day it would
be found on that some of us had som,
things that belonged to them; some exts
garment which might have made them com
Portable in cold days; some breaC
thrust into the ash-barrel that Nigh
have appeased their hunger for
little while; some wasted candle or gas-ie
that might have kindled up their darkness
some fresco on the ceiling that would hav
given them roof some jewel which, brough
TO that orphan girl in time, might have KEEP
her from being crowded off the precipice
of an unclean life; some New Testamen
that would have told them Of him VIII
"came to seek and save that which wa
lost" o, this wave of vagrancy and hun
ger and nakedness that dashes against GU
front door step! If the roofs of all th
3 houses of restitution could e lifted so W
} could look down into them just as God look
I whose nerves would be strong enough t
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