Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-04-13
they go TO some other sta

iilS vital luSlr H9IlCS ou III
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 hun
dreds and thousands of laborers. These
men will not go. They do not want to work.
have tried them. have set them to saw
ing wood IN my cellar to see whether they
wanted to work. offered to pay them well
Tor 1t. ! have heard the saw going for
about three minutes, and then l 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 in
duStriOus men who cannot get any work,
these men who do not want any work come
In and make that plea. l am in favor of
the restoration OF the old-fashloned whip
ping post for just this one class of
men who viii not work; sleeping at night at
public expense in the station house; during
the day, getting their food at your door
step. Imprisonment does not scare them.
They would like it. Blacl1well's Island or
Sing Sing would be comfortable home for
them. They would nave no objection TO the
almshouse, for they like thin soup, II they
cannot get mock-turtle. propose this for
them: On one side of them put some
healthy work, on the other side put raw
hide, and let them
l like for that class of people the scant bill
OF fare that Paul wrote out for the Thessa-
lonian loafers: If any work not. neither
should he eat" BY what law of God or
man is it right that you and l should toll
day in and day out, until our hands are
blIstered and our arms ache and our brain
gets numb, and then be called upon to sup
port, what in the United States are about
two million loafers! They are very dan
gerOus class. Let the public authorities
keep their eyes on them.
Again: Among the uprooting classes |
place the oppressed poor. Poverty. TO
certain extent is Christening; but after that,
when It drives man to the wall and he
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
criminality. even in oppression, | state it as
a simple fact that much of the scoundrelism
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 u vast underground New York
and Brooklyn life that is appalling and
shameful. 1t wa!lows and steams with
putrefaction. You go 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
g!eam 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 MagdGlen with
out her repentance, and Lazarus without
his God: These are the dives into which
the yickpocketS and the thieves 90, as well
as Il great many who would like different
life but cannot get ii. These places are the
sores Of the city, which bleed perpetual cor
ruption. They are the underlying volcano
that threatens US with Caracas earth
quake Il rolls and roars and surges and
heaves and rocks and blasphemes and dies.
And there are only two outlets for 1t: the
police court and the potters field. In
other words. they must either 90 to prison
or to hell Oh, 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, ana while
all hearts are being revealed, God will ask
you what you did 10 help them
lueFc Is dHOliitI layer VI poverty anu
restitution, not SO squalid but almost as
helpless. You hear the incessant wailing
for bread and clothes and fire. Their
eyes are sunken. Their cheek bones
stand out. Their hands are damp with
slow consumption. Their flesh is pulled
up with dropsies. Their breath is like
that of the charnel house. They hear the
and the gay laughter of men and maidens, |
and wonder why God gave to others so
much and to them so little. Some of |
them thrust out an infidelity like that of |
the poor German gill who, when told in |
the midst of her wretchedness that God |
was good. said: ''No, no good God Just |
look at me No good Cod
N THIS CLUSTER OF CITIES
whose cry of want l interpret there are |
said to be. as far as / can figure it up from |
the reports, about three hundred thousand |
honest poor who are dependent upon indi- |
vldual, city, and state charities If all |
their voices could come up at once. it would |
be a groan that would shake the foundations |
Of the city, and bring all earth and heaven |
to the rescue. But, for the most part, it |
suffers uneXpressed. 1t sits in silence, |
its teeth, and sucking the blood |
Of its own arteries, waiting for the iudg- |
ment day. Oh, should not wonder if on |
that day it would be found out that some of |
US had some things that belonged to them:
them comfortable IN cold days; some bread
thrust into the ash-barrel that might have
appeased their hunger for little while; |
some wasted candle or gaS-jet that might |
have kindled up their darkness; some
fresco on the ceiling that would have given
them a roof; some jewel which, brought to
that orphan girl in time, might have kept |
her from being crowded off the precipices
Of an unclean life; some New Testament
that would have told them of Him who
,'came to seek and save that which was
Ost' oh, this wave of vagrancy and
hunger and nakedness that dashes against
our front door step! If the roofs of all the
houses of deStitutiOn could be lifted SO we
could look down into them just as God
looks. whose nerves would be strong enough
TO stand it? And yet there they are. The
FIFTY THOUSAND sEwI,,G WOMEN
IN these three cities, some of them il hun
ger and cold, working night after night
until sometimes the blood spurts from nos
.ril and lips How well their grief was
voiced by that despairing woman who
stood by her invalid husband and invalid
,hild, aud said to the city missionary:
Il am down-hearted. Everything's
against US; and then there are other
hings."
What other things2" said the city mis-
ionary.
"Oh," she replied, my sin
''What do you mean by that
well" she said, i never hear or see
lnythiug good. It's work from Monday
morning till Saturday night, and then when
sunday comes | can't 60 out: and | walk
he floor and il makes me trernble to think |