The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1891-04-22

afford to be idle. It is from the idle
classes that the criminal classes are made
up. Character, like water. gets putrid
fit stands still too long. Who can Won
der that in this world, where there is so
much to do, and all the hosts of earth
and heaven and he'll are plunging into
the conflict, and angels are flying, ano
God is at work, and the universe is
aquake with the marching and counter.
marching, that God lets his Indignation
fall upon man who chooses ldlepess:
I have watched these do-nothlngs who
spend their time stroklng their beard,
and retouching their toilet, and criticlz-
ing industrious people, and pass their
DAYS and nights N barrooms and club
houses, lounging andsmocking and chew
ing and card-playing. They are not
only useless, but they are dangerous.
How hard it is for them to while away
the hours! Alas for them! If they do
not know how to while away an hour,
what will they do when they have all
eternity on their hands? These men for
awhile smoke the best cigars, and wear
the best clothes, and move in the high
est spheres; but have noticed that very
soon they come down to the prison, the
almshouse, or stop at the gallows.
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 hun
dred thousand lodgings are furnished to
able-bodied men and women-people as
able to work as you and I are. When
they are received no longer at one police
station, because they are ''repeaters, "
they 90 to some other station, 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 spreading
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 60. They do not want to
work. I have tried them. I have set
them to saving wood in my cellar to see
whether they wanted to work: offered
to pay them we'll for IT. [ have heard
the saw going for about three minutes,
and then I went down, and o, the wood,
but no saw! They are the pest OF socle-
ty, and they stand in the way OF the
Lords poor, who ought to be helped,
and must be helped, aid will be helped.
While there are thousands ofindustrlous
men who cannot get any work, these
men who do not want any work come IN
and make that plea. I 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 likeit. Black
Wells Island or Sing Sing would be a
comfortable home for them. They
would have no sbjebtion to the aims
house, for they like thin soup, If they
cannot get mockturtle. I propose this
for them; on one side Of them put some
healthy work; on the other side put a
rawhide. and let them take their choice.
I like for that class Of people the scant
bill of fare that Paul wrote out for the
Thessalonian loafers: ''Ifany work not,
neither should he eat" BY what law
of God or man is it right that you should
toll day in and day out, until our hands
are blistered and our arms ache and our
brains get numb, and then be called
upon to support what in the United
States are about two million loafers!
They are a very dangerous class. Let
the public authorities keep their eyes on
them.
Again: Among the uprooting classes
place the oppressed poor. Poverty to
a certain extent is chastening; out alter
that, when it drives a man to the wall,
and he hears his children cry lD vain for
bread, it some times makes him desoer-
ate. think that there are thousands OF
honest men lacerated into vagabondlsm.
There are men crushed under burdens
for which they are not half paid. While
there is no excuse for crimlnality even
in oppression, state it as simple TACT
that much OF the scoundrelism OF the
community is consequent upon ill-treat-
meat. There are many men and women
battered and bruised and stung until the
hour of despair has come, AMI they stand
with the feroclty of a wild beast which,
pursued until it can run no longer, turns
round, foaming and bleeding, to fight the
hounds.
There is a vast underground New York
and Brooklyn life that is appalling and
shameful. It wallows and steams with
putrefactien. You 60 down the stairs
which are wet and decoyed with filth,
and at the bottom you ind the poor VIC
TINS on the floor, cold, sick, three-fourths
dead, sinking into 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 emptles
it's contents upon then. and they lie at
nightin the swimming filth. There they
are, men, women, children; blacks,
whites; Mary Magdalen without here re-
pentance, and Lazarus without his God.
These are ''the dlves'' into which the
pick-pocket and the thieves 60, as we'll
as great many who would like differ
ent life but cannot get it. These places
are the sores of the city, which bleed
perpetual corruption. They are the un-
deriving volcano that threatens US with
a Caracas earthquake. It rolls and
roars and surges and heaves' and rocks
and blasphemes and dies. And there
are only two outlets for it: the police
court and the potter's tieled. In other
words, they must either 60 to prison or
to hell. Oh, you never saw 1t, you say.
You never will see it until on the day
when those staggering wretches shall
come up in the light Of the judment
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
destitutlon, not so squalid but almost as
HELPLESS, You hear the incesssant wall