Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1891-04-18
omc,aIs, .wos INTO t,,ea {, lana vbs, INV

| as corrupt as the vagabonds that came before
| them for trial, Those were the days of high
carnival for election frauds, assassination
and forgery. We had all kinds of rings
There was one man during those years that
I got one hundred and twenty-eight thousand
dollars III one year for serving the public.
1t is no compliment to public authority
when we have in all the cities OF the country.
walking abroad, men and women notorious
for criminality iinwhippad 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 belonged.
There you will find those who are called the
SINNERS, the men who hover around Wall
street, with great sleight of hand in bonds
and stocks. There you find the funeral
thieves, the people who go and sit down aud
mourn with families and pick their pockets.
Aud there you find the confidence men,"
| who borrow money of you because thev
| have dead child in the house and want to
bury it, when they never had 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
money back by the very next mail.
There are the "harbor thieves" the
"shoplifters," the 'picSpockets,n famous
all over the cities. Hundreds of them with
their faces in the Rogues Gallery, yet do
Ing nothing for the last five or ten years
but defraud society and escape Justice.
| When these people 60 unarrested and I'M
punished 1t is putting a high premium
upon vice and saying to the young GRIMM
ais 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 crime will have no quarter;
! that the detectives are after it that the
police club is being brandished that the iron
toor of the prison is being opened; that the
Judge is ready to call on the case. Too great
eniency to criminals is too great severity to
society.
Again in your effort to arrest this plague
| Of crime, you need to consider the idle popu-
iation. OF course | do not refer to people
who are getting DID, or to the scl OF to those
who cannot get work, but tell you to look
put for those athletic men and women who
| will not work. When the French nobIeman
! was asked why he kept busy when he had SO
large property, he said. Il keep on engrav-
| ing so | may not hang myself" l do not
care who the man is, you cannot afford to be
! idle. 1t is from the idle classes that the
criminal classes are made up. 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 ara
plunging into the conflict and angels are fiy-
! ing and God is at work and the universe is
a-quake with the marching and counter
marching, that God lets His Indignation fall
I upon man who chooses idleness.
| have watched these do-nothings who
t spend their time stroking their beard and
! retouching their toilet and criticising in
/ dustrious people, and pass their days and
| nights in barrooms and club houses. loung-
ing and smoking ana chewing and card
playing. They ara not only useless, but
/ they are dangerous. How hard it is for
/ them to while away the hoursi 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 a while smoke the best cigars
and wear the best clothes and move in the
highest spheres, but | have noticed that
very soon they come down to the prison, the
almshouse, or stop at the gallows.
I The police stations of this cluster of cities
furnish annually between two and three hun
dred thousand lodgings For the most part
/ these two and three hundred thousand lo1g-
| irgs are furnished to able bodied men aud
/ women-psople as able to work as you and
! are. When they are received no longer at
! one police station because they are repeat
| ers" they 60 to some other station AMI SO
/ they keep moving around. Thoy 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 hundreds and thousands
Of laborers. These men will not GO They
] do not want to work. | have tried them. |
have set them to saving wood in my cellar
/ to see whether they wanted to work. | Of
| fered to pay them well for it. | have heard
| the saw going for about three minutes, and
| then l " ent down. and 10 the wood, but no
! saw! They are the pest Of society, and IL ~
| stand In the way of the Lords poor who
who ought to be helped, and must ue 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 res
! toTation of the Old fashioned whipping post
/ for just this one class of men who will not
/ work-sieeping at nigat at public ex-
/ pense in the station house; during the day
/ getting their food at your doorstep. In
! prisonment does not scare them. They
/ would like it. Blachwelrs Island or Sing
/ Sing would be a comfortable home for them.
! They would have no objection to the aims
/ house for they like thin soup, if they can.
not get mock turtle.
propose this for them: On one side OF
them put some healthy work; on the other
| side put a rawhile, and lei them take their
choice. l like for that class of people the
scant bill Of fare that Paul wrote ont for
! the Thessa,onia1 loafers, IF any work not,
neither should he eatn BY what law of
God or man is it right that you and should
toll day in and day out until our hands ars
blIStere1 and our arms ache and our brain
gets numb and then he called upon to sup
port what in the United States are about
two million loafsrs. They are very danger
Gus class. Let the public authorities keep
their eyes on them.
Again, among tie uprooting classes p,acs
the oppressed poor Poverty to a certain
extent is Christening, but after that, when it
iYIs-a -, . I. L L
c6ildren cry in vain for bread, it sometimes
makes him desperate ! think that there are
thousan is of honest men lacerated into vaga-
hondism There are men crushed under
burdens for which they are not half paid,
While Il ere is no excuse for criminalty,
even in oppression, | state it as a simple fact
That much of the scoundrelsm of the COM
munity is consequent upon ill-treatment.
There ara many men aud women battered
an : bruised and stung until the hour of de-
Spalr has come, aud they stand with the
ferocity of a wild beast which, pursued until
it can run no longer turns round, foaminy
and bleeding, to fight the hounds
There is a vast underground New York
and Brooklyn life that is appalling and
shameful. 1t wallows and steams with putre-
faction. You go down the stairs which are
wet and decayed with filth, and at the bot
tom you find the poor victims on the floor,
cold, SICK, three-fourths dead, sinking into
Stlll 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 nigat
in tae swimming filth. There they are, men,
women children; black whites; Mary Mag
dalen without her repentance, and Lazarus
without his God. These are ''the dives into
which the pickpockets and the thieves go. as
well as a great many who would like differ
emit life but cannot get it.
These places are the sores of toe city,
which bleed perpetual corruption. They are
the underlying volcano that threatens US
with Caracas earthquake. 1t rolls aud
rosrs and surges and heaves and rocks anG
blasphemes aud dies, and there are only two
outlets for 1.-THE police court and tae Pot
tar'S field. In other words, they must either
go to prison or to hell. On, you never saw
il. you say. You never will see it until on
the day when those staggering wretches
shall come up i'll the light of the Judgment
tarone, and while all hearts are being re-
vealed, Col will ask you what Won did to
help them.
! There is another layer of poverty and des-