Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1891-04-13
THE DANGEROUSCLASSES
DR.. TALMAGE FINDS THEM AMONG
THE RICH AND THE POOR.

the Desperate and Despairing.
NEW YORK, April 12-Dr. Talmage, in
continuance of the course of sermons on
"The Ten Plaques of the Cities" today
preached to large audiences in the Brook
Ign Academy of Music in the forenoon,
and at The Christian Herald service at the
New York Academy of Music in the even
ing, on "The Plague of Crime" He took
for his text Exodus vii, 20, CAN the waters
that were in the river were turned to
blood"
Among all the Egyptian plaques mono
could have been worse than this. The Nile
is the wealth of Egypt. It's fish the food,
its waters the irrigation of garden and
fields. It's condition decides the prosperity
or the doom of the empire. What happens
TO the Nile happens to all Egypt. And
now in the text that great river is incarna-
dined 1t is "a red cash across an empire.
In poetic license we speak of wars which
turn the rivers into blood. But my text ia
not poetic license. 1t was fact, great
crimson, appalling condition described.
The Nile rolling deep of blood Can you
imagine more awful plague9
The modern plague which nearest CORE
spends with that is the plague of crime in
all our cities. 1t halts not for bloodshed.
1t shrinks from no carnage. 1t bruises
and cuts and strikes down and destroys.
1t revels in the blood Of body and soul,
this plague Of crime rampant for ages, and
never holder or more rampant than now.
The annual police reports of these cities
AS examine them are to me more sug-
gestive than Dante's Inferno, and all
Christian people as well as reformers need
to awaken to a present and tremendous
duty. If you want this plague of Crime"
TO stop there are several kinds of persons
you need to consider, First, the public
criminals. You ought not to be surprised
that these people make up a large portion
in many communities. The vast majority
of the criminals who take ship from Eu-
rope come into our own port In 1869 of
the forty-nine thousand people who were
incarCerated in the prisons of the country
thirty-two thousand were of foreign birth
Many of them were the very despera-
does of society, oozing into the sums
of our city, waiting for an opportunity to
riot and steal and debauch joining the
large gang of American thugs and cut,
throats.
There are in this cluster of cities-New
York, Jersey City and Brooklyn-four
thousand people whose entire business in
life is to commit suicide. That is rs much
their business us jurisprudence or medicine
or merchandise is your business. To it they
bring all their energies of body, mind and
soul, and they look upon the intervals
which They spend in prison as so much un-
fortunate loss of time, just as you look
upon an attack of influenza and rheuma-
tism which fastens you in the house for
few days. 1t is their lifetime business to
pick pockets and blow up safes and shop.
lift and ply the panel game, and they
have as much pride of skill in their business
as you have in yours when you upset the
argument of an opposing counsel, or cure
a gunshot fracture which other surgeons
have given up, or foresee a turn in the
market as you buy goods just before they
go up 20 per cent. 1t is their business to
commit crime, and do not suppose that
once in a year the thought of the immor-
atty strikes them.
Added to these professional criminals,
American and foreign there are a large
class of men who are more or less indus
trious in crime. In one year the police in
this cluster of cities arrested ten thousand
people for theft, and ten thousand for as
sault and battery, and fifty thousand for
intoAication. Drunkenness is responsible
for much of the theft, since it confuseS a
mans ideas of property, and he gets his
hands on things that do not belong to him
Rum is responsible for much of the assault
and battery inspiring men to sudden bray
cry, which they must demonstrate though
it be on the face of the next gentleman.
SOCIETY THREATENED ON ALL SIDES
Ten million dollars worth of property
stolen in this cluster of cities in one yearl
You cannot as good citizens, be indepen
dent of that fact. 1t will touch YOUR
pocket, since have to give you the fact
that these three cities pay about eight
million dollars worth of taxes year to
arraign, try and support the criminal pop
ulation. You help to pay the board of
every criminal, from the sneak thief that
SnatChes spool of cotton up to some man
who sWamps a bank. More than that. it
touches your heart in the moral depression
Of the community. You might as well
think to stand in a closely confined room
where there are fifty people and yet not
breathe the Initiated air, as to stand in
community where there is such u great
multitude of the depraVed without some
what being contaminated What is the
fire that burns your store down compared
with the COntlagratiOn which consumes
your morals? What is the theft of the
gold and silver from your money safe com
pared with the theft of your children's vir.
tue?
We are all ready to arraign criminals.
We shout at the top of our voice, "Stop
thiefP' and when the police get on the
track we come out, hatless and in our slip
pers, and assist in the arrest. We come
around the bawling ruilian and hustle him
off to Justice, and when he gets in prison
what do we do for him2 With great gusto
we put on the handouts and the hoppes:
but what preparation are we making for
the day when the handouts and the hop
pies come Otlf Society seems TO say to
these criminals, "Nillain, go in there and
rot, ~ when it ought to say, you are an
offender against the law, but we mean to
give You an opportunity to repent, we
mean to help you. Here are Bibles and
tracts and Christian influences. Christ
died for you. Look and liycn
Vast improvements have been made by
Introducing industries into the PRISON. but
we want something more than hammers
and shoe lasts to reclaim these people. Aye,
we want more than sermons on the Sab
bath day. Society must impress these men
with the fact that it does not enjoy their
suffering, and that ii is attempting to re-
form and elevate them. The majority of
criminals suppose that society has grudge
against them, and they in turn have a
grudge against society.
They are hsrder in heart and more infuri-
ate when they come out of Jail than when
they went in. Many of the people who go
to prison 20 again and again and again.
some years ago, of fifteen hundred prs-