The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1891-04-18

ing the thief and at u great price hand
ing over the goods 10 the owner To
whom they belong.
Again; in your effort to arrest this
plague of crime, you need to consider
the idle population. OF course, l dc
not refer to people who are getting old
OIL to the sick, or to those who cannot
get work; but l tell you to look out for
those athletic men and women who will
not work. When the French nobleman
was asked why lie kept busy when he
had so large n property, he said: SO
keep OF engraving so l may not hang
myself" l do not care who the mar
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 toe
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 are plunging into the conflict,
and angels are flying, and God is at
work, and the universe is awake with
the marching and countermarching,
that God let's his indignation fall
upon q man who chooses idleness?
These men for awhile 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. The police stations of
this cluster of cities furnished an
nually between 200, 900 and 800, 900 lodg-
ings. For the most part, these 400, 600
and 800, 600 lodgings are furnished to
able bodied men and women-people as
able to work as you Dr. | are. When
they are received no longer at one
police station, because they are re
peaters," they go to some other station,
and so they keep moving around.
They get their food at house doors,
stealing what they IA lay their
hands or 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.
l l have tried them. l have set them to
saving wood in my cellar to see
whether they wanted to work.. I Of
fered to pay them well for 1t. 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
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
r,N-1r @haea ,na- ,uh@ IL 80 o .-r
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.
I like for that class of people the scant
bill of fare That Paul wrote out for the
Thessalonian loafers: eff any work
not, neither should he eat" By what
law of God or man is it right that you
and I 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 support,
what in the United States are about
1000, 600 loafersl
Again: Among the %uprooting classes
/ place the oppressed poor. Poverty to
a certain extent is Christening; but after
that, when it drives a man to the wall,
and he hears his children cry in vain for
bread, it sometimes makes him desper-
ate. l think that there are thousands
Of honest men lacerated into vagabond-
Ism. There are men crushed under bur-
dens for which they are n half paid.
While there is no excuse for ~criminality,
ven in oppression, / state it as a SIM
pie fact hat much of the scoundrelism
of the community is consequent upon
i'll 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 a wild
beast, which, pursued until it car run
no longer, turns round, foaming and
bleeding, to fight the hounds.
There is a vast underground New
York and Brooklyn life that is appall.
ing and shameful. 1t wallows and
steams with putrefaction. You &c
down the stairs, which are wet and de-
cayed with filth, and at the bottom you
find the poor victims on the floor, cold,
sick, three-fourths dead, Sinking into 9
still darker corner under the CLEAN Of
the lantern of the police. There has
not been a breath of fresh air in that
room for five years, literally. The
broken sewer empties its contents upor
them, and they lie at night in the swim
ming filth. There they are, men, women
and children; blacks, whites; Mary
Magdalen without her repentance, and
Lazarus without his God. These are
the ''dives' into which the ~pickpockets
and the thieves 60, as well as u great
many who would like a different life
but a not get it.
They are the underlying volcano thai
threatens us with a Caracas earth
quake. 1t rolls and roars and surge.
and heaves and rocks and blasphemes
and dies. And there are only two out
let's for it: The police court and the
pOtter's field. In other words, they
must either go to prison or to hell.
There is another layer of poverty anC
restitution, not so squalid, but almos'
as helpless. You hear the incessan'
wailing for bread and clothes and fire
The eyes are sunken. The cheek bones
stand put. Their hands are damp with
slow consumption. Their flesh is puffet
up with dropsies. Their breath is like
that of the charnel house. They hea,
the roar of the wheels of fashion over
head, and the gay laughter of men ant
maidens, and wonder why God gave t.
others so much and to them so little.
In this cluster of cities, whose cry O.
want l interpret, there are said to be
rs far as / a figure it up from the re
ports, about 800, 900 honest poor wht
are dependent upon individual, city ant
state charities. If all their voices coulC
come up at once it would be u groaI
that would shake the foundations O.
the city, and bring all earth and HEAVIER
to the rescue. But, for the most part
it suffers unexpressed. 1t sits in silence
crashing its teeth and sucking the
blood of its own arteries, waiting the
judgment day. o, | should not wonder
II on that day it would be found ont tina
some Of ms had some things tina
belonged to them; some extra gar
ment which might have made then
comfortable in cold days; some breat
thrust into the ash barrel hat nigh
have appeased their hunger for u little
while; some wasted candle or gas je
that might have kindled up their dark
ness; some fresco ON the ceiling tina
would have given them a roof; som
jewel which, brought that orphan cir