The farmers' union. (Memphis, Mo.) 1891-1895, 1891-12-03
PRACTICES COMPARED.
A FEARFUL TALE OF WOE FROM
CH!NEE LAND.

CHINEE LAND.
But What About Our Own Country
Isn't 1t Time to Look Into American
Social and Political Life:-Child Muir
der by Two Methods.
A piteous tale of the Chinese prac-
tice of destroying female children, is
going the rounds of the press Ii re-
lates how they are eX ose,l to die of
neglect. and OF tine towers which are
constructed with Il lit at the bottom
containing quicklime, into which new
born babies are cast to meet speedy
death how the Ca holic and Protest
ant missions rescue these babes and
rear them to womanhoo.l. thousands of
whom have thus been saved.
The existence of sGcli condition of
things is terrible commentary upon
the hardness OF the humIn heart, aud
1t would seem rs though all Cnristen-
dom should arouse It's If to cnlightcn
and instill humane r;nciplcs into the
hearts of the b,n;gt t,d c. incse. But
are they more cru>l tan ourselves :?
Is China the one spot where iuhaman-
ltv reigns supreme? We trow not.
The annals of American social life
contain records as ,,anIna',le as any
that may be written of the hea.hen
Chinese
1t is better to be born for the CHI
nese lime il. than to he born for the
pits of death. where lie is prolonged
in lingering agony, that we find SO fre-
quently il these United States.
Children are being born every day.
whose future contains no. one ray of
hope. who will never taste of life's
blessings, a:hwars whose pathway a
ray of sunlight will never fall.
The girls are born to llarlotrv, the
boys to drunkenness and crime, and all
TO poverty.
Deepest pits of degra 'ation, where
moral quicklime consumes the soul.
and lets the wretched body live to suf-
fer, are fonnd upon every hand, and as
the babes Of China are born to the fate
OF the pits there prepared for them, so
are the babes Of America born to the
fate of these worse pits. from which
there IS no escape, and which speak
the existence of a worse than hea: hen
cruelty.
/ Men and women whose blood beats
quick to the s-oEy of Chinese barbar-
ism, close their eyes to the awful sights
which may be viewed upon every hand.
stop their ears against the cry of thou
sands perishing. and harden their
hearts to the appeals Of humanity close
at home.
Vital statistics indicate that 75 per
cent. of the children born in the dense
II populated districts of cur cities die
before the age of five years. Ten per
cent. is more than the average under
proper health ions Sixty-tiYe
out of the seventy-five are massacrsd
by the cruelties permitted in our
Christian civilization.
While the lordlings Of the church
and marts of trade hold land against
the necessities of the people, thousands
perish through the congestion made
necessary by the greed Of the land
fead, whose only hope, desire and
prayer is for the prosperity resulting
from his capacity for anticipating the
necessities of his fellow men, and max
ing his investments accordingly; and
though thousands of babes perish in
the contracted rooms and stihed at
mosphere Of the tenement, he will not
abate one jot or title from his profit
on that portion Of our common inher-
itance, which the law allows him to
hold against the rightful owners to his
own gain and their destruction.
Those who do not die in the swelter
ing heat and poisonous air, live to a
worse fate, SO that the Chinese builder
of the quicklime towers, and the men
who are responsible for the tenement
house system, may both claim credit
for philanthropy in that they save those
who by their method are destroyed,
from q worse fate. We presume that
the Chinese slaughterer of babes is JUS
tilted by the priest, and with us, of
course the priest, Protestant or Catho-
lie, too Otter mouths apologies for
murderous practices.
It is unbearable that title so we'll
born as that of Christian should have
become attached to the aggregation
of apologlsts, hypocrites, and bigots
called churches.
Between Christ and the modern
church there is an abyss which yawns
as wide and deep as that which is pre-
sumed to separate heaven from the or
thodox hell, and if the latter cannot
be bridged by Divine love, neither can
the former. That bo.h can and will
be compassed by Gods love, we have
no doubt.
Jesus of Nazareth is none the less to
be venerated. loved and made the ideal
of our fondest desires aud highest am
bition. because the institution that
bears His name is to-day, as it has too
often been in the past, the bulwark of
the assassins of human liberty and
happiness.
If multitudes are repealed from the
.nammon-worshiping institutions called
churches, they caI::3t fail to be at
tracted by the life and teaching of
Jesus, and the light of that life shines
none the less brightly to the searcher
because of the b1ackness of darkness
which exists in the organizations bear
ing His name.
If He were here enthroned in the
place of dominion. the prayer Ie has
taught us answered, and We saw as we
shall see when Gods will is done in
earth as in heaven. the deeper pangs
of grief would be excited by the Amer
lean methods of child murder, rather
than by those of the Chinese St
Paul (Minn.) State.
Gold Mortgages.
Tho 1oacc .bof ara heino rapowa1 in