The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1891-04-22


work, and tie universe is quake with
| the marching and countermarching, that
| God lets his Indignation fall upon a man
who chooses idleness2 l have watched
these donothings who spend their time
stroking their boards, and retouching
their toilet, and criticising industrious
people, and pass their DAYS and nights in
bar rooms and C ub houses, lounging and
chewing 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 a while
/ smoke the best cigars, and wear the best
clothes, and move in the highest spheres;
hut l have noticed that very soon they
come down to the prison, the aims house,
or stop at the gallows.
The police stations OF this cluster of
cities furnish annually between 2,000,0O0
and 100000 lodgings. For the most part
these 10000 and 100000 lodgings are fur
nIshed to able-bodied men and women
people as able to work as you and 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 can Law 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 60. They do not want to
work l have tried them. l have set
them to saving wood in my cellar to see
whether they wanted to work. offered to
pay them well for it. | have heard
the saw going for about three minutes,
and then l went down, and 10, the wood,
but no saw They are the pest of society,
and they stand in the wav of the Lords
poor, who ought to be helped, and must
be helped, aud will be helped. While
there are thousands of industrious men
who can not get any work, these men who
do not want any work come in and make
that plea l am in favor of the restora-
ton of tho o!d-fnshioned 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 get
ting their food at your doorstep. I'm
They would like it. Blackwell's
Island or Sing Sing would be
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. l propose this for
them: On one side of item put some
hea thy work; on the other side put
rawhide, and let them take their choice.
like for that class of people the scant
bill of fare that Paul wrote out for the
Thessalonian loafer: eli any work not,
neither should he eat" By what law of
God or man is it right that you and 1
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 100000 loafers! They are
very dangerous class. Let the public au-
thorities keep their eyes on them.
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 desperate.
| / think there are thousands OF honest
men lacerated into vagabondism. There
are men crushed under burdens for which
they are not ha paid. While there is no
excuse for criminality, even in oppression,
/ state IL as a simple fact that much OF the
scoundrelism of the community is conse-
ouent upon ill-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 avid
beast which, pursued until it can run no
longer, turns round, foaming and bleed
Ing, to fight the hounds.
There is vast underground New York
and Brooklyn life that is appalling and
shameful. 1t wallows and sIeams with
qualification. You go down the stairs,
which are wet and decaying with filth,
and at the bottom you will find the poor
victims on the floor. cold, sick, three
fourths dead, sinking into still darker
corner under the cam 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 upon them, and they lie at night
in the swimming filth. There they are
men, women, children; blacks, whites !;
| Mary Magdalen without her repentance,
| ami Lazarus without his God. These are
'the dives" into which the pickpockets
| and the thieves go, as well as great
many who would like different life, but
can not get it. These places are the sores
of the city, which bleed perpetual corrup-
ton. They are the underlying volcano
that threatens us with Caracas earth
| quake 1t rol and roars and surges and
heaves and rocks and blasphemes and
! dies. And there are only two outlets for
J 1.-THE police court and the potter's field.
In other words, they must either 90 to
prison or to he'll. Oh, you never saw it,
YOU say. You never will see it until on the
day when those staggering wretches shall
come up in the light of the judgment
throne, and while all hearts are being re-
vealed God will ask you what you did to
help them.
There is another layer OF poverty and
restitution, not so squalid, but almost as
helpless. You hear the incesssnt wal ing
for bread and clothes and fire. Their eyes
| are sunken. Their cheekbones stand out.
Their hands are damp with slow con-
sumption. Their flesh is Lufed up with
dropsies. Their breath is like that of the
charmed house. They hear the roar of the
wheels of fashion overhead, and the gay
laughter of men and maidens, and won
der why God gave to others so much and
| to them so little. Some of them thrust
| into an infdelity like that of the poor
| German girl who. when told in the midst
| of her wretchedness that God was good.
said: "No, no good God. Just look at
me. No good God"
In this cluster of cities whose cry of
want l interpret there are said to be- as
far as can figure it up from the reports,
about 100000 honest poor who are de-
pendent upon individual, city and state
| charities. III ali their voices could come
| % H.