The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1891-03-18

OclOuEcu.
Now, my friends, how are we to war
against this corrupt literature, and how
are the frogs of this Egyptian plague to be
slain? First of all, by the prompt and in
| exorable execution of the law. Let all
| good postmasters and L. S. district attor-
neys and detectives and reformers concert
In their action to stop this plague. When
| Sir Rowland Hill spent his life in trying 10
| secure cheap postage not only for England,
| but for all the world. and to open the
| blessing Of the postoffice to all honest bus
mess and to all messages of charity and
kindness and affection, for all healthful
INSTRUMENTATION he did not mean to
make vice easy or to fill the mail bags of
the United States with the scabs OF such a
| leprosy
1t ought not to be in the power OF every
| bad man who can raise l-cent stamp for
a circular, or 2-cent stamp for letter, to
| blast a man or destroy home. The postal
service OF this country must be clean,
| must be kept clean, and we must all un-
derstand that the swift retributions of the
| u. 5. government hover over every viola
| ton of the letter-box.
There are thousands of men and women
| In this Country-some Tor personal gain,
some through innate depravity, some
i through a spirit of revenge-who wish to
use this great avenue of convenience and
intelligence for purposes revengeful, sala-
| cious and diabolic. Wake up the law.
Wake up all its penalties. Let every court
room on this subject be Sinai thunder
Gus and ahame. Let the convicted offend
ers be sent for the full term to Sing Sing
or Harrisburg.
am not talking about what cannot be
done. am talking now about what is
haIn A Of ho nf-
ing presses that gave themselves entirely
to the publication of vile literature have
been stopped or have gone into business
less obnoxious. What has thrown oil,
! what has kept off the rail trains of this
country for some time back nearly
all the Ieprous periodicals? Those of
US who have been on the rail trains have
noticed a great change in the last two
months and the last year or two. Why
have nearly al those vile periodicals been
kept off the mail trains for some time
back? Who effected it? These societies
for the publication of railroad literature
gave warning to the publishers to keep
the internal stuff off the trains.
Many of the cities have successfully
prohibited the most of that literature even
from going on the news stands. Terror
has seized upon the publishers and the
that over one Thousand arrests have been
made, and the aggregate time for which
the convicted have been sent to prison is
over one hundred and ninety years, and
from the fact that about two million OF
their circulars have been destroyed, and
the business is not as profitable as 1t used
to be-.
How have so many of the news-stands
OF our great cities been purified? How
has so much of this iniquity been baked?
By moral suasion? On, no. You might
as well go into a jungle OF the East In
dies and put cobra on the neck, and
with profound argument try to persuade
it that it is morally wrong to bite and to
sting and to poison anything. The only
answer to your argument would be an
upliited head and a hiss, and a sharp,
reeking tooth struck into your arteries.
The only argument for a cobra is shot
gun, and the only argument for these
dealers in impure literature is the clutch
of the police and bean soup in peniten-
tiary. The law The law! l invoke to
consummate the work so grandly begun.
Another way in which We are to drive
back this plague of Egyptian frogs is by
filling the minds OF our Young people with
healthful literature. do not mean to
say that all the books and newspapers in
our families ought to be religious books
and newspapers, or that every song ought
to be sung TO the tune of "Old Hundred"
have no sympathy with the attempt to
make the young old. | would rather Join
crusade to keep the young young. Boy
hood and girihOod must not be abbrevi-
ated. But there are good books, good his
tories, good works OF fiction, good books
of all STYLES, with which we are to fill the
minds of the young, so that there will be
no more room for the useless and the vi
cious than there is room for chaff in
bushel measure which is already filled
with Michigan wheat.
Why are 80 per cent. OF the criminals
in the jails and penltentiaries of the
United states today under twenty-one
years OF age? Many of them under sew
enteen, under sixteen, under fifteen, I'M
der fourteen, under thirteen. Walk along
one of the corridors of the Tombs prison
in New York and look for yourselves.
Bad books, bad newspapers. bewitched
them as soon as they got out of the cradle.
Beware of all those stories which end
wrong. Beware of all those books which
make the road that ends in perdition seem
to end in paradise. Do not glorify the
dirk and pistol. Do not call the despera-
do brave or the libertine gallant. Teach
our young people that if they go down
into the swamps and marshes to watch
the jack-o' lanterns dance on the decay
and rottenness they will catch the malaria
and death.
"Ohw says some one, 81 am business
man and have no time TO examine what
my children read. L have no time to in
spect the books that come into my house
hold" If your children were threatened
with typhoid fever, would you have time
TO 90 for the doctor? Would you have
time to watch the progress of the disease?
Would you have time for the funeral? In
the presence of my God l warn you of the
fact that your children are threatened
with moral and spiritual typhoid, and that
unless the thing be stopped it will be
to them funeral of body, funeral OF mind,
funeral of soul. Three funerals in one
day.
My word is to this multitude of young
people: Do not touch, do not borrow, do
not buy. a corrupt book or a corrupt
picture A book will decide mans destiny
for good or evil. The book you read yes
terday may have decided you for time and
for eternity, or it may be book that may
come into your possession tomorrow.
A good book-who can exagperate its
power? Benjamin Franklin said that his
reading of Cotton Mather's Essays to Do
Good" in childhood gave him holy aspira-
tions for all the rest of his life. George
III H. Il 49, 4 4