The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1891-04-23
PLAQUES OF THE CITIES.
THE IDLE RICH, THE IDLE POOR, THE
DESPERATE, DANGEROUS POOR.

DESPERATE, DANGEROUS POOR.
DIR. Taimase's Graphic Sketch OF the Dam
serous Elements In City Life-Life In
HE Jaii-; Cellars and Hospitals-The
Lava seething Below.
NEW YORK, April 12.-Dr. Talmage,
In continuance of the course Of sermons
On 1.-THE Ten Plaques of the Cities" to-
day preached to large audiences In the
Brooklyn Academy of Music III the
forenoon and at The Christian Herald
service at the New York Academy Of
Music in the evening on "The Plague
Of Crime" He took for his text Exodus
vii, 20, IAN the waters that were In
the river were turned to blood" IN
Among all the Egyptian plaques none
could have been worse than this The
Nile is the wealth of Egypt. Its fish
the food, its waters the irrigation of
garden and fields. Its condition de-
cides 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 incarnadined.
It is a red cash across an empire. In
poetic license we speak of wars which
turn the rivers into blood. But my
text II not poetic license. 1t was d
fact, d great crimson, appalling condi-
tion described. The Nile rolling deep
Of blood Can you imagine d more
awful plague2
The modern plague which nearest
corresponds with that is the plague of
crime in all our cities. 1t halts not for
bloodshed. 1t shrinks from no carnage.
It 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. -..-..
HORRORS OF THE POLICE COURTS.
The annual police reports of these
cities as examine them are to me more
suggestive than Dante's Inferno, and
all Christian people as well as reform
ers need to awaken to 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 pc Die make up large portion
in many communities. The vast ma
jority of the criminals who take ship
from Europe come into our own port.
In 1869, of the forty-nine thousand peo-
pie who were incarcerated in the pris;
ons of the country thirty-two thousand
were of foreign birth. Many of them
were the very desperadoes of society,
oozing into the slums of our cities,
waiting for an opportunity to riot and
steal and debauch, joining the large
gang of American thugs and cutthroats.
There are in this cluster of cities
New York, Jersey City and Brooklyn
four thousand people whose entire bust
hess in life is to commit crime That
is as much their business as jurisprud
hnce OF medicine OF merchandise ID
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 unfor-
tunate loss of time, just as you look
upon an attack of influenza or rheuma-
tism which fastens you i'll the house for
a few days. 1t is their lifetime business
to pick pockets and blow up safes and
shoplift 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 turn in the mar
ket as you buy goods just before they
go up 20 per cent. 1t is their bust
ness to commit crime, and I do not
suppose that once in a year the thought
of the immortality strikes them.
Added to these professional Grim
inals, American and foreign, there is a
| large class of men who are more or less
Industrious in crime. In one year the
police in this cluster of cities arrested
ten thousand people for theft and ten
thousand for assault and battery and
| fifty thousand for intoXication. Drunk
enness is responsible for much of the
theft, since 1t 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
bravery, which they must demonstrate,
though it be on the face of the next
gentleman.
Ten million dollars worth of property
stolen in this cluster of cities in one
year You cannot, as good citizens, be
independent of that fact. It will touch
your pocket, since have to give you
the fact that these three cities pay about
eight million dollars worth of taxes a
year to arraign, try and support the
criminal population. 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 moi
| b.raatl,o f1,o x;t;otod dir &c 70 cfond ~