Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-04-13
CRIME In THE CITY.
Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage Tells of Its
Ravages in the Metropolis.
THE MANY FOREIGN CRIMINALS.
Prisons Instead Of Being Corrective Make
Their Inmates Worse.
POVERTY IN ITS RELATION TO CRIME
THE MANY FOREIGN CRIMINALS.
POVERTY IN ITS RELATION TO CRIME


in the Brooklyn Academy of Music in the
forenoon and at the New York Academy OF
Music in the evening. He took for his text,
Exodus 7:20, "All the waters that were in
the river were turned to blood"
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 gardens and fields.
Its condition decides the prosperity or the
doom of the empire. What happens to the
Nile happens to all Egyps, And now in the
tex Is.Gst. ,.7v-t river is incarnadined. 1t is
red cash across an empire. In poetic license
We speak of wars which turG the rivers INTO
blood. But my text is not poetic Hce2se, Ii
was fact.a great, crimson, appalling condition
described. The Nile rolling deep of blood. Can
You imagine more awful plague?
The modern plague which nearest CORE.
spends with that is the plague of crime in all
our cities. 1t halts not for bloodshed. 1t
snIlnks ri from no carnage. 1t bruises. and cuts,
ana strikes down, and destroys. 1t revels IN
~le blood of body and soul, this plague Of
crime, rampant for ages, but never bolder or
more rampant than now.
1he Majority Foreign Criminals.
The annual police reports of these cities as
examine them are to me more suggestive than
"Dante's Inferno" and all Christian people as
we'll as reformers need to waken 10 present
and tremendous duty. If you want this
plague of Crime" to, stop, there are several
Kinds Of persons you need 10 consider. First,
the public criminals. You ought not to be sur
prised that these people make up large por-
IIUu in many communities. The vast majority
Of the criminals who take ship from Europe
come into our own port. In 1863. OF the 49, ,0O0
people who were incarcerated in the prisons OF
the country. 5000 were OF foreign BIRTH
Many Of them were the very oesperadoes
,-sTo inf ha n
cities. walfing for an opportunity to riot and
steal and debauch. joining the large gang OF
American thugs and cut-throats. There are in
this cluster of clies-New York. Jersey City
and Brooklyn-fouT thousand people whose en-
tire business in life is to commit CRIME. That
Is as much their business as Jurisprudence or
medicine or merchandise is YOUR business. 10
Il they bring all their energies OF body, mind
and SOUL and they look upon the intervals
h,ch they spend in prison much un-
fortunate loss of time, Just as you would look
UTou an attack Of influenza or rheumatism
which fastens yOu in the house for a few days.
Il l. their lite time business to pick pockets.
and blow up safes, and sh0plift and ply the
panel game, and they have as much pride Of
skill in their business as you have in yours
IL Is their business to commit crime, and do
not suppose that once in year the thought of
the immortality strikes them. Added to these
professional criminals, 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 custer of cities arrested 10000
people for theft and 10000 for assault and
battery. and 80 .O00 for intoxicatIon. Drunken
ness is responsible for much OF the theft, since
il CoufUses 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
IL be on the face of the next gentleman.
Contamination of Depravity.
Ten million dollars worth of property stolen
in tins cluster of cities in one year. You can
not, as good citizens be independent of that
fact. Il will touch your pocket, since have to
give you The fact that these three cities pay
about SSOOOOOO worth of taxes a year to
ariaicn. try. and support the criminal popula-
tion. You help 10 pay the board of every
from the sneak thief that snatches a
spool of cotton, up TO some man who swamps a
bank. More than that, 1t touches your heart
in the moral depression of the com
munity. You might well think to
stand in q closely confined room where
there are % people and yet not breathe
the vitlated air, as to stand in community
" here there is such a great multitude of the
deprayed without somewhat being contamin-
aJed. What is the fire that burns your store
down compared with the confagration which
consumes your morals? What is the theft of
the gold and silver from your money safe CON-
pared with the theft of your children's virtue?
We are all ready to arraign criminals. We
shout at the top of our voice, stop theft" and
" hen the police get on the track we come out
hArless and in our slippers and assist in the
arrest We come around the bawling ruftian
and hustle him off to Justice. and when he gets
in prison, what DO 10 for him? With great
guStO we put on the handouts and the hopples;
but what preparations are We making for |
the day when the handouts and the |
horples come off Society seems to say to |
these criminals, VILLAIN. 60 in there and rot,"
when it ought to say, You are an offender |
against the law, but we mean TO give you an |
opportunity 10 repent; we meau to help you. |
Here are Bibles ana tracts and Christian influ-
nr5G Il ia1 fpru unrr T.ool- ar,dl
Vast improvements have been made by intro |
iuCing ind Stries into the prison; but we want /
more than hammers and shoe lasts |
20 reclaim THESE people. Aye, we want more |
than sermons on the Sabbath day. Society 1
must impress these men with the fact that it |
does not enjoy their suffering and that it is at
tempting TO reform and elevate them.
Prison PhiIanthropists Needed.
We want men like John Howard and Sir |
William Blackstone, and women like Elizabeth |
Fry to do tor the prisons of the United States |
what those people did in other days for the |
PRISONS of England. 1 thank GOD for what |
Isaac I. Hopper and Dr. Wines and Mr.. Harris |
md scores of others have done in the way of |
prison reform; but we want something more |
-adical before will come the blessing of him |
shO said: 81 was in prison, and ye came unto |
ne"
Again, in your effort to arrest this plague of |
,nme you need to consider ENTHUSIASTICALLY /
IF cials "Woe unto thee o land, when thy /
KING is a child and thy Princes drink in the |
morning." 1t is great calamity to a city when |
1ad men get INTO public authority. Why was
Z that in New York there was such un-
crime between 1866 and lS7l? 1t was
because the Judges of police in that city at |
hat time. for the most part. were as corrupt as
he vaCabonds that came before them for trial.
Those were the days of high carnival for cleo
ion frauds, assassination and forgery. We |
lad all kinds Of rings.
Again. in your effort to arrest this plague of
nsaar e1n..S IL,
ION. or course, do not refer to people who
re getting old, or to the sick, or to those who
annOt get work; but tell you to look out for
hose athletic men and women who will not
york When the French nobIeman was asked
,hv he kept busy when he had so large prop
rIy, he SAID: 81 keep on engraving so may
ut hang myself" DO not care VINO the man
5 you cannot afford to be idle. II is from the
ale classes that the criminal classes are made
The police stations of this cluster of cities
urnish annually between 200050 and 200 600
odCIngs. For the most part these 200 900 or
Uu 90 lodgings are furnished to able-bodied
men and women-people as able to work as yDu
ma are. When they are received no longer
II one police station, because they are repeat
rs they 90 to some other station, and so they
Keep moving around. They get their food at
rouse doors, stealing what they can lay their
lands on in the front basement while the Ser
ant is Spreading the bread in the back base
nent They will not work.
Driven to Crime by Poverty.
Again: Among the uprooting classes place
be oppressed poor. Poverty to a certain ex-
ent is Christening; but after that when it drives
man TO the wall, and he hears his children
ry in vain Tor bread, it sometimes makes him
think that there are thousands of
onest men lacerated into vagabondism. There
re men crushed under burdens for which they
re not half paid. While there is no excuse
Or criminality, even in oppression, state it as
simple TACT. that much of the scoundrelism
{ the community is cOnseq uent upon ill-treat-
rent. There are many men and women bat
cred and bruised and stung until the hour of