The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1891-04-18

bloodshed. 1t shrinks from n
II bruises, and cuts, and strik.-
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.
The annual police reports of these
cities as examine them are to me more
than Dante's Inferno" and
all Christian people as well as reform
ers need to waken to a present and
duty. If you want this
plague of crime" to stop, there are
kinds Of persons you need to
consider. First, the public criminals.
The vast majority of the criminals who
take ship from Europe come into our
own port. In 1859, of the 40, 900 people
who were incarcerated in the prisons
OF the country, 32, 900 were of foreign
birth. Many of them were the very
desperadoes of society, oozing into the
slums of our cities, waiting for an op
portunity to riot and steal and debauch,
joining the large gang of American
thugs and cut-throats.
There are in this cluster of cities
New York, Jersey City and Brooklyn
1000 people whose entire business In
life Is to commit crime. That is as
much their business as Jurisprudence
or medicine or merchandise is 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 un
fortunate loss Of time, just as you look
upon an attack of influenza or rheuma.
tism which fastens you in the house fol-
a few days. 1t is their lifetime bust.
ness 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 a n OPP
posing counsel, or cure a gunshot
fracture which other surgeons have
given up, OF foresee a turn in the mar.
ket as you buy goods just before they
go up twenty per cent. 1t Is their
business to commit crime, and / do not
suppose that once in a year the thought
of the immortality strikes them. Added
to these professional criminals, Amer.
lean and foreign, there is a large
class of men who are more or less in
dustrious in crime. In one year tho
police of this cluster of cities arrested
10, 900 people for theft and 49, 600 for as.
sault and battery and so, 900 for intoxi,
cation. Drunkenness is responsible for
much of them since it confuses a mans
ideas of property and he gets his hands
on things that do not belong to him.
We are all ready to arraign criminals.
We shout at the top of our voice: "Stop
thief" With great gusto we put on the
handouts and hopples; but what prepa-
ration r we making for the day when
the handouts and hopples come off?
Society seems to say to these criminals:
civilian, go in there and rot" when it
ought to say: "You are an offender
against the law, but we mean to give
you an opportunity to repent; we mean
to help you. Here are Bibles and
tracts and Christian influences.
Christ died for you. Look and livs."
leVast improvements have been made
by introducing Industries into the
prison, but we want something more
than hammers and shoe lasts to reclaim
these people. Aye, we want more than
Del III bhO odbDdbh auJs 1OCACty
must impress these men with the fact
that it does not enjoy their sufferings,
and that it is attempting to reform and
elevate them. The majority of Grim
inals suppose that society has a grudge
against them, and they in urn have q
grudge against society. They are harder
In heart and more infuriate when they
come out of Jail than when they went
in.
The secretary of one of the benevo.
lent societies of New York saw a lad Ii
years Of age, who had spent three years
of his life in prison, and he said to the
lad: ''What have they done for you to
make you better?" swell" replied the
lad, ''the first time / was brought up
before the Judge he said: You ought to
be ashamed of yourself And then ]
committed q crime again, and was
brought up before the same judge, and
he said: you rascalp And after awhile
/ committed some other crime, and ]
was brought before the same judge, and
he said: You ought to be hange.''
That is all they had done for him in the
way of reformation and salvation. co.
you say, 'these people are incorrigi
ble." 1 suppose there + hundreds Of
persons this day lying in the prison
hunks who would leap up at the pros
pect of reformation il society woulG
only allow them a way into de
cency and responsibility. "o.'
you say, 81 have no patience
with these rogues." l ask you
in reply, how much better woult
you have been under the same circum
stances? Suppose your mother hat
been a blasphemer and your father {
sot, and you had started life with {
body stuffed with evil proclivities, ano
you had spent much of your time in {
cellar amid obscenities and cursing
and If Mt 10 years of age you had beef
compelled to go put and steal, bats ere
and banged at night II you came II
without any spoils, and suppose you
early manhood and womanhood hat
been covered with rags and filth, ant
decent society had turned its back upol
you, and left you to consort with vaga
bonds and wharf-rats-how much bet
ter would you have been? l have NJ
sympathy with that executive clemenc.
which would let crime run loose o
which would sit in the gallery of
court room weeping because some har'
hearted wretch is brought to justice
but / do say that the safety and life o
the community demand more potentia
influences in behalf of public offenders
l saw in one prison a woman, with
child almost blind, who had been arrest
ed for the crime of poverty, whowas wait
ing till the slow law could take her u
the almshouse, where she rightfully be
longed, but she was thrust In there will
her child, amid the most abandoned
wretches of the town. Many of the OF
tenders In that prison, sleeping on thu
floor, with nothing but n vermin-cov
cred blanket over them. Those peopl'
crowded and wan and wasted and hal
suffocated and Infatuated. said to tn
men: "How do you stand 1t here?
God knows" said one man, I'VE hav'
to stand it." o, they will pay you wher
they get out. Where they burned dowI
one house they will burn three. They
will strike deeper the assassin's knife
They are this minute plotting wors
burglaries. Some of the city jails ar
the best places | know of to manu-
facture footpads, vagabonds and cut
throats. Yale college is not so well cal
culated to make scholars, Harvart