The Caucasian. (Clinton, N.C.) 188?-1913, 1891-04-16
plagllcs of the Cities.
Confined from First Page

tCUntInuou from fIfSt rage
assassination and forgery. We had all
kinds of rings. There was one man
during those years that got one hun
dred and twenty eight thousand dollars
in one year for serving the public. In
"a few years it was estimated that there
were fifty millions of public treasure
sduandered. In those times the Grim
inal had only to wink at the judge, or
his lawyer would wink for him, and the
question was decided for the defend
ant.
OF the eight thousand people arrest
ed in that city in one year only three
thousand were punished These little
matters were 'flxcd up" while the in
terests Of society were fixed down"
You know rs well as do that one vii
lain who escapes only opens the door
for other criIninalities. When the two
pickpockets snatclIed the diamond pin
from the brooklyn gentleman in
Broadway stage and the villains were
arrested, and the trial was set down
for the general sessions, and then the
trial never came, and never anything
more was heard of the case, the public
officials were only bidding higher for
more crime.
WHEN THE WICKED RULE THE PEOPLE
MOURN.
1t Is no compliment to public authori-
ty when we have in all the cities of the
country, walking abroad, men and
women notorious for criminality I'M
whipped OF justice. They are pointed
out to you in the street day by day.
There you find what are called the
Fences" the men who stand between
the thief and the honest man, shelter
ing the thief and at a great price hand
ing over the goods to the owner to
whom they belong. There you will
find those who are called the Skin
ners," the men who hover around Wall
street, with great sleight of hand in
bonds and stocks. There you find the
funeral thieves, the people who go and
sit down and mourn with families and
pick their pockets. And there you find
the confidence men," who borrow
money of you because they have a dead
child in the house and want to bury it,
when they never had house or a fami-
ly; or they want to go to England and
get a large property there, and they
want you to pay their way, and they
will send the money back by the very
next mail.
There are the ''harbor thieves" the
''shoplifters," the pickpockets," ia
nous all over the cities. Hundreds of
them with their faces in the 'rogue's
gallery" yet doing nothing for the last
five or ten years but defraud society
and escape justice. When these people
go unarrested and unpublished, it is
putting high premium upon vice and
saying to the young criminals Of this
country, What a safe thing it is to be
q great criminalT Let the law swoop
upon them. Let it be known in this
country that crime will have no quar-
ter, that the detectives are after it, that
the police club is being brandished,
that the iron door of the prison is be-
ing opened, that the judge is ready to
call on the case. Too great leniency to
criminals is too great severity to soci-
ETY..
Again. in your effort to arrest this
plague of crime you need to consider
the idle population. Of course I do
not refer to people who are getting old,
or to the sick or to those who cannot
get work, but | tell you to look out fo-
those athletic men and women who
will not work. When the French no.
bleman was asked why he kept busy
when he had SO large property he
said, Il keep on engraving 50 1 may
not hang myself" / do not care who
the man is, you cannot afford to be
idle. 1t is from the idle classes that
the criminal classes are made I'D.
Character, like water, gets putrid if it
stands still too long. Who can wonder
that in this world, where there is so
much to do, and all the hosts of earth
and heaven and hell are plunging into
the conflict, and angels are flying and
God is at work, and the universe is
a-quakc with the marching and counter
marching, that God lets his Indignation
fall upon man who chooses idIeness?
/ have watched these do-nothings who
spend their time stroking their beard,
and retouching their toilet, and criti-
cising industrious people, and pass their
days and nights in barrooms and club
houses, lounging and smoking and
chewing and card playing They are
not only useless, but they are danger
Gus. 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 awhile smoke the best
cigars, and wear the best clothes. and
move in the highest spheres, but 1 have
noticed that very soon they come down
to the prison, the almshouse, or stop at
the gallows.
| INVINCIBLE LAZINESS
The police stations of this cluster of
cities furnish annually between two
and three hundred thousand LODGINGS.
For the most part, these two and three
hundred$ thousand lodgings are fur
nlshed 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
repeaters," they go to some other sta
ton, and so they keep moving around.
They get their food at house doors,
stealing what they can lay their hands
on In the front basement while the SER
want is spreading the bread in the back
basement. They will not work. Time
and again, in the country districts,
they have wanted hundreds and thou
sands of laborers. These men will not
go. They do not want to work. |
have tried thoyn r have 81