Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1891-04-18
LEAGUES OF THE CITIES.

A.AJAAC O4A1 WI A4tA VII 4%~Os
Ifdl---.z-zelctt, THE IDLE poor, THE
#BEsPERATE, DANGEROUS POOR.
Dr.3Talmage's Graphic Sketch OF ths Dam
gerous Elements In City Life-Life in
tho JnIis, Cellars and Hospitals-The
Lava seething Below.
.SNEw YORK, April D.-Dr. Talmage,
In continuance of the course Of sermons
on Tho Ten Plaques OF the Cities, I" to-
day preached to largo audiences in the
Brooklyn Academy of Music in the
forenoon and Mt The Christian Herald
service Mt the Now York Academy of
Music in%tlle evening ON THE Plague
Of Crime lie took forli text Exodus
vii, 100 the waters thatw in.
thcsgiivers wore turned to blood:
Among aIistlie. j gyptiall plaques none
coutds Have beeti,worse than, this: Tie
Nilg asstli wealth. Of Egypt sItssnsh
tlie5 rood, Its waters the irrigation of
garden and fields It's condition de-
cides the prosperity or the doom of the
empire. What happens to the Nile
happens to Ill Egypt. And now in
thestext that great river Is incMnadined.
1t is a red cash across an empire. In
poetic license we speak of wars which
turn the rivers into blood. But my
text is not n poetic license. 1t WIS a
fact great crimson. appalling condi-
! ton described. The Nile rolling deep
of blood Can you imagine more
awful plague7
The modern plague which nearest
corresponds with that is the plague of
crime in oil our cities. It halts not for
bloodslled. 1t sllrinks from no carnage.
1t bruises lnd cuts and strikes down
and destroys. 1t rcvels 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 mo more
suggestive than Dantc's Inferno, ond
all Christian people as we'll rs reform
crs need to awaken to n present and
tremendous duty. If you want this
"Plague of Crimo" to stop there ore
several kinds of persons you need to
consider. First, the public criminals
You ought not to be surprised that
these people make up large portion
in many communities. The vast ma
iority Of the criminals WHO take ship
from Europe come into our own port.
In 1859, of the forty-nine thousand peo-
pie who were incarcerated in the pris-
ons of the country thirty-two thousand
werc of foreign birth. Many of them
were the very dcsperadoes of society,
oozing into the slums of our cities,
waiting for an opportunity to riot and
steal and dcbauch, 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 ontlre bust
ness:sin life is to commit crime. That
is as much their business rs jurisprud-
ence or medicine or merchandise is
your business To 1t 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 IN tho house for
a few days. It 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 rs you have in yours
when you upset the argument of an
opposing counsel or euro q gunshot
fracture which other surgeons have
given up, or foresee turn in the mar
ket as you buy goods just before they
60 up 20 per cent. 1t is their bust
moss to commit crime, and l do not
suppose that once in year the thought
of the immortality strikes them.
Added to these professional GRIM
mails, American and foreign, there is q
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 it confuses q 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. twill touch
your pocket, since have to give you
the fact that these three cities pay about
eight million dollars worth of taxes
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
bank. More than that. lit touches your
heart in the moral depression-of the
community. You might as we'll think
to stand in a closely confined room
where there are fifty people and yet not
breathe the vltiated DIR as to stand in
"a community where there is such
great multitude of the depraved with
ont somewhat being contaminated.