Audubon County Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Audubon Co., Iowa) 1885-1894, 1891-04-16
CRIMES AND CRIMINALS.
TAlMAGE TELLS SOME START
LING FACTS ABOUT THEM.
Over Seventy Thousand Arrests I'm
New York, Brooklyn and New Jer-
sey I'm Single Ycar.-What Causes
the Plague and What VIII Cure 1t.

brooklyn Academy Of Music in the FORE
noon, and at the New York Academy OF
Music in the evening, on The Plague OF
Crime" He took for his text Exodus
Z. 20: "All tho waters that were in the
river were turned to blood"
Among all the Egyptian plaques none
could have Eeen worse than this. The
Nile Is the wealth OF Egypt. Its fish the
food. Its waters the irrigation of garden
and fields. Its condition decides the pros
perlty or the doom Of tho empire. What
happens to the Nile happens to all Egypt.
And now in the text that great river is in
carnadined. 1t is red cash across On
empire. In poetic license We speak of wars
which turn the rivers into blood. But my
text Is not poetic license. 1t was fact,
a great crimson appalling condition,
described. The Nile rolling deep of blood.
Can you imagine a more awful plague?
The mo Tern plague which nearest cor
responds with that is the plague OF crime
in all our cites. IL halts not for blood
shed. 1t shrinks from no carnage. 1t
bruises, and cuts, and strikes down, and
destroys. 1t revcls 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 mo more suggest
i've than ''Dantc's Inferno" and all
Christian people rs well 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 to consider First, the public
criminals. You ought not to be surprised
that these people make up large portion
in many communities The vast majority
OF the Grim nails who take ship from
Europe come into our own port. In 1869,
OF the forty-nine thousand people who were
lucarCerated in the prisons of the country,
thlrty-two thousand were of foreign birth.
Many of them were the very dcsperadoes
OF society, oO1ing into the slums of our
cities, waiting for an opportunity 10 riot
and steal and dcbauch, joining the large
gang OF American thugs and Cut-throats.
There are in this cluster of citieS-New
York, Jersey City and Brooklyn-four
thousand people whose entire business in
life is to commit crime. That is as much
their business as Jurisprudence OF 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 unfortunate loss of time, just
as you look upon an attack
Of influenza or rheumatism which fastcns
you in tho house for few days. 1t is
their lifetime bus 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 an
opposing counsel, or cure a gunshot frac-
ture which other surgeons have given up,
or forosee turn in the market as you buy
goods Just before they go up twenty per
cent. IL is their bus ness 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, THIN is a large
class of men who are more or less industri-
Gus in crime. In ono year the police in
this cluster of cities arrested ten thous and
people for theft and ten thousand for as
sault and battery, and fifty thousand for
intoxicatiOn. Drunkenness is responsible
for much of the theft, since it confuses a
mans ideas of property, and he gets h s
hands on things that do not belong TO him.
Rum is responsible for much of the assault
and battery Inspiring men to sudden BRAY
cry, 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 cites in one year!
You cannot as god citizens be independent
of that fact. 1t will 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 who snatches a spool of cot
ton up to the 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 closely
confined room where there are fifty people
and yet not breathe the vitiated air, as to
stand in a community where there is such
a great multitude of the depravcd without
being somewhat contaminated What is
the fire that burns your store down COM
pared with the confiagration which con-
sumes your morals? What is the theft Of
the gold and silver from your money safe
compared with the theft of your children's
virtue?
We are all ready to arraign criminals
We shout at the top of our voice, stop
thief" and when the police get on the track
we come out, hatless and in our slippers and
assist in the arrest. We come around the
bawling ruffian and hustle him off to JUS
tee, and when he gets In prison what do
we do for him? With great gusto we put
on the handouts and the hopples; but what
preparation are we making for the day
when the handouts and the hopples come
of? Society seems to say TO these Grimm
ais: VILLAIN, 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 Chris
tian influences. Christ died for you. Look,
and liver'
Vast improvements have been made by
introducing industries into the prison; bu,
we want something more than hammers
and shoe lasts to reclaim these people. Aye
we want more than sermons on the Sab
bath day. Society must impress these
men with the fact that it does not enjoy
their suffering, and that it is attempting tc
reform and elevate them. The majority OF
criminals suppose that society has a grudgt
against them, and they in turn have q
| grudge against society.
We want men like John Howard and Sir
William Blackstone, and women like Eliza
beth Fry, to do for the prisons of tho
United States what those people did il
other days for the prisons of England.
thank God for what Isaac T. Hopper and
DIR. Wines and MIR. Harris and scores Of
others have done in the way of prison re
| form; but we want something more radica
before will come the blessing of him who
said; II was in prison, and ye came unit
me-"
Again, in your effort to arrest this plague
! Of crime you need to consider untrust
worthy officials. ''Woe unto thee. o land
when thy king is a child, and thy prince,
drink in the morning. II is a great
calamity to a city when bad men get into
public authority. Why was it that in
New York there was such unparalleled
crime between 1866 and 1871? 1t wa:
because the judges OF police in that city,
at that time, for the most part, were a.
corrupt as the vagabonds that came before
them for trial Those were the days OF
high carnival for election frauds, assassin.
alton and forgery. We had all kinds OF