The Fort Worth gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-189?, 1891-04-16

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"Oh, YOU say. i have no patience with
these rogues." I ask you in reply how
much better would You have been under the
same circumstances Suppose your mother
| had been blaSphemef and YOUR father a
| sOt, and YOU had started life with a body
stuffed with evil proclivities. and YOU had
| spent much of your time in 4 cellar amid
| obscenities and cursing. and il at ten
years Of age YOU had been compelled to
go out and steal, battered and banged
| al night If YOU came in without any SpoilS.
| and suppose your early manhood and
| womanhood had been covered with rags and
| filth, and decent society had turned its back
| upon you, and left you to consort with vaga-
| bonds and wharf rats-how much better
! would you have been2 | have no sympathy
| with that executive clemeucy which wOGd
! let crime run loose. or which would sit in the
| gallery Of a courtroom weeping because
| some haTd-hearted wretch is brought to JUS
| tee; but do say that the safety and life OF
the.community demand more potential infu-
eHces in behalf of public offenders.
BLACK HOLE OF CALCUTTA
In some OF the city prisons the air is like
that Of the Black Hole OF Calcutta. have
visited prisons where, as the air swept
| through the wicket, it almost knocked me
down. No sunlight. Young men who had
committed their first crime crowded in
among old offenders. / saw in one prison
woman, with child almost blind. who had
been arrested for the crime of poverty. who
was waiting until the slow law could take
her 10 the almshouSe, where she rightfully
belonged: but she was thrust in there with
her child amid the most abandoned
wretchcs of the town. Many of the offend
erS in that prison sleeping on the floor
with nothing but VerInin-CoVered blanket
over them. Those people crowded and wan
and wasted and half suffocated and in
furiated. l said to the men, How
DO YOU stand it here!" God
knows" said one man, I'VE have to stand
it" Oh, they will pay you when they get
out. Where they burned down one house
they will burn three. They Will strike
deeper the asSassin'S knife. They are this
minute plotting worse burglarieS Some OF
the city jailS are the best places | know of
to manufacture fOot-pads, Vagabonds and
cut-throatS. Yale college is not so well cal
culated to make scholars. nor Harvard so
well calculated to make scientists, nor
Princeton SO well calculated to make the
o!o%!ans as many OF our jails are calculated
TO MAKE CRIMINALS
All That those men do not know of crime
after they have been in that dungeon for
some time. satanic machination cannot
teach them. IN the inSufferahie stencil ana
sicllcnng surroundings OF such places there
is nothing but disease for the body, idiocy
for the mind and death for the soul. Stihed
ain and darkness and vcrInin never turned
thief into an honest man
We want men like john Howard and Sir
William Blackstone, and women like Eliza
beth Fry, to do for the prisons of the United
States what those people did in other days
for the prisons OF England. ] thank God
for what Isaac r. Hopper and DR. Wines
and Mr. Harris and scores Of others have
done in the way OF prison reform; but We
want something more radical before will
come the blessing of him who said: % / was
III prison. and yc came unto ne
Again, in YOUR effort 10 arrest this plague
OF crime YOU need 10 consider unlrust-
worthy officials e Woe unto thee, 0 land. |
when thy king is u child, and thy princes |
drink in the morning 1t is 4 great calaln- |
lily 10 city when bad men get into public |!
authority. Why was it that in New York |
there was such unparalleled crime between |
1866 and ISL 1t was because the judges of !
police in that city ut that time. for the most |
part, were rs corrupt as the yagabOnds that |
came before them for trial Those were |
the days of high carnival for
ELECTION FRAUDS.
assassination and forgery. We had all |
kinds of rings. There was one man during
those years that co. SIPS, 600 in one year for
serving the public. In 4 few Years it was
estimated that there were so. 600, 900 Of |
public treasure sqUandered. In those
times the criminal had only 10 wink 10 the
Judge, or his lawyer would wink for him,
and the question was decided for the |
defendant. OF the 5000 people arrested in
that city in one year, only 5000 were pun
shed. These little matters were fixed up
while the interests of society We're fixed
Town" You know as well Is do that one
william who escapes only opens the door for
)ther criminalities. When the two pick peck
us snatchcd the diamond pin from i Brook
En gentleman in Broadway stage, and the
villains were arrested and the trial was
et down for the general sessions, and then
he trial never came. and never anything
more was heard of the case, the public Off
'ials were only bidding higher for more
rhine. 1t IS no compliment 10 public au-
hority when we have in all the cities of
he country, walking abroad, men and We
men notorious for criminality, unwhipped |
i Justice. They are pointed out TO YOU in
lie street day by day. There YOU find
what are called the fences the men who |
tand between the thief and the honest
nan, shelterng the thief and at great
rice handing over the goods to the owner
whom they belong. There YOU will find
hose who are called the "skinuers." the
zen who,
HOVER AROUND WALL STREET,
With great sleight of hand in bonds and
tockS. There you find the funeral thieves
he people who go and sit down and mourn
nth families. and pick their pockets. And
here you md the confidence men. - VINO |
orrCw money of you because they have
cad child in the house and want TO bury it,
hen they never had house or = family:
+ they want TO 60 TO England and get
irge property there and they want you to 5
ay their way, and they Will send the
honey back by the very next mail. There !
re the "harbOr thieves. the ''shoplift- |
rs" the ''picllpockets. famous all over |
ne cities. Hundreds of them with their
aces in the ''Rogues' Gallery vet doing G
othing for the last five or ten years but |
efraud society and escape justice. When |
lese people go unarrested and unpublished. !
is putting high premium upon vice. and
tying to the young criminals of this coun- Q
y. What a safe thing it is to be a great I
imiual." Let the law swoop upon them. {
ct it be known in this country that crime II
i'll have no quarter, that the detectives are l
Ter it, that the police club is being brand
he'd. that the iron door of the prison is be- Il
g opened, that the Judge is ready TO call g
l the case. Too great leniency to Grim U
ais Is too great severity TO society. l
Again: In your effort to arrest this | V
ague of crime, YOU need to consider 5
e Idle population. OF course l do not re c
+ TO people who are getting old. or 10
lie sick, or TO those vino cannot get | :
DIRK; but ] tell you to look out for those u
hletic men and women who will not work
hen the French nobleman was asked S
by he kept busy when he had SO large |
property, he said, Il keep on engraving |
| may not hang myself"
do not care who the man IS. you a
,,N-NnT ,pFppr, ry, r,- II