The San Saba weekly news. (San Saba, Tex.) 18??-1???, 1891-12-25

for tho soul. Stiled air and darkness and
vermin never turned thief into an bones
man.
We want men like John Howard and 81
William Blackstone and women Ike Eliza
beth Fry TO do for the prisons Of the UniteC
States what those people did in other day
for the prisons of England. thank Goo
for what Isaac T. Hopper and DR.. Wine
and Mr.. Harris and scores Of others hav'
done in the way of prison reform, but W,
want something more radical before vii
come the blessing Of him who said, II was il
1 prison, and ye came unto me.n
Again, in your effort TO arrest this plague
Of crime you nsed 10 consider Enthusiastically
officials. "Wce unto thee, o land, when thy
king is child, and thy princes drink in thu
morning. 1t is great calamity to a city
when bad men get into public authority.
Why was it that in New York there wa
such unparalleled crime between 1855 and
1912 II was because the judges Of police in
that city at that time for the most PARTNERS
rs corrupt as the vagabonds 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
got one hundred and twenty-eight thousand
dollars in one year for serving the public.
1t is no compliment TO public authority
when we have in all the cities OF the country,
walking abroad, men and women notorious
for criminality unwhipped Of justice. They
ars 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, sheltering the
thief, and at great price handing over the
goods to the owner to whom they belonged.
There you viii lind those who are called the
tiskinners, 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 dead child In the house and want to
bury It. when they never had house or
family; or they want 20 20 TO England and
get large property there end they want
syo= 20 pay their wa --sIsa they wiz send the
money back by the very next mail.
There are the "harbor thieves,n the
''shoplifters," the ''piclPockets" famous
all over the cities. Hundreds Of them with
their faces In the Rogues' Gallery, yet do
ing nothing for the last five or ten years
but defrHud society and escape justice.
When these people go unarrested and I'M
punished It Is putting a high premium
upon vice and saying 70 the young Grimm
ais Of this country, "What safe thing it
sweop upon them. Let it be known in
this country crime will have no quarter;
that the detectives are after it; that the
police club is being brandished; that the iron
door OF the prison is being opened; that the
Judge is ready to call ON the case. Too great
lenisncy to criminals is too great severity TO
society.
Again In your effort to arrest this plague
OF crime, you need to consider the idle popu-
Faar1 7 10 ,1N to Il
who are getting old, or to the sick or TO those
who cannot get work, but 1 tell you to look
out for those athletic men and women who
will not work When the French nobleman
was asked why he kept busy when he had so
large property, he said. II keep on engrav-
ing SO | may not hang myself" 1 do not
care who the man is you cannot afford to be
idle. It Is from the idle classes that the
criminal classes are made up. Character,
like water, gets putrid if it stands still too
long. Who can wonder that in this world,
where there is 50 much TO do, and all the
hosts Of earth and heaven and hell are
plunging into the conflict and angels are ly-
ing and God is at work and the universe is
a-quake with the marching and counter
marching, that God lets His Indignation fall
upon man who chooses idleness.
1 have watched these do-nothings who
spend their time stroking their beard and
dustrious people, and pass their days and
nights in ba-rooms and club houses, ioung-
ing and smoking and chewing and card
playing. They are not only useless, but
they ere dangerous. How hard it is for
them to while away the hoursi Alas, for
them! II they co not know how TO while
away an hour, what will they do when
they have all eternity on their handsi
These men for while smoke the best cigars
and wear the best clothes and move in the
highest spheres, but 1 have noticed that
uery soon they come down TO the prison, the
almshouse, or stop at the gallows-
The police stations Of this cluster Of cities
furnish annually between two and three hun
dred thousand lodgings. Forth most part
these two and thres hundred thousand lodg
ings are furnished TO able bodied men and
women-people rs able 10 work as you and
are. When they are received no longer at
one polics station because they are repeat
ersn they go TO some other station and 50
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 servant is spreading the bread in
the back basement. They viii not work.
Time and again, in the country districts,
they have wanted hundreds and thousands
OF laborer5. These men will not go. They
do not want to work have tried them. 1
have set them to saving wood in my cellar
70 see whether they wanted TO work of
fered to pay them well for It, have heard
the saw going for about three minutes, and
then ] went down. and loi the wood, but no
sawl They are the pest of society, and they
stand IN the way of the Lords poor who
who ought 10 be helped, and must be helped,
and viii be helped.
While there are thousands Of industrious
men who cannot get any work, thess men
who do not want any work come in and
make that plea l am in favor OF the res
toration Of the old fashioned whipping post
for just this one class of men who will not
work-sleeping at night ct public ex-
peuse in the station house; during the day
getting their food at your doorstep. I'm
prisonment does not scare them. They
would ike it. BlaezwelFs Island or Sing
Sing would be a comfortable home for tkem.
They would have no objection to the aims
house, for they ike thin soup. Il they can
not get mock turtle.
Iproposs this for them. On one side OF
ssik.sin put some healtay work; on the other
side put a rawhsis. and LEI tiifssza take their
choice. l hke for that class Of peoDfe>ths-
cant biz Of fare that Paul wrote cut for
the Thessalonian loafers, III any work not,
neither should he eat" By what law OF
Sod or man is it right that you and should
toll day in and day out. until our hands are
Dlistsred and our arms ache and our brain
gets numb, and then be called upon 70 sup
port what in the United States are about
two million loafers. They are very danger
1us clsls. Let the public authorities keep
their eyes on them
Again, among the uprooting classes l place
the oppressed poor. Poverty TO a certain
sxtsnt Is Christening, bJ-. after that, when ii
iriTes a man to the wall, and he hears his
children cry IN vain for bread, it sometimes
makes him Desperate. / think that there are
thousands Of honest men lacerated into vaga-
bondism. There ere men crushed under
burdens for which they are not half paid.
While there is no excuse for crimiEality,
svsn in oppression, state it as a simple fact
hat much OF the scoundrelism of the com
nunity Is consequent upon n-treatment.
There are many men and women battered
and bruised and stung until the hour Of de-
erocity Of E via oeast which, pursued unti !
can run no longer, turns round foaniiag Z
nd bleeding. to fight the hounds
There is a vast underground New York
nd Brooklyn life that Is appalling and
hameful. Il wallows and stesms with putre-
action. You go down the stairs, which are
rot and decayed with filth, and at thu bot
om you find the poor victims on the floor,
old, sick. three-fourths dead, sinking into
1ll darker corner under the CLEAN Of the
aute-n Of the police. There has not been
reath Of fresh cir in that room for five
ears, literally. Tbs broken sewer empties
3 contents uDon them and they lie at night
n the swimming filth. There they ara, men,
women, children; black, whites; Mary Mag