Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-04-13


these rogues.' l ask you in reply how
much better would you have been under the
same circumstances Suppose your mother
had been blasphemer 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 a cellar amid
obscenities and cursipg, and if at ten
years Of age you had been compelled to
go out and steal, battered and banged
at 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 clemency which wonld
let crime run loose. or which would sit in the
gallery of q courtroom weeping because
some hard-hearted wretch is brought to JUS
tice; but do say that the safety aud life Of
the.community demand more potential intiu-
ences il behalf of public offenders.
BLACK HOLE OF CALCCTTA.
In some Of the city prisons the air is like
that Of the Black Hole Of Calcutta. l 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. I saw in one prison
woman, with a child almost blind, who had
been arrested for the crime OF poverty, who
was waiting until the slow law could take
belonged; but she vas thrust in there with
her child amid the most abandoned
wretcheS OF the town. Many Of tie offend
ers in that prison sleeping on the floor,
with nothing but a vernin-covered blanket
over them. Those people crowded and wan
and wasted and half sufccated and in
furiated. l said to the men, How
Il how cd
knows said one man, 1--WE have to stand
it" Oh, they Will pay you when they get
out. Where they burned down one house
they viii burn three. They wit strike
deeper the assassin's knife. They are this
minute plotting worse burglaries. Some of
the city iails are the best places 1 know Of
to manufacture foot-pads, vaga bonds and
cut-thfoatS. Yale college is not so well cal
cuiated to make scholars nor Harvard 50
well calculated to make scientists, nor
Princeton SO well calculated to make the
ologlans as many of our iails 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 inSumerable stencil and
sickening surroundings of such places there
is nothing but disease for the body, idiOcy
for the mind and death for the soul. Stifed
q 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. l thank God
for what Isaac T. Hopper and DR.. Wines
and Mr. Harris and scores of others have
done i'll the way of prison reform; but we
want something more radical before will
come the blessing of him who said: II was
in prison, and We came unto me-
Again, in your effort to arrest this plague
OF crime you need to consider untruSt-
worthy officials. Woe unto thee, 0 land,
when thy king is a child, and thy princes
drink in the morning" 1t is q great ca!aEn-
ity to city when bad men get into public
authority. Why was it that in New York
there was such unparalleled crime between
1865 and 1912 1t was because the judges of
police in that city at that time, for the most
part, We're as corrupt rs the vagabonds that
came before them for trial. Those were
the days of high carnival for
ELECTION FRAUDS.
and forgery. We had all
kinds Of rings There was one man DURING
those Years that got Sl2S, 900 in one year for
serving the public. In a few years it was
estimated that there were $50, 100000 of
public treasure sQuandered. In those
times the criminal had only TO wink to 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 We're pun
lshed. These little matters were fixed up"
while the interests of society were fixed
down" You know as well as do that one
william who escapes only opens the door for
other criminalities. When the two pick-pocli
cts snatched the diamond pin from Brook
Iyn gentleman in a Broadway stage, and the
Williams We're 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 Off !
rials were only bidding higher for more |
crime 1t is no compliment to public au-
-hority when we have in all the cities of |
the country, walking abroad, men and wo-
men notorious for criminality, unwhipped |
If 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. sheltering the thief and at great |
price handing over the goods 10 the owner |
hose who are called the "skinners," the |
neu who
HOVER AROUND WALL STREET,
with great sleight of hand in bonds and |
stocks. There you find the funeral thieves. |
he people who go and sit down and mourn |
with families, and pick their pockets. And |
here you find the confidence men," who |
borrow money of you because they have a |
lead child in the house and want to bury it. |
when they never had house or q family; |
II they want to go to England and get a |
arge property there, and they want you to
ray their way, and they will send the |
money back by the very next mail. There
ire the "harbor thieves" the "shoplift
rs the ''pickpocketS. famous all over
he cities. Hundreds of them with their
aces in the 'ROgues' Gallery" vet doing
nothing for the last five or ten years but |
iefraud society and escape justice. When
hese people go unarrested aud unpublished, |
t is putting high premium upon vice, and
saying to the young criminals of this coun-
ry, 'What safe thing it is to be a great
criminal" Let the law swoop upon them.
Let it be known in this country that crime
viii have no quarter, that the detectives are
.fter it. that the police club is being brand
shed. that the iron door Of the prison is be-
ug opened, that the Judge is ready to call
N the case. Too great leniency to Grim
mails is too great severity to society.
Again: In your effort TO arrest this
,lague Of crime, you need to consider
he idle population. OF course l do not re-
er to people who are getting old, or 10
he sick, or TO those who cannot get
work; but I tell you to look out for those
thletic 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, 4 keep on engraving |
o may not hang myself"
do not care who the man is, you
CANNOT AFFORD TO BE IDLE.
IT is from the idle classes that the crimi-