The Forrest City times., 1891-04-17
GRIMES AND CRIMINALS
rAlMA0E TELLS SOME START. LING FACTS ABOUT THEM.
Over Seventy Thousand Arrests in New York, Brooklyn and New Jor-
 sey in . Single Ycar.-What Causes
 tho Plaguo and What Win Cure It.

Ssw YoRK, April 12, 1so1.--Dr. Tal- mage in continuance of the course of ser mons on ''The Ten Plagues of the Cities, 1" today preached to large audiences in the 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 the waters that were in the river were turned to blood"
 Among all the Egyptian plaques Aone could have been worse than this. The Nile IS the wealth of Egypt It's fish the iood. It's waters the irrigation of garden and fields Its condition decides the pros- perity or the doom of the empire. What | happens to the Nile happens to all Egypt
 And now in the text that great river is in- | carnadlned. It is red gash across an empire. In poetic license we speak of wars which turn the rivers into blood. But my text Is not poetic license. It was fact great crimson appalling condition, described. The Nile rolling deep of blood
 Can you imagine more awful plague? The mo1ern plague which nearest cor responds with that is tho plague of crimc in all our cities. It halts not for blood shed. It shrinks from no carnage. It bruises, and cuts, and strikes down, and destroys. It revels in the blood of body and soul, this plague of .-.s,e rampant for ages, and never bolder or moro rampant than now.
 The annual police reports of these cities as examine them arc to me moro suggest we than .'Dantes Inferno" and all Christian people us well as reformers need 10 Waken to 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 mako up large portion III many communities. The vast majority or the criminals who take ship from turope come into our own port. In 1s69, of the forty-nipe thousand people who were iucarrerated in the prisons of the country. thirty-two thousand were of foreign b rth Many of them were the very desperadoes Of society, oozing into the slums of our cities, waiting for an opportunity to riot and steal and debauch, joining the large gang of American thugs and cut-throats. There arc ill this cluster of cities-New York. Jersey City and Brooslyn-four thousand people whose entire business in iiie is to commit crime. That is as much ther business as Jurisprudence or medicine or merchandise is your business. To it they bring all their energies of body, mind, and soul, and they look upon tho intervals which they spend in prison us so much unfortunate loss of time, just as you look upon an attack of influenza or rheumatism which fastens you in the house for 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 mIch 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 gwen up, or foresee turn in the market as you buy goods Just before they go up twenty per cent. 1t is their business 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, there is large class of men who are more or less indus.r- ous in crime. In one year the police n this cluster of cities arrested ten thousand 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 hs hands on things that do not belong 10 him. Rum is responsible for much of the assault and battery inspiring men to sudden bray cry, which they must demonstrate though 1t be oa tho face of the next gentleman
 Ten million dollars worth of property stolen in this cluster of cities in cne year. You cannot as good citizens be independent tt,,t f,.t IH .~st since have 10 give you the fact that these three cities pay about eight million dollars worth or taxes year to srraign. try and support the criminal population. You help to pay the board of every criminal. from the sneak-thief who snatchcs . 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 a closely confined room where thero arc fifty people and yet not breathe the vitiatcd air, as to stand in a community where there is such u great multitude of tho depraved without being somewhat contaminated. What Is the fire that burns your store down com- pared with the confagrnton which con sumes your morals? What is tho theft of the gold and silver from your money safo compared with tbe theft of your children's virtue?
 We are all ready to arra,gn criminals. We shout at the top of our voice, Stop thief" and when tho police get on tho track we come out, hatless and in our slippers and assist in the arrest. We como around the bawling rufian and hy.stle him ofY to jus tice, and when he gets in prison what do we do for him? With great gusto we put on the handcuffs and the topples; but what preparation are we making for the day when the handcuYs and the hopples come of? Society seems to say to these crimin- als. Villain, go in thsre and rot" when it ought to say "You are an offender against the law, but we moan 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 livel'
 Vast improvements hAve been made by introducing industries into the prison; but we want something more than hammers and shoe lasts to reclaim thasc people. Aye we want more than sermons on the Sab bath day. Society must impress these men with tn, fact that it does not enjoy their suffering, and that 1t is attempting to reform and elevate them. The majority of criminals suppose that society has grudge against them, and they in turn have . grudge against society.
 We want men like John Howard and Sir William Blackstone, and women like Eliza beth Fry, to do for tho prisons of tho United States what those people did In other days for tho prisons of England. thank God for what Isaac T. Hopper and Dr. Wines and Mir. Harris and scores of | others have dono In the way of prison TO-