Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1891-04-15
VICE OF TOWN AND COUNTRY.
Rural Innocence Compared With tn e
City.

VICE OF TOWN AND COUNTRY.
Rural Innocence Compared with the
City.
From the Journal of Commerce.
A writer of some prominence defends
the inequalities of representation provi-
ded for in the Connecticut Constitution ON
the ground that the villages and smaller
towns contain he larger proportion of
virtuous people. This is not novel idea,
and some fippant orators have uttered it
so often that they actually believe it them
selves, and have also imposed the state
ment as verify upon many others who
have had no opportunity to test its truth.
Some years ago there was a very large
gathering of the ministers and laity of the
Congregational churches at the Broadway
Tabernacle in this city. The evening was
was to be given up to discussion of the
extent to which religion affected business
life in our large cities.
The Rev. Henry Ward Beecher presided
and opened the debate. He was not at his
best, and, as he afterwards said, he had
been in some way put upon entertaining
what he felt at every moment was the
wrong side of the question. The speaking
was "eminently didactic' (not to say very
dry, and in spite of the interest felt in
the subject there was evidently a feeling
throughout the house that the best things
which could be said upon the theme had
not yet been uttered.
The moderator caught the infection,
and, cutting off the last words of speak
err said very frankly: 81 am satisfied that
none of us who have spoken tonight, and
perhaps none of our profession, know
much about business life as We have it in
the city. There are laymen here who
know all about it, but their lips are closed.
1 have one now in my eye. l call on mann
ing the gentlemanl to speak to u.s." To
be called out in that fashion, without a
word of warning, and with such herald
ing of his gifts, was most distateful to
him, and he felt besides that the whole
tone of the speaking thus far was not in
harmony with the truth.
He asserted this at the outset. He took
up the charge of covetousness and showed
that not only were the members of the
city churches more liberal givers in the
amount of their contributions than their
brethren in the rural districts, but more
liberal in proportion to their means. He
| drew graphic picture of the long process
sion of collecting Populations from the
| county on their never-ceasing pilgrimage
| throughout the year to tax urban pockets
l lOE IuSllC IpIlscS LoOh up LILO
| charges of deception and sharp practice
| made against those in the city traffic, and
hung up the other aide of the picture.
He met the charge of city crimes with
some most startling statistics proving that
not only was there much greater body of
| criminals in a given number of country
reeidents than there are in the city, but
| that the class of crimes was of a much
| graver type. He gave a list of the horri-
Bile murders and other atrocities which had
marked the annals for a decade, showing
petrated in fields and woods and country
homes.
He took up the accusations of gross i'm
morality and gave most convincing evil
dence that the average was far better in
| the city than in the interior The reasons
were also stated. For social impurities in
| their inception the country furnishes the
necessary privacy wholly wanting in de-
cent families here. Hence the haunts of
licentiousness are furnished almost exclu-
| sively with inmates who have been be-
trayed in country homes. And so on
through all the lists which had been given
by the previous speakers he met each state
ment with facts that overturned the as
sumption of rural simplicity and integrity
that had been presented in striking con-
trast with what was supposed to be the
city character for debauchery and crime
He admitted that there was an impression
| in many circles that the wickedness of the
whole land was chiefly concentrated in
Wall street, and that Satan spent his
whole time on earth within the city lin.
its. But he introduced an array of evil
dence to show that the prince of evil made
more than occasional excursions to the ru
raj districts, and was quite as active in hil
nefarious ministry among the country foil
| as in the crowded quarters in which hi
dwelling had been assigned.
Where one or two millions of people ar,
herded together the daily record of wrong
and outrages seem appalling, but it is botl
because there are more people to be heart
from and more facilities for giving read,
account of all such crimes and misdemean
ors. AS a whole, the jewellers in cit,
homes are more chaste, more unselish
more charitable, and freer from vices
great or small, than an equal number il
the smaller towns and settlements, or il
the more open fields. They are ever.
way, taking the average, as fitted for self
government. They have higher culture
they have greater general intelligence
they have keener insight into "men ant
things" are less liable to be imposed
upon by shams and pretences, and ar
, quicker to appreciate and to defend tn
right. A great city is not made up o
slums and herded criminals. The crowd
ed tenements in filthy districts are not tn
, principal feature of city life. The fiat
that are now SO popular are the virtuou
. homes of intelligent citizens. Cities ar
not now, nor growing to be, "ulcers apol
, the body polite, the increasing hot bed
of crime" Bribery at the polls AM
shamelessness in politics have not tow
parentage, nor is their most fragrant typ
within the city gates. The city popula
Z | ton, if the choice must be made betweel
the two, is the better fitted for home rul
and government by the people. If coun
a tay legislators would keep their hands of
: the city folk would set far more credits
: BILE example of popular rule.
| L. 80 Ill