Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1891-05-01
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIvINE,s Sun.
!. DAY SERMON,
Subject: 1.-THE Plague of Crime"

! 90 O 1''
Among all the Egyptian plaques none could
nave been, worse than this. The Nile is the
wealth Of Egypt It's FISH the food, its waters
the irrigation of garden and fields Its con-
dltlon decides the prosperity Or the doom of
the empire. What happens to the Nile hap
pens to all Egypt. And now in the text that
great river IS incarnadined. It is red cash
across an empire. In poetic license we speak
of wars which turn the rivers into blood.
! But my text Is not poetic license. IL was
fact, great crimson, appalling condition
described. The Nile rolling deep of blood.
Can you imagine more awful plague?
. The modern plague which nearest CORE
spends with that is the plague Of crime in
all our cities. It halts not for bloodshed
1t shrinks from no carnage. 1t bruises and
cuts and strikes down and destroys. It re-
vels in the blood Of body ard SOUL this plague
of crime rampant for ages, and never holder
or more rampant than now.
The annual police reports of these cities as
/ examine them are to me more suggestive
than Dante'S Inferno, and all Christian people
as well as refOrmers need to awaken to pres
ent 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 make up large
portion IN many communities. The vast
majority Of the criminals who take ship from
Europe come into our own port. In 1869, Of
the fOrtY-nine thousand people who were in
carceratad in the prisons of the country
thlrty-twO thousand We're OF foreign birth
Many Of them were the very desperadoes Of
society oozing into the slums of our city,
waiting for opportunity to riot and steal
and debauch, joining the large gang Of
American thugs and cut-throats.
There are in this cluster of cities-New
York, Jersey City and Brooklyn-four
thousand people whose entire business in
fn X &O do oh,
their 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 the intervals which
they spend IN prison as SO much unfortunate
loss of time, Just as you look pom an attack
OF Influenza and 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 much pride of skill in their
business as you have in yours when you up
set the argument of an opposing counsel, or
cure gunshOt fracture which other sur
geons have given up, foresee q turn in the
market as you buy goods just before they go
up twenty per cent. 1t is their business to
commit crime, and l do not suppose that
once III year the thought of the immortality
strikes them.
Added to these professional criminals,
American and foreign, there are a large
class OF men who are more or less Industrious
cluster OF cities arrested ten thousand people
for theft, and ten thousand for assault and
battery, and fifty thousand for intoxication.
Drunkenness is responsible for much of the
theft, since it Confuses mans ideas Of
property, and he gets his hands on things
that do not belong to him. Rum is RESPONSE
bic for much of the assault and battery, in
spring men to sudden bravery, which they
must demonstrate though it be on the face
OF the next gentleman.
Ten million dollars worth of property
stolen IN this cluster of cities in one year!
You cannot, as good citizens be Independent
OF that fact, 1t will touch your pocket, since
l have to give you the fact that these three
cities pay about light million dollars worth
of taxes a year to arraign, try and support
the criminal population. You help to pay
the board OF every criminal, from the sneak
thief that snatches a spool of cotton up to
some man who swamps bank. More than
that, it touches your heart in the moral de-
preston OF the community. You might as
well think to stand i'll a closely confined
room where there are fifty people and yet
not breathe the vitiated air, as to stand in
a community where there is such a great
multitude OF the depraved without some
what BENG contaminated. What is the fire
that burns your store down compared with
the cCndagratiOn which consumes your
morals? What is the theft of the gold and
silver from your money safe compared with
the theft of your chidrens virtue?
We are all ready to arraign criminals.
We shout at the top Of our voice, stop
thief" and when the police get on the track |
we come out, hatless aud in our slippers, and
assist in the arrest. We come around the
bawllng rufian and hustle him off to justice, /
and when he gets in prison what do we do for
him? With great gusto we put on the hand
cuffs and the hopples; but what preparation I
are we making for the day when the hand
cuffs and the hopples come off? Society !
seems to say to these criminals, william, so
in there and rot" when it ought to say,
\ on are all offender against the law, but
we mean to give you an opportunity to re-
pent: we mean to help you. Here are Bibles
and tracts and Christian influences. Christ
died for you. Look and live"
( Vast improvements have been made by
introducing Industries into the prison; but
we want something more than hammers
and shoe lasts to reclaim these people Aye,
we want more than sermons on the Sabbath
day. Society must impress these men with
the fact that it does not enjoy their suf-
fering, and that it is attempting to reform
ana elevate them. The majority Of GRIMM
ais suppose that society has grudge against
them. and they in turn have grudge against
society.
They are harder in heart and more infuri-
ate when they come out of Jail than when
they went IN. Many of the people who go
to prison go again and again and again.
Some years ago, of fifteen hundred prisoners
who during the year had been in Sing Sing,
tour hundred had been there before. In
house of correction in the country, where
during certain reach of time there had
been i've thousand people, more than three
thousand had been there before, So, in one
case the prison, and in this other the house of
correction, left them just as bad as they were
before.
The secretary Of one Of the benevolent