Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1891-04-17
CRIMES AND CRIMINALS.
TALMaGE TELLS SOME START
LING FACTS ABOUT THEM.
Over Seventy Thousand Arrests In
New York, Brooklyn and New DER
sey in a Single Year.-What Causes
the Plague and What Will Cure Ii.

New YORK, April "a, ISOLDE. Tai
mage, in continuance Of the course of SER
mons on ''The Ten Plaques Of the Cities, -
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 1.-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 none
could have been worse than this. The
Nile Is the wealth of Egypt Its fish the
food. Its waters the irrigation of garden
and fields. It's 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
carnadined. 1t is a red cash across an
empire. In poetic license we speak of wars
which turn the rivers into blood. But my
text is lot poetic license. 1t was fact,
great crimson appalling condition,
described. The Nile rolling deep of blood.
Can you imagine more awful plague?
The mo lern plague which nearest cor
responds with that is the plague of crime
in all our cities. 1t halts not for blood
shed. 1t shrinks from no carnage. II
bruises, and cuts, and strikes down, and
destroys. 1t revels in the blood OF body
and 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 suggest
i've than "Dante's Inferno" and all
Christian people as well as reformers need
to waken to present and tremendous
duty. If you want this "Plague of Crime"
to stop, there are several kinds of persons
you need 10 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
iucarcerated in the prisons of the country
thirty-two thousand were of foreign birth.
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 are in this cluster of cities-New
York, Jersey City and Brooklyn-four
thousand people whose entire business in
lhe is TO commit crime. That is as much
their business as jurisprudence OF medicine
or merchandise is your business. To it
they bring all their energies o. boy, 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 upon an attack
Of influenza or rheumatism which fastens
you in the house for a few days. 1t 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 upset the argument of an
opposing counsel, or cure 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 l do not suppose that once in year
the thought of the immortality strikes them.
Added to these professional criminals,
American and foreign, there Is a large
class of men who are more or less industri-
Gus in crime. In one year the police in
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 il confuses q
mans ideas of property, and he gets his
hands on things that DO not belong 20 him.
Rum 10 responsible for much of the assault
and battery inspiring men 10 sudden BRAY
cry, which they must demonstrate though
it be on the face OF the next gentleman.
We are all ready TO arralgn criminals.
We shout at the top of our voice, ''Stop
thiefp and when the police get on the track
we como out, hatless and in our slippers and
assist in the arrest. We come around the
bawling rufian and hustle him of to JUS
tice, and when he gets in prison what do
we do for him? With great gusto we put
on the handouts and the hopples; but what
preparation are we making for the day
when the handouts and the hopples come
of? Society seems to say TO these GRIMM
ais: "Villain, go in there and rot" when
it ought to say: "You are an offenders
against the law, but we mean 10 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 10 reclaim these people, Aye
we want more than sermons on the Sab
bath day. Society must impress these
men with the fact that it does not enjoy
their suffering, and that it Is attempting TO
reform and elevate them. The majority of
criminals suppose that society has grudge
against them, and they in turn have a
grudge against society.
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.
thank God for what Isaac T. Hopper and
Dr. Wines and Mr.. Harris and scores OF
others have done in the way OF prison re-
form; but we want something more radical
before will come the blessing Of him who
said; ~ 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. o land
when thy king is child, and thy princes
drink in the morning. 1t Is a great
calamity TO city when bad men get into
public authority. Why was il that in
New York there was such unparalleled
crime between 1866 and 1871? 1t was
because the judges of police in that city,
at that time, for the most part, were as
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