Baxter Springs news. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Kan.) 1882-1919, 1891-04-18

covered with rags and filth, and decent
society had turned its back upon, and
left you to consort with vagabonds and
wharf rats-how much better would you
have beea? have no sympathy with
that executive clemency which would
let crime run loose, or which would sit
in the gallery OF court room weeping
because some hard-hearted wretch Is
brought 70 Justice; but de- say that the
safety and life OF the community demand
more potential influences in behalf OF
public Offenders.
saw in one prison woman, with q
child almost blind, who had been ar-
rested for the crime of poverty, who was
waiting until the slow law could take
her to the almshouse, where she right
fully belonged, but she was thrust in
there with her child amid the most
abandoned wretches of the town. Many
of the offenders in that prison sleeping
ON the floor, with nothing but vermin-
covered blanket over them. Those peo-
pie crowded and wan and wasted and
half suffocated and Infatuated. | said
to the men, How do you stand II
here?" God knows" said one man.
i've have to stand it," o. they will pay
you when they get out. Where they
burned down one house they will burn
three. They will strike deeper the as
sassin's knife. They are this minute
plotting worse burglaries. Some of the
city jails are the best places | know OF
10 manufacture footpads, cut throats and
vagabonds. Yale college is not so well
calculated to make scholars, nor Har-
ward so well calculated to make scien-
lists, nor Princeton so well calculated
to make theologians, as many OF our
jails are calculated TO make criminals.
All that those men do not know OF
crime after they have been in that dun
geon for some time Satanic machina-
ton can not teach them.
1t is no compliment to public author
ity when we have in all the cities OF the
country, walking abroad, men and wo-
mon notorious for criminality, I'M
whipped of injustice. 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. shelter
ing the thief and at great price hand
ing over the goods TO the owner to
whom they belong. There you will find
those who are called the ''sklnners. "
the men who hover around Wall street,
with great sleight OF hand in bonds and
stocks. There you find the funeral
thieves, the people who go and sit
down and mourn with families and pick
their pockets.
When these people 80 unarrested and
unpublished, it is putting high premi-
um upon vice. and saying to the young
criminals Of this country, "What safe
thing it is to be great criminal" Let
the law swoop upon them. Let
it be known in this country that crime
will have no quarter, that the detec-
tives are after it. that the police club is
being brandished, that the iron door OF
the prison is being opened, that the
Judge is already to call on the case. Too
great leniency to criminals is too great
severity to society.
Again in your effort to arrest this
plague OF crime. you need TO consider
the idle population. When the French
nobleman was asked why he kept busy
when he had so large property, he
said: II keep on engraving so ma Y
not hang myself / do not care who
the man is, you can not afford to be idle.
1t is from the idle classes that the
criminal classes are made mp. Charac.
acter. like water. gets putrid il it stands
still too long. Who can wonder that.in
this world. where there is so much to
do. and all the hosts OF earth and heav-
and hell are plunging into the conflict,
and angels are flying, and God is at
work. and the universe is aquake with
the marching and countermarching,
that God lets his Indignation fall upon
a man who chooses idleness? They are
not only useless, but they are danger
Gus.
BY what law of God or man is it right
that you and l should toll day in and
day out, until our hands are blistered
and our arms ache and our brain gets
numb, and then be called upon to sup
port, what in the United States are
about 100000 loafers! They are q
very dangerous class. Let the public
authorities keep their eye on them.
Again: Among the uprooting class
es place the oppressed poor. Poverty
to q certain extent is Christening; but
after that, when it drives q man to the
wall, and he hears his children cry in
vain for bread, it some times makes him
desperate. / think that there are thou
sands OF honest men lacerated into vag-
abodism. There are men crushed I'M
der burdens for which they are not half
paid. While there is no excuse for
criminality, even in oppression, l state
it as simple fact that much OF the
scoundrelism OF the community Is con-
sequent upon Ill treatment. There are
many men and women battered and
bruised and stung until the hour OF des-
pair has come, and they stand with the
ferocity OF a wild beast which, pursued
until it can run no longer, turns round,
foaming and bleeding, to fight the
hounds.
There is another layer OF poverty and
restitution. You hear the incessant
wailing for bread and clothes and fire.
Their eyes are sunken. Their cheek