The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1891-03-21

(
, large loops in that law through which
criminals might crawl out, and the law
was a dead failure-that law of 1868. But
in 1873 another Law was passed by the con-
gress of the United States against the
transmission of corrupt literature through
the Iuails-a grand law, potent law. a
Christian lew-and under that law snuiti
tudes of these scoundrels have been ar.
rested, their property confiscated and they
th;- mselyes thrown into the penitentiaries
where they belonged.
HOW ARK WE TO WAR AGAINST IT?
| Now, my friends, how are we to war
| against this corrupt literature, and how
are the frogs of this Egyptian plague to be
slaint First ofall by the prompt and in-
exorable execution of the law. Let all good
postmasters aud United States district at
torneys, and detectives and reformers con-
cert in their action to stop this plague
When Sir Rowland Hill spent his life in
trying to secure: cheap postage not only
for England, but for all the world, and to
open the blessing of the postoffice to all
honest business, and to all messages of
charity and kindness and affection, for
all healthful INSTRUMENTATION, he did
not mean to make vice easy or to fill the.
mail bags of the United States with the
scs.bs of such leprosy. r..
1t ought not TO be in the power of every
bad man who can raise one cent stamp
for a circular or two cent stamp for II
letter to blast a man destroy home.
The postal service of this country must be
clean, must be kept clean, and we must all
understand that the swift retributions of
the United States government hover over
every violation of the letter box
There are thousands of men and women
in this country, some for personal gain,
some through innate teprayity some
through a spirit of revenge, who wish to
use this great avenue of convenience ami
intelligence for purposes revengeful, sala-
cious and diabolic. Wake up the law
Wake up all its penalties. Let every court
room on this subject be Sinai thunderous
and aflame. Let the convicted offenders
be sent for the full term to Sing Sing or
Harrisburg.
am not talking about: what cannot be
done. 1 am talking now about what is be-
ing done. A great many of the printing
presses that gave themselves entirely to
the publication of vile literature have been
stopped or have gone into business less OBJ
noxio1s. What has thrown off, what has
kept off the rail trains of this country for
some time back nearly all the leprous Pc
riodicals3 Those of US who have been on
the rail trains have noticed a great change
in the last few months and the last yearsor
two. Why have nearly oil those vile period
icals been kept off the rail trains for some
time back? Who effected it? These soci-
eties for the purificttion of railroad liter
ature gave warning to the publishers and
warning to railroad companies, and warn
ing to conduct ors and warning to news
boys, to keep the internal stuff off the
trains.
Many of the cities have successfully pro
hibited the most of that literature even
from going on the news stands. Terror
has seized upon the publishers and the
dealers in impure literature, from the fact
that over a Thousand arrests have been
made, and the aggregate time for which
the convicted have heen sentenced to the
prison is over one hundred and ninety
years, and from the fact that about two
million of their circulars have been de-
stroyed. and the business is not as profit
able as it used to be.
THE LAwl THE LAwi
How have SO many of the news stands of
much of this iniquity been baked? By
moral suasiont Oh, no. You might as
well go into a jungle of the East Indies
and pat cobra on the neck, and with pro-
found argument try to persuade it that it
is morally wrong to bite and to sting and
to poison anything. The only answer to
your argument would be an uplifted head
and a hiss and SHARP, reeking tooth struck
into your arteries. The only argument
ment for these dealers In impure literature
is the clutch of the police and bean soup in
n penitentiary.- The lawl The lawi in
woke to consummate the work SO grandly
beguni
Another way in which we are to drive
back this plague of Egyptian frogs is by
filling the minds of our young people with
healthful literature. 1 do not mean to
say that all the books and newspapers in
IN tun I-oli
and newspapers, or that every song ought
to be sung to the tune of "Old Hun.
dred." l have no sympathy with the
attempt to make the young old 1 would
rather join in a crusade to keep the
young young. Boyhood and girlhood
must not be abbreviated But there are
good books, good histories, good hiogra-
phies, good works of fiction, good books of
all styles with which we are to fill the minds
of the young, SO thatthe will be no more
room for the useless and the vicious than
there is room for chaff in a bushel measure
which is already filed with Michigan
wheat. M tts5
Why are SO per cent. of the criminals in
the jails aud penitentiaries of the United
States, today under twenty-one years of
age? Many of them under seventeen. un-
der sixteen, under fifteen, under fourteen,
under thirteens Walk along one of the
corridors of the Tombs prison in New York
and look for yourselves Bad books, bad
newspapers bewitched them as soon as
they got-out of the cradle. Beware of all
those stories which end wrong. Beware
of all those books which make the road
that ends III perdition. seem to end in Par
adise. Do not glorify the dirk and the pis-
tol. Do not call the desperate brave or
the Hbertine gallant. Teach our young
people that if they go down into the
swampS and marshes to watch the iack-O'-
lanterns dance on the decay and rotten
ness they will catch the malaria and death.
''Oh, says some one, 81 am business
man, and have no, time to examinewhat
nay children read i have no timeto in
spe<.t thu. bo,lrs, that conn int, nv Is<r,s.,