The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1891-04-21
PLAGUE OF CRIME.
DR.. T8LMAaE plscoURsEs ON LAW,
BREAKING.

~.N|I'T ~ -
BREAKING.
Police Reports OF New York aud Brook
Iyn More suggestive Than ants's In
ferno--ways Outlined in which Chris
tians should work to Arrest This
Plague.
NEW York, April 12.--Dr. Talmage,
ia continuance of the course OF sermons
on ssThe Ten Plaques of the Cities" to-
day preached to large audiences in the
Brooklyn Academy of Music In the fore
noon aud The Christian Herald service
at the New York Academy of Music In
the evening, on 1.-THE Plague of Crime.D
He took for his text Exodus vii, 20,
"All the waters that were In tho river
were turned to blood"
Among ali the Egyptian plaques M
could have been worse than this. The
Nile is the wealth of Egypt! Its fish the
food. Its waters the Irrigation Of gar
den and fields. Its condition decides the
prosperity or the doom of the empire.
What happens tc the Nile happens to
all Egypt. AMI now in the text that
great river is i~ncarnadined. II is q red
cash across an empire. In poetic license
we speak of wars which turn the rivers
into blood, But my text is not a poetic
licenser 1t vas a TACT, a great crimson
appalling condition described. The Nile
rolling deep of blood. Can you imagine
a more awful plague?
The modern plague which nearest
corresponds with that is the plague of
crime in all our cities. 1t halts not for
bl%oodshed. 1t shrinks from no carnage.
It 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 IeXamine them are to, me more
suggestive than Dante's Inferno, and all
Christian people as well as reformers
need to waken to q present and tremen-
dous duty. Ifyou want this "Plague Of
Crime" to stop, there are serveral kinds
of persons you need to consider. First,
the public criminals. You ought not to
be surprised that these people make up
ties. The vast majority of tho GRIM
mails who take ship from Europe come
into our own port. In 1869, of the
A $1,000 people who were incarcerated in
the prisons of the country, $4,000 were
of toreign birth. Many Of them were
the very desperadoes OF society, oozing
into the slnms of our cities, waiting for
an opportunity to riot and steal and
dabauch, joining the large gang of
American thugs and cut throats. There
are in this cluster of cities-New York,
Jersey City and Brooklyn-4,0O0 peo-
pie whose entire business IN life is to
commit crime. That Is as much their
business as jurisprudence or medicine
or merchandise IS your business. TO Il
they bring all their energies of body,
mind, and soul, and they look upon the
intervals which they spen,: 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 shopllft, 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 argu-
ment o. an opposing counsel, or cure a
gunshot fracture which other sur
geons have given up, or fOresee a turn
OF The market as you buy goods just be-
lore they 60 up twenty per cent. It is
their business to commit crime, and L do
not suppose that once in n 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 indus
tious in crime. In n year the
police in this cluster of cities arrested
10000 people for theft, and 10000 for
assault and battery, and % 1000 for in
toxicattiOn. Drunkenness is respon-
sible for much of the theft, since it con-
fuses q man's ideas of property, and he
gets his hands on things tbst do not
belong to him. Bum irresponsible for
much~or inc assault and battery, inspir-
ing 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 1 have to give you the
fact that these three cities pay about
s8,O00,000, worth of taxes q year to ar
ralgn, try and support the criminal pop
ulation. You help to pay the board of
every criminal from the snaak-thlef that
snatches q spool of cotton up to some
man who swamps a bank. More than
that, it touches your heart in the moral
depression af the community. You
might as we'll think to stand in q closely
confined room where there are fifty PEG
pie and yet not breathe the vitiated air,
as to stand in a community where there
Is such a great multitude of the depraved
without somewhat being contaminated.
What is the fire that burns your store
down compared with the conflamation
which consumes your morals? What is
the theft of the gold and silver from
your money safe compared with the
theft ofyour children's virtue?
We are all ready to arraign criminals.
We shout at the top of our voice, "Stop
thiei!" and when the police get on the
track we come out, hatless and in our
slippers, and assist in the arrest. We
come around the bawling rufian aud
hustle him of to justice, when he
gets in prison. what do we do for blmp
With great gusto we put Oh the hand
cuffs and the hopples; but what prepare
ton are we making for the day when
the handouts and the topples come ofp
Society seems to say to these criminals,
william, go there and rot" when {
ought to say, "You are an offender
against the law, but we mean to give
YOU an opportunity to repent; we
Is IA nV~ .-@x