Connecticut western news., 1893-05-25

originate new scheme for flooding the world with this illustrated filth. At least half dozen of these villainous pub hcations have originated in New York within the past year and have met, some of them, with remarkable sales. A paper called Music and Drama is now being issued in New York which is dirtier to the square inch that even The Police Gazette has dared to be since it's publica- tion. Another villainous sheet called Broadway likewise touches lower depths than The Police News. So we might name scores of other papers that seek to live as the distributors of filth.
 WORSE THAN soDoM AND GoMoRRAH.
 The amount of obscene matter circu- lated today in pictures is something in- calculable to those who have not inves- tigated it. The picture has come to be part of literature as much as the let ters itself. Our daily newspapers are now all illustrated. Our weekly news papers are using illustrations. The pow CT of a picture to bless or to curse is as the power of the living, vital personality itself. We look at the frescoes of buried Pompei with disgust and horror and strive in our imagination to picture the depth of their degradation. We look with amazement upon the scenes at Cor inth in which the worship of Aphrodite was conducted. But Corinth in her deg radiation and lPompeii in her vulgarity of art, if they should rise from the dead, would certainly find new lessons in their art from their modern ancestors.
 The vendors of obscene matter in our cities have gone to lower depths than the ancient debauchee of these old world centers. And not only so, but men who pretend to responsibility in the business world use these means of public de- bauchery to advertise their wares. Every saloon is filled with lascivious pictures. Every cigar store is full of the most vicious prints. Every whisky and beer manufactory uses the vilest possible pic lures which they think will pass the notice of the police and the district at torney for the purpose of attracting the crowd of boys. that passes the open show window.
 When I returned to Cleveland on the day referred to after the conversation with the newsboy on the train, he brought to my hotel his sample album of pictures. If man had told me there were persons in America mean enough to take such pictures, devil enough to sell them as business, would utterly have refused to credit the statement for a moment. This album represented stock of negatives representing hun dreds of subjects both of men and wom- en in every conceivable condition and position. Their bestiality is something indescribable, is something inconceivable to those who have not seen them. It simply passes the power of the average human mind to believe such things to be possible till after they have been seen.
 These pictures not only are made to represent every possible sin of lust and lustful passion, but every unnamable sin and debauchery of the human body. Not only those for which Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, but acts of degradation at which Sodom and Go- morrah would stand aghast if they could rise from the. dead and see them today. These pictures are issued by the hun -dreds and the thousands in almost every great city-and by great city I mean a city of 100000 inhabiiants-in America. The photographer who took them from life, who prints and sells them, is doing business on one of the principal streets today in Cleveland. and the newsboys running out from Cleveland have acted and are acting, unless arrested, as his personal agents. This is but sample of what is carried on on larger scale from Chicago as center, and from all our great cities, with more or less se- crecy, but with large success.
 Third-We note the fact in the grow ing power and influence of the criminal daily newspaper. This successful sheet, which is practically report of daily crime, is the mother of the whole brood of modern vicious letters The editor of the modern newspaper is the one man who in our daily life sweeps it's whole gamut. He alone is in position to speak with authority and with freedom. Car lyle declares: 1.-The true Church of Eng land at this moment lies in the editors of it's newspapers. These preach to the people daily, weekly, admonishing kings themselves, advising peace or war with an authority that only the first reform CTS and the long past class of popes were possessed of, inf1icting moral censure, imparting moral encouragement, in all ways diligently administering the dis cipline of the church." This is undoubt- edly the position and the privilege of the modern editor, and yet what are the painful facts with which we are con- fronted?
 The motto of the successful newspaper in the line of successful news of today is to give the people what they want and give them the very worst of 1t. This editor has the power to poison the minds and unnerve the arms of thousands daily with hatred, lies, islanders and ap- peals to the basest instincts of the ani- nal, or to lift the world from the slum- Der of @ night to the beauties of day in the arms of love, hope, courage, faith. The successful monger editor chooses the former. He should be the minister of the Most High God, charged with keeping the great fires of truth that burn along the world 8 highways, that sweep through darkness into the infinite and eternal, and yet, like Judas Iscariot of old, he betrays for gold and silver this sacred trust. Charged with the life of those to whom he ministers, he betrays innocence and weakness for the sake of gain. Charged with protecting the wayfarer, he is the friend of the highwayman and the assassin. And he knows better. These sheets are edited with genius, and their editors present to the world the most shameless example of the intellect ual prostitute.
 THE CROTON RESERVOIR.
 A distinguished reformer who has made this subject a life study says on this point: "Let man be discovered throwing barrel of paris green or ar senic into the Croton reservoir, and he would be almost lynched. What name shall be applied to the newspaper that covers up the letters of the ibertine, the secret doings of the rake, the minute de- scriptions of revolting crimes, the utter ances of lips lost to all shame, the ooze of corruption from the debauched, and weaving that into highly sensational story decks it with flying colors and peddles it out each day for the sake of