Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1893-02-15
EWcIIoNs IN AMsRIcA.

EvlCTlONS IN AMERICA.
land But Pity the Poor of Your Own
Country.
The sympathies of Christendom have
been aroused by graphic descriptions
of evictions in Ireland. and for the vic
Tins of landlord cruelties money has
flowed in a steady stream for years past
from the United States, to mitigate
their sufferings And when the peo-
pie OF the United States were satisfied
that portions of czar-cursed Rnssia were
in the grasp of famine, money by thou
sands and food by ship loads went for
ward. Such generosity is worthy of
eulogy. 1t is eloquent of the great
heartedness of the American people,
who hearing of woes in foreign lands
Immediately set to work to alleviate
them But while the great American
heart was beating responsive to the
call for help in foreign lands it had no
throb for the wretchsd creatures who,
evicted from tenements in New York,
were forced upon the streets to starve
ano perish-infants. youth, the old and
the infirm, God d-forsaken and forsaken
foodless and shelterless-multiplie
thousands every year are treated as if
they were wild beasts or vagabond
dogs. About this there is no mistake;
the official records confirm the state
ment and the figures are appalling.
Manifestly, it does little service to
this vast mass of suffering humanity to
publish the startling facts, nevertheless
1t is well for the great body of Amer
lean citizens to know ''how the other
half lives" and still better, perhaps, if
they know why 'the other half is
doomed to live on the ragged edge of
starvation during all the days of the
round year.
1t may be well to note in this connec-
ton that the congress of the United
States appointed a committee to investi-
gate the sweating SYSTEM" and to as
certain the surroundings of the miser-
able victims of ''man's inhumanity to
man" and not only to man, but to wom-
en- and children. When that report is
published we predict it will open the
eyes of the country and permit the peo-
pie to look down into the bottomless pit
of suffering and degradation, and it is
possible some good will result; but upon
this point we are skeptical, because it
happens to be states right to enact
laws well calculated to robe Heaven in
gloom, by which one class becomes
fabulously rich off the tears and
pangs and degradation of another
class. In the cities of New
York, Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago
the sweating system" cries to Heaven.
1t is a system written all over with the
Endorsements of the devil and the dens
in which it is practiced come nearer be-
ing hells than anything ever discovered
by Milton or Dante, and it is this hor-
rifying System, involving sickness and
poverty, that contributes largely to the
evicting business in the city of New
York.
The tenement house is the outgrowth
| of our boasted civilization, and the
same is true of the colossal fortunes
which capivate beholders who visit
Gotham-more properly the Sodom of
the continent-where 500, 900 is con-
| tributed to furnish old Trinity church
with new pair of front doors, while
| within the shadows of it's steeples men,
women and children perish for the lack
OF food, clothing and shelter, or live
| like vermin in tenement houses under
conditions indescribably inferior to
Vanderbilts horse stables, or indeed,
the average penitentiary.
These outcasts are the victims of the
sweating SYSTEM" and of the tene-
ment system. the twin monstrosities
which disfgure civilization as leprosy
does its victims, which bring religion
into disgrace and compels men to won
der at the manifest Indifference of an
'overruling Providence"
writer who has given the subject
of evictions in the city of New York
special attention and whose figures are
authentic, says that from October, 1891,
to September, 1892, one year, there
were evicted in the city of New York
29, 72O families, and that makiug the
average five persons to the family, a
total OF 14s,600 human beings were
made outcasts to all intents and pur-
poses" and that, too, while 'in radius
of a comparatively few blocks not less
than two hundred millionaires resided,
whose aggregate wealth amounts TO
to not less than sS, 900, 600, ,O0O"
Such things, we are aware, are thrust
aside as of little consequence compared
with the all-absorbing topics of the
times, and yet they are claiming more
attention now than ever before since
the plutocratic class discovered that to
rob those who work of not more than
i've cents day created fund swelling
to millions of dollars annually, aud
since they could pursue their piracies
and violate no statute, criticisms did
not disturb the serenity of their minds.
1t is possible, however, that even in
New York public sentiment may be so
aroused that something may be done
| whereby the evictions of the poor and
| friendless may be reduced in numbers
and their sufferings abated; and it NAV
be that the report of the congressional
committee, when it is published, will
let In so much light upon the sweating
system abomination as will compel
states and municipalities to act as be.
come civilized communities, and put
an end to the prevailing savagery which
now disgraces them v. Debs,
In Locomotive Firemen's Magazine.
Days of Search for Bira Lovers.
The army of birds in autumn in &
measure escapes the notice of the casua
observer, because at this season bird,
are wilder and less voluble than in sum
mer. In autumn they congregate, and
roaming about, seek remote and unfre
quented places. In summer they are ir
pairs, widely dispersed, indeed, but tiet
to the spot that harbors the nest anG