The Caucasian. (Clinton, N.C.) 188?-1913, 1893-06-08
IN MODERN BABYLON.
ras CURSE or PovERTYls a CITY or
TO-DAY.

Dead ia Hope
NE@ YoRK. June Rev. Thomas
Dixon. Jr.. preached today the seventh
pf the series OF sermons on tho Coates Of
Hell In Modern Babylon" The subject
o. toiay's sermon was The Curse g
Poverty in the Modern City" The text
chosen was from Proverbs Xxx, 8, y:
Give me neither poverty nor riches;
feel me with the food that is needful for
,te. lest Ike fail and deny thee, and say,
Who - the Lord? or lest | be poor. and
| steal. and use profsnely the name of my
| God
There is poverty that is respectable.
| There Is a poverty that is the mother OF
greatness 1t is not Of this poverty that
speak today The cradles Of the poor
have been those that have rocked the
F! greatest men Of the earth. But by this
we mean "a decent poverty in which there
/ has been coarse food and coarse cloth
ing and yet food enough TO keep hun
ger from the door. clothes enough to
! keep the cold from the body. Poverty
! that means hunger and cold and naked
ness and rags Is u curse and only curse.
| 1t Is this shadow that falls across the
streets Of the city as nowhere else on the
earth today. There are poor people in
the country. but they are milllonaires IN
| all that constitutes a life as compared
with the poor Of the city.
1t is a continuous amazement to me
thai people should leave the country and
crowd into the city, the city which Car
lyle graphically described, 1.-The great
foul city. rafting. crawling. smoking,
shrinking a CHASTITY heat Of fermented
brick work, pouring out poison at every
pore" And yet they come in tens, in
hundreds in thousands, in tens of thou
sands every year. crowding the already
crowded trades, crowding the already
crowded dens in which human beings
live like beasts. They leave clear skies.
They leave pure air. They leave kindly
friends, sympathetic neighbors. They
leave earth, in other words, for hell, and
still they come.
Could not some kind angel whisper to
them when they make up their minds to
. leave the old country home that they
are taking their departure from earth
and hope and descending to the lower
regions? Thu only possible explanation
is that they are ignorant. They do not
know the city They do not know what
it is. They do not understand until it is
) too late to retrace their steps. 1t is SIM
ply impossible with language to ade-
quately convey to the average mind the
, facts in the condition Of the life Of the
thousands who live in our cities. Their
poverty is indescribable; their wretched-
ness something unthinkable.
The poverty of the city IS an open door
!. to the deepest hell, and through it daily
cro,od countless thousands.
First-Because poverty in the city
means loss of home There is no home
life among the poor of the great city.
, The word home is stricken from the lam
. guage of man. The poor live in den.
| They exist in tenement, and the tene-
ment life, with its attendant horrers, is
constantly on the increase in our great
cities. In New York city it has swallow
ed up all the other life practically. The
: tenement has. like huge monster, de-
voured the home. 1t may be said that
New York city lives in the tenement;
that New York city lives in the second
|
three hundred thousand people in this
city exist in second and third class ten
> ements. This constitutes the people.
The landlords are an Insignificant fac
L ton. People who live in separate houses
are not of the people; they are the ex-
s ception. To every so called house in
the city of New York there is an average
: of 10 jewellers. London averages seven.
f In what is known as the tenement house
district there are no fewer than 276, 00(
families packed together. In this quarter
: !. it goes without saying that the death
l rate reaches its most horrible height
e and public morality touches depth Of
degradation before which philanthro
pists and Christians and evangelist
stand aghast Poverty and disease ani
G crime are the portion of these people.
U Second-Such poverty is the open doo1
to theft because the wages are SO low
! that the temptation to wrongdoing l.
u well nigh resistless. Give me not pov
t ertyr cries the ancient seer, 'lest
e steal" How hundreds and thousands o.
u people in the cities, with their wages
+ can keep from stealing is a miracle. PEG
4 pie are entitled to bread. A man is Ger
h tainly entitled to existence. He is en-
- titled to bread to eat. He is entitled t,
= enough clothes to keep him from freez
} ing He is entitled to house to cove
+ his head, and he has right to work
e But these things are denied hundred
s and thousands of people today in tn
a city. woman was discovered the othe
n day who had starved to death. Me-
J. commit crime daily that they may ge
! the comforts of penitentiary. the lux
e e ury of a stay on Blackwell's island.
=, , Shopgrls enter their life full of vail
l. hopes. They do not expect to be drudge
4, all their lives. They work during tn
ID leisure season from o to ID hours day
d many Of them in Easements lighted b
gas and electricity In the crowded sea
sons they put on blue glasses. The onl
Is comfort they have is the fact that the
have company in their misery. Durin
q the busy season they work regularly 1
>, and l2 hours, and during the rush till 1
:, and II o'clock at night. The shopgirl'
~ income is barely enough to furnish food
1t is not enough to furnish clothes. Sh
u does her best to initiate the rich whor
le she sees. The fine lady who bends owe
in the counter is studied with minute care
IN She has read the stories of working girl
AZ marrying rich mobiles. She dreams @
81 meeting this man of paper and bein
n lifted from her poverty and grind.
~ HELEN CAMPBELL.
As Mrs. Campbell has SO truthful
he said, she knows far better what const
= tutes the life of the rich than the nc
1
re ever know Of the Life of the poor. Sb
Ia initiates where she can. Her chean sho
IS; has French heel, her neck its tin do
rt collar. Gilt rings, bracelets and bar
&c gies, trizzled bangs, cheap trimmings Z
TO every ofsser swallow up her earnings.
"a Is an age OF Cheat and swindle-it is a
a age OF imitation. She knows it an
- Knows its power. She buys an oper