The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1893-04-14

key will soon touch the store lock- This
Is an incendiary, and before morning
there will be light on the sky and cry
of Fire! Fire" This is an assassin,
and tomorrow morning there will be q
dead body in one of the vacant lots.
During the daytime these villains in our
cities lounge about, some asleep and
some awake, but when the third watch
of the night arrives, their eye keen, their
brain cool, their arm strong, their foot
feet to fly or pursue, they are ready.
Many Of these poor creatures were
brought up in that way. They were
born in thieves garnet. Their childish
toy was burglars dark lantern. The
first thing they remember was their
mother bandaging the brow Of their ia
Their, struck by the police club. They be-
gan by robbing boys pockets, and now
they have come to dig the underground
passage to the cellar of the bank and are
preparing to blast the gold vault.
Just 80 long as there are neglected
children of the street, just so long We
will have these desperadoes. Some one,
wishing to make good Christian point
and to quote passage of Scripture, ex-
pecting to get Scriptural passage in an
swer, said to one Of these poor lads, cast
out and wretched, when your father
and your mother forsake you. who then
will take you up?" and the boy said,
"The perlice. the perlice."
In the midnight gambling does its
worst work. What though the hours be
slipping away and though the wife be
waiting in the cheerless home? Stir up
the fire. Bring on more drinks. Put up
more stakes. That commercial house
that only little while ago put out sign
of copartnership will this season be
wrecked ON gamblers table, There
will be many a money till that will
spring leak. A member of congress
gambled with member elect and won
$4,000. The old way of getting liv-
ing is so slow. The old way of getting
fortune is so stupid. Come, let us toss
up and see who shall have it, And so
the work goes on, from the wheeling
wretches pitching pennies in rum gro
Gerry up to the millionaire gambler in the
stock market.
GAMBLERS OF ALL CLASSES.
In the midnight hour pass down the
streets of our American cities, and you
hear the click of the dice and the sharp,
keen tap of the poolroom ticker. At
these places merchant princes dismount,
and legislators, tired of making laws,
take respite in breaking them. All
classes of people are robbed by this
crime, the importer of foreign silks and
the dealer in Chatham street pocket
handkerchiefs. The clerks of the store
take hand after the shutters are put
up, and the officers of the court while
away thei. time while the jury is out.
In Baden Baden, when that city was
the greatest of all gambling places on
earth, it was no unusual thing the next
morning in the woods around that city
to find the suspended bodies of suicides.
Whatever be the splendor of the sur
roundings, there is no excuse for this
crime. The thunders of eternal destruc-
ton roll in the deep rumble of that gam
bling tenpin alley, and as men come out
to join the long procession of sin all the
drums of woe beat the dead march of a
thousand souls. In one year in the city
of New York there were 100000 sac
riiced at the gaming table.
Perhaps some of your friends have
been smitten of this sin. Perhaps some
of you have been smitten byit Perhaps
there may be stranger in the house this
morning come from some of the hotels.
Look out for those agents of iniquity
who tarry around about the hotels and
ask you, "Would you like to see the cityY
Yes. "Have you ever seen that splendid
building up town. No. Then the vii
lain will undertake to show you what he
calls the ''lions' and the elephants"
and after a young man, through morbid
curiosity or through badness of soul, has
seen the ''lions" and the elephants" he
will be on enchanted ground. Look out
for these men who move around the
hotels with sleek hats--always sleek hats
and patronizing air and unaccountable
interest about your welfare and enter
tainment. You are fool if you cannot
see through it. They want your money.
In Chestnut street, Philadelphia, while
l was living in that city, an incident oc-
CURED which was familiar to us there.
In Chestnut street, a young man went
into a gambling saloon, lost all his prop
rrty, then blew his brains out, and be-
fore the blood was washed from the floor
by the maid the comrades were shuff1ing
cards again. You see there is more mer-
cy in the highwayman for the belated
traveller on whose body he heaps the
Stones; there is more mercy in the frost
for the flower that it kills; there is more
mercy in the hurricane that shivers the
steamer ON the Long Island coast than
there 10 mercy in the heart of gambler
for his victim.
DRINKING IN ALL RANKS.
In the midnight hour also, drunken
ness does its worst. The drinking will
be respectable at 8 o'clock in the even
ing, little flushed at 8, talkative and
garrulous at 10, at II blasphemous,
at 10 the hat falls off and the man
falls to the floor asking for more drink
Strewn through the drinking saloons Of
the city-fathers, brothers, husbands
sons, as good as you are by nature, per
haps better.
In the high circles of society it il
hushed up. A merchant prince, if he
gets noisy and uncomfortable, is taken
by his fellow jewellers, who try to ge,
him to bed, or take him home, where hi
falls fiat in the entry. Do not wake w
the children. They have had digract
enough. Do not let them know it. Hush
it up. But sometimes it cannot be hush
ed up-when the rum touches the brair
and the man becomes thoroughly fren
zied.
Oh, if the rum touches the brain, yor
cannot hush it up. You do not see thu
worst. In the midnight meetings grea
multitude have been saved. We want {
few hundred Christian men and womer
to come down from the highest circles o.
society to toll amid these wandering ant
destitute ones and kindle up light il
the dark alley, even the gladness O
heaven.
Do not go from your well filled table
with the idea that pious talk is going t.