Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1893-04-14

OF nope mas uaWneu on tldJ brow
for many year. No ray of hope will
ever dawn on that brow. But the
light has gone out. Do not strike an
other light. IL will be a mockery to
kindle another light in such place as
that. Pass out and pass down the
street. Our cities of Brooklyn and
New York and all our great cities are
full of such homes, and the worse time
the midnight.
Do you know it is in the. midnight
that the criminals do their worst work?
At half past eight o'clock you will
find them in the drinlSing-saloon, but
toward twelve o'clock they 60 TO their
garrets, they get out their tools, then
they start on the street. Watching on
either side for the police, they go to
their work of darkness This is a
burglar. and the false key will soon
touch the store lock. This is an in
cendiary, and before morning there
will be a light on the sky, and cry of
Fire! fire'' This is an assassin, and
tomorrow morning there will be a
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 fleet to fly or pursue,
they are ready. Many of those poor
creatures were brought up in that way
i hey were born in thieves, garnet.
Their childish toy was a burglars
darl-lantern. The first thing they
remember is their mother bandaging
the brow of their father, struck by the
police club. They began 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 as long as there are neglected
| children on the street, just so long we
will have these desperadoes Some
one, wishing TO make a good Christian
point and to quote passage OF Scrip
| ture, expecting to get Scriptural
| passage in answer, said to one of these
poor lads, cast out and wretched:
when your father and mother forsake
you, who then will take you up?' and
the boy said THE perlice, the
perlice!'
In the midnight gambling does it's
| 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 a leak. A member of Con-
| gress gambled with member-elect
| and won $4,000. The old way of
! getting n living 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-grocery up to the
mill onaire gambler in the stock
market.
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 pool-room
ticker. AT these places merchant
princes dismount, and legislators tired
of making laws, take a respite in
breaking them. All class of people
are robbed by this crime, the importer
of foreign silks and the dealer in
Chatham Street Observation-Disclosures.
The clerks of the store take a hand
after the shutters are put up, and the
officers of the court while away
their time while the jury is out. In
Baden-B 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 the
city. to find the suspended bodies OF
suicides. Whatever be the splendor OF
the surroundings, there is no excuse
for this crime. The thunders of eter-
nal destruction roll in the deep rum BILE
of that gambling ten-pin alley, and as
men come out to join the long process
sion of sin, all the drums of woe beat
the dead march of thousand souls.
In one year, in tie city of New York,
there were $4,000 sacrificed at the
gaming table. Perhaps some of youI
friends have been smitten by it. Per-
haps, there may be a 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 city?' Yes. "Have you
ever seen that splendid building ur
town." No. Then the villain will
undertake to show you what
he calls the 'lions' and the
elephants" and after young
man, through mOrOlu curiosity
or through badness of soul, has seer
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 unac
countable interest about your welfare
and entertainment. You are n fool i.
you cannot see through it. They wan
your money. In Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, while l was living il
that city, an incident occurred which
was familiar TO us there. In Chestnut
Street a young man went into gamb
ling saloon, lost all his property, ther
blew his brains out, and before tn,
blood was washed from the floor by
the maid, the comrades were shutting
cards again. You see there is NOR,
mercy in the highwayman for the be
lated traveller on whose body he heap!
the stones, there is more mercy in tn,
frost for the flower that it kills, ther,
is more mercy in the hurricane tina
shivers the steamer on the Long ISLAND
coast, than there is mercy in tn,
heart of gambler for his victim
In the midnight hour, also, drunken
ness does its worst. The drinking will
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