The Progress., 1894-04-14

=
clcs, and books to improve the mind,
and Christian influence to save the
soul. wish every city iii the United
States had as fine a palace for It's Dung
Mems Christian Association as New
York has Where are you GONG WE'LL
YOU say, Il am going to take long
walk up broadway, and 50 turn around
into the HoWery. am going to study
human life" Good. A walk through
Broadway at eight o'clock at night is
interesting, educating, fascinating, APP
palling, exhIIarating to the last degree.
Stop in front of that theater and see
who goes in. Stop at that saloon and
see who comes out. See the great
tides Of life Surging backward and
forward, and beating against the mar
bic of the curbStoue, and cddyMg down
into the saloons What is that mark
on the face Of that debauchee? 1t Is
the hectic flush of eternal death. " hat
is that woman'S laughter? 1t is the
shrek of a lost soul. Who is that
/ Christian man going along with la
Of anodyne to the dying paupe' on
! Elm street? Who is that belatcd man
on the way to prayer meeting? Who
is that city missionary going to take
box in which to bury child? VINO
are all these clusters Of bright and
beautiful faces? They are going TO
some interesting place Of amusement.
Who is that man going into the dag
store? That is the man who yesterday
lost all his fortune on Wall stree. lie
is going in for a dose of helladonna,
and before morning ii will make no
difference to him whether stocks are
up or down. ! tell You that Broad
wav. between seven and twelve o clock
at night, between the Battery and
Central Park, is an Austerlitz, a GettyS-
burg, a Waterloo, where Kingdoms are
lost or won, and three worlds mingle
in the strife
meet another coming down off the
hotel steps, and I say; "Where are you
going?' You say: II am going with
a merchant of New York who has
promised to show me the underground
life of the city. am his customer, and
he is going to oblige me very much. "
Stop. A business house that tries to
get or keep your custom through such
a process as that is not worthy of you.
There are business establishments in
our cities which have for years been
sending to destruction hundreds and
thousands of merchants. They have
a secret drawer in the counter, where
money is kept, and the clerk goes and
gets it when he wants to take these
visitors to the city through the low
slums of the place. Shall
mention the names of some OF
these great commercial establish
ments? have them on my lips. Shall
l? Perhaps had better leave it to the
young men who, in that process, have
been destroyed themselves while they
. have been destroying others. | care
: not how Understanding the name Of {
J commercial esta blishment if it pro
= poses to get customers or to keep then
by such process as that; drop thei1
. acquaintance They will cheat you
before you get through. They viii
send you a style of goods ditferen
from that which you bought by
sample They will give you under
weight There will be in thu pack
age half-a-dozen less pairs of suspend
y ers than you paid for They will ro'
. you Oh, you feel inyour pockets ane
), sa~: rs my money gomez The,
y have robbed you Of something
, for which dollars and cent
can never give you compensation
When one of these western merchant
" has been dragged by one of those com
! mercial agents through the slums o
= the city, he is not fit to 60 home. Th
10 mere memory Of what he has seen vii
10 be moral pollution, | think you ha
l better let the city missionary and tn
- police attend to the exploration O
% New York and underground life. 70
~ do not 90 to a smallpox hospital TO
- the purpose of exploration. You d
~ not go there, because you are afrai
- =. of contagion. And yet you go int
!, the presence of moral leprOsy that
!" as much more dangerous to you, as tn
ie death of the soul is worse than tn
death of the body. | will undertake
u to say that nine tenths Of the men VIII
/ have been ruined in our cities hav
. been ruined by simply going to oil
e serve without any idea of participa
III ing. The fact is that undergroun
y, city life is a filthy, tuning, reel
~ ing, pestlferous depth which blast
: the eye that looks at it. In tn
y Reign of Terror, in 1892, in Paris, pee
~ pie, escaping from the officers of tn
. law, got into the sewers of the city
GO and crawled and walked through mile
I, of that awful labyrinth, stitied wit
III the atmosphere and almost dead, som
q of them, when they came out to tn
3, river Seine, where they washed then
l., selves and again breathed the fres
u air. But | have to tell you that
oi great many of the men that go on tt
III work of exploration through the III
~ derground cutters of New York Ii
q never come out at any Seine rive