Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1894-05-03

who goes In. Stop at that saloon and
see who come out. See the great tides
OF life surging backward and forward,
and beating against the marble of the
curbstone, and cldying down into the
saloons. What is that mark Oh the
race OF that debauclee? 1t is the hectic
flush Of eternal death. What is that
W0Mn's laughter? 1t is the shrek of
a lost soul. Who is that Christian man
going along with a vial Of anodyne to
the dying pauper on Elm street? Who
is that belatcd man on the was to a
prayer meeting? Who is that city mis-
sionary going to take box in which to
bury child? Who are all these clus-
ters OF bright and beautiful faces? They
are going to some interesting place of
amusement. Who is that man going
into the drug store That is the man
who yesterday lost all his fortune on
Wall street. He is going in for dose
of belladonna, and before morning 1t
will make no difference to him whether
stocks are up or down. I tell you that
Broadway, between Z and IL o'clock
at night, between the Battery and Cen
trail Park, is an Austerlitz, a Gettys-
burg, q Waterloo, where kingdoms are
lost or won, and three worlds mingle
in the strife.
l meet another coming down off the
hotel steps, and l say: Where are you
going?" You say: Il am going with
merchant of New York, who has prom
Used to show me the underground life
life Of the city. am his customer,
10 fn
much" Stop! A business house that
tries to get or keep your custom
through such 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 co,ln-
ter 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 n1en-
ton the names of some Of these great
commercial establishments? l have
them on my lips? Shall 1? Perhaps
had better leave it to the young men
who, in that process, have been de-
stroyed themselves while they have
been destroying others. I care not how
high-sounding the names of a CONNER
cial establishment il it proposes to get
customers or to keep them by such a
process as that; drop their acquaint-
ance. They will cheat you before you
get through. They will send you a
style Of goods different from that
which you bought by sample. They
will give you underweight. There will
be in the packages half a dozen less
pairs of sllsDenders than you paid for.
They will rob you. Oh. you feel in
your pockets and say, "Is my money
gomez" They have robbed you of some
thing for which dollars and cents can
never give you compensation. When
one of these Western merchants has
been dragged by one of those CONNER
cial agents through the slums of the
city he is not fit to go homo. The mere
memory Of what he has seen will be
moral pollution. I think you had bet
ter let the city missionary and the po-
lice attend to the exploration Of New
York and underground life. You do
not so to a smallpox hospital for the
purpose Of exploration. You do not go
there because you are afraid of con-
tagion. And yet, you go into the pres
ence Of moral leprosy that is as much
more dangerous to you as the Death of
the soul is worse than the death of the
body. I will undertake to say that
nine-tenths of the men who have been
ruined in our cities have been ruined
by simply going to observe without any
idea Of participating. The fact is, that
underground city life is filthy,
Tuning. reeking pestiverous depth
which blasts the eye which looks at it.
In the reign Of terror in 1892, in Paris.
people. escaping from the officers of
the law. got into the sewers of the city,
and crawled and walked through miles
Of that awful labyrinth. stiflcd with the
atmosphere and almost dead some Of
them, when they came out to the River
Seine. where they washed themselves
and again breathed the fresh air But
have to tell you that great many of
the men who go on the work of ex-
ploration through the underground gut
ters of New York life never come out
at any Seine river where they can wash
off the pollution of the moral sewage
Stranger. if one Of the representatives
of commercial establishment pro-
poses to take YOU and show you the
Sights Of the town and underground
=
what part do you propose to show
me?"
About sixteen years ago. as min
lister of religion. I felt I had divine
commission to explore the iniluities of
our cities I did not ask counsel of my
session, or my presbytefy. Or of the
new spapers. but asking the companion
ship Of three prominent police officials
and two of the elders Of my church,
I unrolled my commission, and it said:
"Son of man. dig into the wall: and
when I had digged into the wall, be-
hold door; and he said, 60 in and see
the wicked denominations that are done
here; and went in. and saw, and be-
holdr' Brought up in the country.
and surrounded by such parental care,
I had not until that time seen the
llaunts of iniquity. BY the grlce of
! God defended. l had never sowed my
wild oats" had somehow been able
to tell from various sources something
about the iniquities of the great cities,
and to preach against them; but saw,
in the destruction of great multi
tude Of the people, that there must be