The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1894-04-09

GOOQ- L on Will nnQ tner0 gym
nastics to strengthen the mus
cles, and books to improve the mind,
and Christian influence to save the
soul / wish every city in the United
States had as fine a palace for its Young
Mems Christian Association as New
York has. Where are you going? Well =
you say, 81 am going to take long
walk up Broadway, and so turn around
into the Bowery- am going to study
human life Good walk through
Broadway at eight o'clock at night is
interesting. educating, fascina ting, APP
palling, exhllarating 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
BILE of the curbstoue. and eddying down
into the saloons What is that mark
on the face of that debauchee? 1t is
the hectic flush of eternal death What
is that woman's laughter? It is the
shrek of a lost soul Who is that
Christian man going along with vial
of anodyne to the dying pauper on
Elm street? Who is that belated man
on the wav to a prayer meeting? Who
is that city missionary going to take
box in which to bury a child? Who
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 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 it will make no
difference to him whe Their stocks are
up or down L tell you that Broad
way, 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.
1 meet another coming down off the
hotel steps. and say: Where are you
going?' You say: 81 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 esta blishments 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 esta blish-
ments? L have them on my lips Shall
1? Perhaps 1 had better leave it to the
young men who, in that process, have
been destroyed themselves while they
have been destroying others l care
not how high-sOunding the name of a
commercial esta bIishnent if it pro-
poses to get customers or to keep them
by such a process as that; drop their
acquaintance. They will cheat you
before you get through. They viii
send you a style of goods different
from that which you bought by
sample. They will give you under
weight There will be in the pack
age half-a- dozen less pairs of suspend
ers than you paid for. They will rob
you oh, you feel in your pockets and
say: rs nv money gomez They
have robbed you of something
for which dollars and cents
can never give you compensation
When one of these western merchants
has been dragged by one of those com
mercial agents through the slums of
the city, he is not fit to go home The
mere memory of what he has seen will
be moral pollution 1 think you had
better let the city missionary and the
police attend to the exploration of
New York and underground life. You
do not go to a smallpox hospital for
the purpose of exploration. You do
not go there, because you are afraid
of contagion. And yet you go into
the presence of a moral leprosy that is
as much more dangerous to you, as the
iu ffo, l1o
death of the body. 1 will undertake
to say that nine-tenths of the men vino
have been ruined in our cities have
been ruined by simply going to OBJ
serve without any idea of participant
ing. The fact is that underground
city life is a filthy, Tuning, reek-
ing, pestlferous depth which blasts
the eye that looks at it. In the
Reign of Terror, in 1892, in Paris, peo-
pie escaping from the officers of the
law, got into the sewers of the city,
and crawled and walked through miles
of that awful labyrinth, stified with
the atmosphere and almost dead, some
of them, when they came out to the
river Seine. where they washed them
selves and again breathed the fresh
air. But / have to tell you that a
great many of the men that go on the
work of exploration through the I'M
derground cutters of New York life
never come out at any Seine river
where they can wash off the pollu ton
of the moral sewage Stranger, if one !
of the representatives of a commercial
establishment proposes to take you
and show you the sights of the
town and underground New York, say
to him: please, sir, what part do
Won rrOOOSea TO show Tne2"