Capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1893-1895, 1894-04-11

ing to study human life. Good. A
walk through Broadway at O'Clock at
night is interesting, educating, fascinat-
ing appalling, exhilarating 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 for
ward and beating against the marble Of
;he curbstone and eddying down into
the saloons. What is that mark on the
flce of that dobauchee? 1t is the hectic
ilCsh Of eternal death What is that
woman's laughter? 1t is the shrek Of a
lost soul.
Who is that Christian man going
along with vial Of anodyne to the dy-
ing pauper on Elm street? Who is that
belated man on the way 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 GO
ing to some interesting place of amuse-
ment.
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 q dose of belladonna, and
before morning it will make no differ
ence to him whether stocks are up or
down. l tell you that Broadway, be-
tween Z and 2 o'clock at night, between
the Battery and Central Park, is an Aus
terlitz, a Gettysburg, a Waterloo, where
kingdoms are lost or won and three
worlds mingle i'll the strife.
LIES DARK SIDE.
meet another coming down off the
hotel steps, and say, Where are you
going?'' You say: II am going with a
merchant of New York who has prom
ised to show me the underground life Of
the city 1 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 establishments?
have them on my lips Shall l? Per-
haps had better leave it to the young
men who in that process have been de-
stroyed themselves while they have b zen
destroying others. care not how high
sounding the name of a commercial es-
tablishment if it proposes to get custom
ers or to keep them by such process as
that. Drop their acquaintance. They
will cheat you before you get through.
They will send you style Of goods diff
ferent from that which you bought by
sample. They will give you under
weight. There will be in the package
half dozen less pairs of suspenders than
you paid for. They will rob you Oh,
you feel in your pockets and say, us my
money gomez" They have robbed you Of
something for which dollars and cents
can never give you compensation.
When one Of thesewestern merchants
has been dragged by one of those com
mercial agents through the slums OF the
CITY, he is not fit to go home Tho mere
memory of what he has seen will be
moral pollution. | think you had bettel
let the city missionary and the police at
tend to the exploration of New York anc
underground life. You do not go to
smallpox hospital for the purpose OF ex
ploration. You do not go there because
Won are afraid Of contagion. And ye
YOU go into the presence Of moral lep
ROSY that is as much more dangerous tC
YOU as the death of the soul is Wors'
than the death of the body. l will un
dertake to say that nine-tenths OF Tin
men who have been ruined III our clue
have been ruined by simply going to OBJ
serve without any idea of participating
The fact is that underground city life i
a filthy, fuming, reeling, pestlterou
depth which blasts the eye that looks a
it. In the reign Of terror III 1872 II
Paris people escaping from the oilcer
of the law got into the sewers OF Tn
citv and crawled and walked through
miles of that awful labyrinth, stltle,
with the atmosphere and almost dead
some of them, when they came out t
the river Seine, where they washe.
themselves and again breathed the tresI
air. But | have to tell you that grea
many of the men who go ON the work G
exploration through the underground
cutters of New York life never come GU
at any Seine river where they can was
off the pollution of the moral sewage
Stranger, if one of the representative
of a commercial establishment propose
to take you and show You the sights,
of tine town and underground New orr
say to him, please, sir, what part d
you propose TO show me?"
EXPLORING THE sLUMs.
About 10 years ago as a minister
religion felt had divine commlsslo
to explore the iniquities of our cities.
did not ask counsel of my session or N
presbytery OF Of the newspapers, bI
asking the conipanionship of thr,
prominent police officials aud two OF n
elders Of my church ! unrolled my con
mission, and it said; "Son Of man. dl
into the wall. And when ! had digge
Nmn n