Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1896-04-18

The young men and maidens who
dropped their winter toggery that
they might startle the town in their
Easter finery doubtless regretted the
change the next day. Fashion is
great factor in life, and all we, like
sheep, recognize the potency of the
sway. The idiotic custom OF opening
our schools, public and private, during
the blistering heats of September is
adhered to simply because it is the
habit, and therefore the fashion OF
the time. An equally foolish dic,um
is that on Easter Sunday new hats,
new coats, new bonnets, new gowns,
are worn, regardless of the temperature
Many people have an idea its good
scheme to take off the underwrappings
of thickness and warmth simply be-
cause OF the arrival of specified date.
There was a bank president in Bro ok
lyn many years ago who vigorously
chewed tobacco and religiously wore
whiskers six months in the year, while
with ironclad resolution he gave up
the mastication of the weed and re-
lentlessly forbade the cultivation of
his cheek crop during the other six
months. His friends and neighbors
regarded him crank. So he was and
these clothes-changers are just like
him.
Five lives were lost by recent fire
in tenement house belonging to the
Trinity church corporation on Hud-
son street, New York, and the corr
oner's jury says that the neglect of
that corporation is responsible there
for. The building was ramshackle
affair, with board and paper partitions
cutting it up into small tenements;
with only one narrow and dark stair
case, and no fire escapes. There
once was back stairway, but a few
more rooms could be made and few
more dollars of rent obtained by TAX
ing this stairway out, so out it went.
The building was old, its floors, timbers
and partitions-made of IL single thick
ness of board with paper pasted on
both sides were us dry as finder, and
fire rushed through it rs though dried
prairie grass. The firemen agree that
had there been a rear exit, or, more
important still, fire escapes, every
<enant could and probably would have
got out safely. The coroner's jury
said that these victims of the fire came
to their death Sowing to the neglect
of Trinity church corporation of the
city of New York, owners of said
premises, in failing to provide fire.
escapes according to law" The evil
dence before the jury amply justified
the verdict.
This is the second time within
comparatively brief period that Trim
ity church bus been convicted OF liv-
ing on money taken from the poor
and degraded in return for the use of
unfit and dangerous lodging places.
Trinity church corporation has been
the wicked partner in this business,
and has owned and rented these un-
sanitary novels and fire traps, exhibit
ing all the characteristics of grasping
landlordism, and the familiar attempt
has been made to load all the respon.
sibility for this wickedness on to
that organization. All the time
the church itself, the professedly
Christian and benevolent organization
whose only excuse for being is that it
brings peace, goodwill and comfort
to the men and women who need it
most, has been taking this ill-gotten
money and using it. The salaries OF
its clergy are p,id in part from it; SC
with its fine music, aud so--alas-with
its charities.