Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1897-11-09

OF one Of our great cities, and the air
was like that of the Black Hole of Cal
cutta. AS the air swept through the
wicket 1t almost knocked me down. No
sunlight. Young men who had COM
mitted their first crime crowded in
among old offenders. / saw there one
woman, with child almost blind, who
had been arrested for the crime of
poverty, who was waiting until the
slow law could take her to the aims
house. where she rightfully belonged;
but she was thrust in there with her
child, amid the most abandoned
wretches Of the town. Many of the
Offenders in that prison sleeping on
the fioor, with nothing but vermin-
covered blanket over them. Those
people, crowded. and wan, and wasted,
ana half-suffocated, and Infatuated.
said to the men. How do you stand it
here? God knows" said one man:
we have to stand it," Oh. they will
pay you when they get out! Where
they burned down one house, they will
burn three. They will strike deeper
the assassin's knife. They are this
minute plotting worse burglaries.
Many Of the jails are the best places
KNOW or to manufacture footpads,
vagabonds and cut-throats. Yale Col
lege is not so we'll calculated to make
scholars, nor Harvard so well calcu-
lated to make scientists, nor Prince
ton so we'll calculated to make theolo-
gians, as the American Jail is calcu-
lated to make criminals. All that these
men do not know OF crime after they
nave been in that style of dungeon for
some time. satanic machinaton cannot
teach them. Every hour these jails
stand, they challenge the Lord AL
mighty to smite the cities. ! call upon
the people to rise in their wrath and
demand reformation. call upon the
JUDGES or our courts to expose the in
fanny. / demand, in behalf of those in
carcerated prisoners, fresh air and
clear sunlight, and. in the name OF him
who had not where to lay his head,
a couch to rest on at night In the
lnsufferable stencil and sickening sur
rouIdings Of some OF the prisons, there
Is nothing but disease for the body,
ldiocy for the mind, and death to the
soul. Stifled air and darkness and YER
min never turned thief into an hon.
est man. We want men like John
Howard and Sir William Blackstone,
and women like Elizabeth Fry, to do
for tho prisons of the United States
what those people did in other days
for the prisons of England. I thank
God for what Isaac T. Hopper and
Doctor Wines and Mr. Harris and
scores OF others have done in the way
OF prison reform; but We want some
thing more radical before upon our
cities will come the blessing OF him
who said: Il was in prison and We
came unto me-"
In this class of uprooting and de-
vouring population and Enthusiastically
officials, Woe unto thee, o land, when
thy king is child, and thy princes
drink in the morning. 1t is great
calamity to city when bad men get
into public authority. Why was it
that in New York there was such I'M
paralleled crime between 1866 and
1871? 1t was because the judges of po-
lice in that city, for the most part.
were as corrupt as the vagabonds that
came before them for trial. These
were the days of high carnival for cleo
ton frauds, assassination and forgery.
We had the Whisky Ring" and the
''rammany Ring" and the Erie
Ring" There was one man during
those years that got one hundred and
twenty-eight thousand dollars in one
year for serving the public. In q few
years it was estimated that there were
fifty millions Of public treasure suuan-
dered. In those times the criminal had
only to wink at the judge, or his law
yer would wink for him, and the ques-
ton was decided for the defendant. OF
the eight thousand people arrested in
that city in one year, only three thou
sand were punished. These little mat
ters were fixed up" while the inter
ests Of society were fixed down" You
know as we'll as that criminal who
escapes only opens the door of other
criminalities. 1t is no compliment TO
public authority when we have in all
tho cities of the country, walking
abroad, men and women notorious for
criminality, unwhipped of justice. They
are pointed out TO you in the street by
day. There you find what are called
the fences" the men who stand be-
tween the thief and the honest man,
sheltering the thief, and at great price
handing over the goods TO the owner
to whom they belong. There you will
find those who are called the skin
ners," the men who hover around Wall
street and State street and Third street
with great sleight of hand in bonds
and stocks. There you find the fu-
neral thieves, the people who go and
sit down. and mourn with families and
pick their pockets. And there you
find the confidence men," who borrow
money of you because they have a
dead child in the house, and want to
bury ii, when they never had house
nor family, or they want to go to
England and get large property there
and they want you to pay their way,
and they will send the money back by
the very next mail There are the
"harbor thieves" the "ShOplifters," the