Connecticut western news., 1897-11-11

houses, lounging and smoking and
 chewing and card playing. They are
 not only useless, but they are danger
 oua. How hard it is for them to while
 away the hours!
 Alas, for theml If they do not know
 how to while away an hour, what will
 they do when they have all eternity on
 their hands? These men for awhile
 smoke the best cigars and wear the best
 broadcloth and move in the highest
 spheres, but have noticed that very
 soon they come down to the prison. the
 almshouse or stop at the gallows-
 The police stations of two of our cities
 furnish annually 200, 900 lodgings For
 the most part these 200, 900 lodgings
 are furnished to ablebodied men and
 women, people as able to work as you
 and are. When they are received no
 longer at one police station because
 they are "repeaters, they go to some
 other station, and so they keep moving
 around. They get their food at house
 doors, stealing what they can lay their hands on in the front basement while
 the servant is spreading the bread in the back basement. They will not work. Time and again in the country districts they have wanted hundreds and thou sands of laborers These men will not go They do not want to work. I have tried them. I have set them to saving wood in my cellar to see whether they wanted to work. offered to pay them we'll for 1t. have heard the saw going for about three minutes, and then 1 went down, and, To, the wood, but no
 sawi They are the pest of society, and
 they stand in the way of the Lords poor, who ought to be helped and will
 be helped While there are thousands of industrious men who cannot get any work, these men who do not want any work come in and make that plea. Sleep ing at night at public expense in the
 station house. During the day getting their food at your doorstep. Imprison- ment does not scare them. They would like 1t. Blackwell 8 island or Moyamen- sing prison would be 8 comfortable home for them. They would have no ob- lection to the almshouse, for they like thin soup if they cannot get mock tur- tie.
 Hike for that class of people the scant bill of fare that Paul wrote out for the Thessalonian loafers, 'n any work not, neither should he eat" By what law of God or man is it right that you and should toil day in and day out until our hands are blistered and our arms ache and our brain gets numb and then be called upon to support what in the United States are about 3, 900, 900 loaf CTS? They are very dangerous class. Let the public authorities keep their eyes on them.
 The Oppressed Poor.
 Among the uprooting classes place the oppressed poor. Poverty to a cer tain extent is chastening, but after that, when it drives a man to the wall and he hears his children cry in vain for bread, it sometimes makes him desper- ate. think that there are thousands of honest men lacerated into vagabondism. There are men crushed under burdens for which they are not half paid. While there is no excuse for criminality, even in oppression, state it as simple fact that much of the scoundrelism of the
 
 ment. There are many men and women battered and bruised and stung until the hour of despair has come, and they stand with the ferocity of a wild beast which, pursued until it can run no lon- ger, turns round, foaming and bleeding, to fight the hounds.
 There is a vast underground city life that is appalling and shameful. It wal lows and steams with putrefaction. You go down the stairs, which are wet aud decayed with filth, and at the bottom you find the poor victims on the floor, cold, sick, three-fourths dead, sinking into a still darker corner under the gleam of the lantern of the police There has not been breath of fresh air in that room for five years literally.
 There they are, men, women, children, blacks, whites, Mary Magdalene with out her repentance and Lazarus without his God. These are the "dives'' into
 which the piokpockets and the thieves l go, as well as great many who would
 like 8 different life, but cannot get it. These places are the sores of the city which bleed perpetual corruption. They
 are the underlying volcano that threat
 sns us with Caracas earthquake. It 1 rolls and roars and surges and heaves and rocks and blasphemes and dies
 And there are only two outlets for it.
 the police court and the potter's field.
 In other words, they must either go to prison or to hell. Oh, you never saw it, | you say. You never will see it until on
 the day when these staggering wretches shall come up in the light ofsthe judg-
 ment throne and while all hearts are
 being revealed God will ask you what
 you did to help them.
 There is another layer of poverty and | Restitution not so squalid, but almost as helpless. You hear their inoessant wailing for bread and clothes and fire. Their eyes are sunken Their cheek bones stand out. Their hands are damp | with slow consumption. Their flesh is | puffed up with dropsies. Their breath is
 like that of charnel house. They hear { the roar of the wheels of fashion over
 head and the gay laughter of men and | maidens and wonder why God gave to
 others so much and to them so little. Some of them thrust into an infdelity
 like that of the poor German girl who. | when told in the midst of her wretched-
 ness that God was good, said: "No,
 no good God. Just look at me- No good
 God"
 Tho Christian Duty.
 In these American cities, whose cry
 of want interpret, there are hundreds
 and thousands of honest poor who are | dependent upon individual city and
 state charities. If all their voices could
 come up at once, it would be a groan
 that would shake the foundations of the
 city and bring all earth and heaven to
 the rescue, but for the most part it suf-
 fers unexpressed. It sits in silence
 gnashing its teeth and sucking the blood
 of its own arteries, waiting for the judg- | manf dax Oh | shnnld not xuondar if