The Monitor-register., 1897-11-12
munity demand more potential influ-
ences in behalf of these offenders.

first crime crowded in among old offend
ers. l saw there one woman, with a
child almost blind, who had been ar
rested for the crime of poverty. who
was waiting until the slow law could
take her to the almshouse, 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 floor, with nothing but a vermin
covered blanket over them. Those peo-
pie, crowded and wan and wasted and
half suffocated and Infatuated. | said
to the men, How do you stand it here?"
God knows" said one a 1--WE have
to stand it. Oh, they will pay you
when they get outl 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 place | know of to manufacture
footpads, v~agabonds and cutthroats,
Yale college is not so we'll calculated to
make scholars nor Harvard so well cal
SulalCu " IAN oSA1Aplcto hoA . IN
ton so we'll calculated to make theolo-
gians as the American Jail is calculated
to make criminals All that these men
do lot know of crime after they have
been i'll that style of dungeon for some
time satanic m~achination cannot teach
them Every hour these jails stand they
challenge the Lord Almighty to smite
the cities, | call upon the people to
rise in their wrath and demand a ref
ormation call upon the judges of our
courts to expose the infamy | demand
in behalf of those incarcerated prisoners
fresh air and clear sunlight and i'll the
name of him who had not where to lay
his head a couch to rest on at night. In
the insufferable stencil and sickening
surroundings Of some of the prisons
there is nothing but disease for the
body, idioey for the mind and death
for the soul Stified air and darkness
and vermin never turned a thief into an
honest man We want men like John
Howard and Sir William Blackstone
and women like Elizabeth Fry to do
for the prisons of the United States
what those people did in other days for
the prisons of England. l thank God
for what Isaac r Hopper and DR..
Wines and Mr. Harris and scores of
others have done in the way of prison
reform, but we want something more
radical before upon our cities will come
the blessing of him who said, II was
in prison and ye came unto me-.
Untrustworthy Officials.
In this class of %uprooting and devour-
ing population are u~ntrustworthy Off
Gals. "Woe unto thee, o land, when
thy king is a child and thy princes
drink in the morning" 1t is a great
calamity to a city when bad men get
into public authority. Why was it that
in New York there was such unparal-
leled crime between 1865 and 1871? 1t
was because the judges of police 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 election frauds, assassina-
ton and forgery We had the whisky
ring and the Tammany ring and the Erie
ring There was one man during those
years that got $l2S. 900 in one year for
serving the public. In a few years it
was estimated that there were $50, 000,-
900 of public treasure squandered. In
those times the criminal had only to
wink to the Judge, or his lawyer would
wink for him, and the question was de-
cided for the defendant. OF the 5000
people arrested in that city in one year
only 3, 1000 were punished. These little
matters were fixed up, while the in
terests of society were fixed down.
You know as well as l that a criminal
who escapes only opens the door of other
c~riminalities 1t is no compliment to
public authority when we have in all
the cities of the country, walking
abroad, men and women notorious for
criminality, unwhipped of justice. They
are pointed out to you in the street day
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 ''skinners,"
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 funeral
thieves, the people who go and sit down
and mourn with families and pick their
pockets, and there you find the conf
dence men, who borrow money of you
because they have a dead child in the
house and want to bury it, when they
had a house OF a family, or they
wan to go to England and get a 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 pickpookets, famous all over the
cities. Hundreds of them with their
faces in the rogues' gallery, yet doing
nothing for the last five or ten years but
defraud society and escape justice. When
these people go unarrested and unpun-
ished, it is putting a high premium up
Oh vice and saying to the young Grim
inals of this country, "What a safe
thing it is to be a great criminal" Let
the law swoop upon them. Let it be
known in this country that crime will
have no quarter; that the detectives are
after it; that the police club is being
brandished; that the iron door of the
prison is being opened; that the judge
is ready to call the case. Too great le-
niency to criminals is too great severity
to society
The Idle Class.
Among the u~prooting and %devouring
classes in our midst are the idle Of
course l do not refer to the people who
are getting old or to the sick or to those
who cannot get work, but | tell you to
look out for those athletic men and wo-
men who will not work. When the
French nobleman was asked why he
kept busy when he had so large a prop
erty, he said, Il keep on engraving so l
may not hang myself" | do 10 care
who the man is, he cannot afford to be
idle. 1t is from the idle classes that the
criminal classes are made up. Charac-
ter, like water, gets putrid if it stands
still too long Who can wonder that in
this world, where there is SO much to
do, and all the hosts of earth and heav-
en- and hell are plunging into the con-
fict, and angels are flying, and God is
at work, and the universe is a quake
with the marching and countermarch-
ing, that God let's his indignation fall
upon a man who chooses idleness? |
have watched these do nothings who
spend their time stroking their beard.
and retouching their toilet, and criti-
cising industrious people. and pass their
days and nights in barrooms and club
houses, lounging and smoking and
chewing and card playing They are
not only useless. Init thew are danger