The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1897-11-12

, 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
never had house or 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 pickpockets, 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
on vice and saying to the young Grim
inals of this country, What safe
thing it is to be great criminal" Let
the law swOop upon til III. Let il De
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-
nlency to criminals is too great severity
to society.
The Idle Class.
Among the uprooting and devouring
classes in our midst are the idle Of
course 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 |
may not hang myself. " do not 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-
f1ict, and angels are flying, and God is
at work, and the universe is 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, but they are danger
GUS 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, tha,J
almshouse or stop at the gallows.
The police stations of two of our cities
furnish annually 300 600 lodgings For
the most part these 900 900 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. | have
tried them have set them to saving
wood i'll my cellar to see whether they
wanted to work. | offered to pay them
we'll for it. have heard the saw going
for about three minutes, and then l
went down, and 10, the wood, but no
saw! They are the pest of society, and
they stand i'll 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 i'll 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 therl They would
like it Blackwell S island or Moyamen
sing prison would be a comfortable
home for them They would have no OBJ
lection to the almshouse, for they like
thin soup if they cannot get mock tur-
tie.
like for that class of people the scant
bill of fare that Paul wrote out for the
loafers, If any work not,
neither should he cat. " By what law of
God or man is it right that you and |
should toll 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 2, 600, 900 loaf
ers? They are a very dangerous class
Let the public authorities keep their
lyes ON them.