The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1897-11-19


And then l committed a crime again,
and L was broug Int up before the same
Judge, and he said: 'YoA rascal? And
after awhile L committed some other
crime, and 1 was brought before the
same Judge. and he said: You ought
| to be hanged" That is all they had
done for him in the way of reforma-
| ton and salvation. "Oh," you say,
these people are incorrigible." sup
pose there are hundreds of persons
this day lying in prison hunks who
would leap up at the prospect of re-
formation, if society would only allow
them a way into decency and respect
ability. oh" you say, Il have no
patience with these rogues." L ask
you in reply, how much better would
You have been under the same
circumstances? Suppose your mother
/ had been n blasphemer and your
father a sOt, and you had started
! life with body stuffed with evil pro-
clivities, and you had spent much of
your time in a cellar amid obscenities
/ and cursing, and at ten years of age
you had been compelled to go out and
/ steal, battered and banged at night if
/ you came in without any spoils; and
/ suppose your early manhood and wom-
| anhood had been covered with rags and
| filth, and decent society had turned its
back upon you and left you to consort
/ with vagabonds and wharf rats-hOw
much better would you have been?
have no sympathy with that executive
clemency which would let crime run
loose, or which would sit in the gallery
of a courtroom weeping because some
hard-hearted wretch is brought to JUS
tice; but do say that the safety and
life of the community demand more
potentia influences in behalf of these
offenders.
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 can not get work: but tell
you to look out for those athletic men
and women who will not work.
When the French nobleman was
asked why he kept busy when he
had SO large a property, he said:
Il keep on engraving so l may not
hang myself" do not care who the
man is, he can not afford to be idle. 1t
is from the idle classes that the crimi-
nal classes are made up. Character,
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
Heaven and hell are plunging into the
conflict, and angels are flying, and
God is at work, and the universe
is a-quake with the marching
and counter-marching, that God
lets His Indignation fall upon
man who chooses idleness? L have
watched these dO-nothings who spend
their time strOlIing their boards, and
retouching their toilet, and criticising
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 them! II 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 Lroadcloth, and move in the high
est spheres; but l have noticed that
very soon they come down to the pris-
on, the almhouSe, or stop at the gal
lows.
The police stations of two of our
cities furnish annually 200, 900 lodg
ings. For the most part, these 200 900
lodgings are furnished to able-bodied
men and women-peOple as able to
work as you and l are. When they are
received no longer at one police sta
tion, 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. l have set them to
saving wood in my cellar, to see
whether they wanted to work. l Of
fered to pay them well for it. l 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 in the way of the Lords
poor, who ought to be helped, and
will be helped. While there are thous-
ands of industrious men who can not
get any work, these men who do not
want any work come in and make that
plea. Sleeping at night at public ex-
pense in the station house; during the
day, getting their food at your door
step. Imprisonment does not scare
them. They would like it. Blackwelrs
Island or Moyamensing prison would
be a comfortable home for them. They
would have no objection to the aims
house. for they like thin soup, if they
can not get mock turtle.
| like for that class of people the
scant bill of fare that Paul wrote out
for the Thessalonian loafers: "If any
work not, neither shall he eat" 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 sup
port what in the United States are
about 1000, 600 loafers! They are
very dangerous class Let the public
authorities keep their eyes on them.
Among the uprooting classes 1 place
the oppressed poor. Povertyto cer-
tain extent is Christening; but after
that. when it drives man to the wall,
and he hears children cry in vain for
bread. it sometimes makes him des-
sands of honest men Iacerated INTO vag-
abondisn. There are men crushed un-
der burdens for which they are not |