The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-11-12

I0e 0GtGCtIVG0 are 0IIGI u Lu8& H ~
lice 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 leniency to criminals Ia too
great severity to society.
THE IDLE CLASS.
Among the uprooting n the devour-
ing classes in their 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 women who will not work When
the French noblemen was asked why
he Kept busy when he had so large a
property. he said. II keep on engraving
so 1 may not hang myself" l 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.
Character, like water, gets putrid IL 1t
stands still too long. Who can Wonder
that in thi 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 let's his indigna-
ton fall Upon a man who chooses idle
ness? / have watched these do moth
ings who spend their time stroking
their beard, and retouching their toilet
and criticising industrious people,. and
pass their days and nights in barrooms
and clubhouses, lounging and smoking
and chewing and card playing. They
are not only useless, but they are Ian
gerous. How hard it is for them to
while away the hours!
Alas. for them! If they do not know
49, 4 or-oX, n -, how rx-hnt mill
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 high
est spheres, but 1 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 20O,0 600 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 station because
they are ~"repeaters,' they go to some
other station, and so they keep NOV
ing around. They get their food at
house doors, stealing what they can
lay their hands on in the front oase-
ment 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 thousands of labOrerS.
These men will not go. They do not
want to work. I a V tried them. I
have set them to saving wood in my
cellar to see whether they wanted to
work. I offered to pay them we'll for
it. ] ave heard the saw going for
about three minutes, and then [ 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 thousands of
industrious men who cannot get any
work these men who do not want any
work come in and make hat plea.
Sleeping at night at public expense in
the station house. During the day get
ting their God at you doorstep. I'm
prisonment does not scare them. They
would like it. BlackwelTs Island or
Moyamensing prison would be a COM
Portable home for them. They would
have no objection to the almshouse, for
they like thin SOU if they cannot get
mock turtle. "
I like for tina class Of people the
scant bill Of fare that Paul wrote out
for the Thessalonian loafers, III any
work not, neither should he eat" BY
what law of God or man is it right that
you and I 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
1000, 900 lOafers? They are a very dam
gerous class. Let the public authori-
ties keep their eyes on them.
THE OPPRESSED POOR.
Among the uprooting classes I place
the oppressed poor. Poverty to a GER
tain extent is Christening, out after
that, when it drives a man to the wall
and he hears his children cry in vain
for bread, it sometimes makes him des
perate. 1 think that there are thous-
andS of honest men lacerated into vag
abOndiSm. There are men crushed un-
der burdens for which they are not
half paid. While there is no excuse
for criminality, even in oppression, I
state it as a simple fact that much of
the scoundrelism Of the community is
consequent upon ill treatment. There
are many men and women battered
and bruised and stung until the our
Of despair has come, n they stand
with the ferocity Of a wild beast which
pursued uutl II can run no longer,
turns around, foaming and bleeding,
to fight the hounds.
There is a vast underground city life
that is appalling and shameful. 1t wal
lows n steams with putrefaction
You go down the stairs, which are wet
n decayed with filth, and at the bot
tom you find the poor victims on the
floor, cold, sick, three-fourths dead,
Sinking into a still darker corner I'M
der the CLEAN of the lantern Of the po-
lice. There has not been a breath of
fresh air in that rOoOm for five years
literally. There are men, women, chill
dren, black. whites, Mary Magdalene
without her repentance and lazarus
without his God. These are the
dives" into which the pickpockets
and the thieves go. as we'll as a great
many who would like a different life,
blu cannot ger it. These places are
the sores Of the city which bleed per-
petual cOrruDtiOn. Thew are the under