The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1898-01-15

" were 'nNeQ down. you KNOW as Wei
as | that a criminal who escapes only
opens the door of other eriminalities.
1t is no compliment to public author
ity when we have in all the cities OF
the country, walking abroad, men and
women notorious for criminality, I'M
whipped of justice. They are pointed
put to you in the street day by day.
Hundreds of them with their faces Ia
the "rogues' gallery" yet doing moth
for the last five or ten years but de-
fraud society and escape justice.
When these people go unarrested and
unpublished, it is putting a high pre-
MUM upon vice, and saying to the
young criminals of this country:
What n safe thing it Is to be a great
criminal" Let the law swoop upon
them! Let it be known in this coun-
try that crime will have no quarter,
that the detectives are after 1t, that
the police club is being branished,
that the iron door of the prison is be-
ing opened. that the judge is ready to
call the case! Too great leniency to
criminals is too great severity to So
ciety.
Among the ~uprooting and d~evouring
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 1
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 q property, he said: 81 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 hat the criminal classes
are made up. l have watched these
do-nothings who spend their time
stroking their beard, and retouching
their toilet, and eritieising industrious
people. and pass their days and nights
in bar rooms and club houses, loung-
ing and smoking and chewing and
card-playing. They are not only use
less, but they are dangerous
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 / are. When they
are received no longer at one police
station, because they are "~repeaters,"
they go to some other station, and so
keep moving around. They get their
food at house doors, stealing what
they a lay their hands on In the
front basement while the ervant Is
spreading the bread in the back base
ment. They will not work. Time
and again, in the country districts,
they nave 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 in my cellar. to see
whether they wanted work. ! offered
to pay them we'll for it. / have heard
the saving going on for about three
minutes, and then I went down, and
10. 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. end will be helped.
Among the uprooting classes ] place
the oppressed poor. Poverty to a GER
tain extent is Christening; but after
That. when 1t drives q ma to the wall,
and he hears his children cry in vain
for bread, 1t sometimes makes him
desperate. ! think that there are thou
sands 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, 1
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 stupg until the hour
Of despair has come, and they stand
with the ~ferocity of q wild beast
which, pursued until it can run no
longer, turns round, foaming and
bleeding, to fight the hounds.
In these American cities, whose cry
of want 1 interpret, there are hundreds
and thousands of honest poor who are
upon Individual city and
charities. If all their voices
could come up at once it would be q
groan that would shake the founda-
tons of the city, and bring all earth
and Heaven to the rescue. But, for
the most part, it suffers unexpressed.
1t sits in silence, gnashing it's teeth
and sucking the blood of its own ar
waiting for the Judgment day.
Oh, / should not wonder IL on that day
it would be found out that some of us
bad some things that belonged TO
them; some extra garment which
night haye made them comfortable
IA cold days; some bread thrust into
the ash barrel that might have APP
peased their hunger for a little while;
some wasted candles or gas jet that
might have kindled up their darkness;
frcsco on the ceiling that would
have given them II roof; some jewel
which, brought to that orphan girl in
time. might have kept her from being
OFF the prGcipices of an un-
life; some New Testament that
have told them Of Him who
i'came to seek and to save that which
lost" Oh, this wave of vagrancy
and hunger and nakedness hat
against our front door
step; l wonder if you hear it and see
as much as ! hear it and see it! lhave
almost fFenzied with the per-
cry for help from all Glasses and
from all nations, knocking, knocking.
ringing. If the roofs of all
the houses of restitution could be
so we could look down into them
Just as God looks, whose nerves would
pc strong enough to stand 1t? And
there they are. The sewing wom-
some of them in hunger and cold,
working night after night, until some
the blood spuPts from nostIIl
lip.
How well their grief was voiced by
hat despairing woman who stood by
Ter invalid husband and invalid child,
said to the city missionary: II am
Ev~erything's against
Is; and then there are other things"
What other things?" said the city
"Oh," she replied. my
in" What do you mean by that?'
'Well,p she said, ~ never hear
II see anything good. It's work
rom Monday morning to Saturday
light, and then when sunday
'omes I can't go out, and l walk the
loor, and 1t makes me tremble to
hink that I nave got to meet God.
IN, sir, it's so hard for us. We have
so, and then we have so SIeh !