The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1899-07-23

past, and institute system productive of
more hopeful augury.
Just today in scanning the columns
of large city daily, | note the l.
months enumeration of divorces aggre-
gate nearly 1000 in that one locality,
striking as it does at the basic structure
of society, which as units make
States and governments there
fore upon what hopeful calcu-
lation cam one base our future
when the fountain is so fearfully tainted,
when our primaries both i'll social ana
civic life are impregnated with the bitter
virus of contention and maleyolance, Il
timely revising of our charts would be
conlmendable wisdom. The average daily
newspaper of today contains more OF hll-
man detection. it would be reasonable to
affirm, in one issue than i'm 800 issues
o. our ante Bellum history making all
due allowance for the rapidly augmenting
population. To my conception several
agencies have produced this cancerous
venality.
1st Opening the flood gates of I'M
putty to streams of impurity from the
| abandoned of every cline.
:. The insane propensity to get rich
stroying confidence and bringing i'll UNI
holy alliances in ecclesiastical, civil and
marital relations for uterior purposes.
questionable at best-cases of rape, ar
son, thefts, suicides. homicides, divorces.
treachery, butcheries, lynchings are so
numerous. and succeeding each other IN
such rapid rotation that the mind is APP
palled at the fearful incertitude of com
1t1,y hn IL m
are contaminated by the retrospect.
In recent conversation with an lntelli-
gent gentleman he averred that morals
We're at such a low ebb i'm one of our
great commercial enterpots. that not
more than ONE per cent could be conSld-
cred as of unqueStionable virtue, of a
correct computation this. the cities OF
the plain would burst at the avowal.
The state of fearful vcnality originates
in the primaries. the tiresides.
Unrestrained man is not unlike any
other animal. and when our city mothers
of today allow their children unchallcng-
ed to give loose reins TO their appetites
it is no marvel their sons are so often
arrested in the Drothels. and their daugh.
tiers shielding from the remorsc OF
wounded conscience. Would to God this
distorted brain. i'm lieu Of substantiated
facts submitted by press, forum and OBJ
servation.
1t is but a repetition of humans history
and now. as then. calls loudly for reforms
through the channels of the moral agen
cies. 1t seems hard to divorce these
| moral ahortions from the wealth which
engender them. for it is well known tC
4 Al, al 1, .f.
are fostcred by the Unfortunately rich anC
the sorely tempted poor. Political econ
omiStS may rave over our decadent sys
TEN. but no solid Improvement can bt
rightly considered. unless we purge the
domestic circle of the germs which pro
duce the masmatic disturbances around
us. We are figurativcly a moral paradox
"A system of non-conformists to avowed
principles mammon worshapping mon
strosity In material progression we
| oItrank any system of chriStendom, but
are we not becoming intoxicated with
| our success? Is there not danger of ON
attenesity being too severely strained by
our unpolitc expansion? We must fall
back on the conservatism Of our fathers
on the well tried methods Of profitable
expedicncy- as remedial agcn
cies-Spotless family lifc-a revised elec
tive SyStem--more respect for constituted
authority, fewer laws and more rigid adj
equable yet positive
crushing of our lllStful propensities, We
may yet be Il system under divine guild
ance which may under our highly favor
| cd conditions revolutionize. cvilize ana
evangelize all outlying empire.
JOHN -. THORNE.
Iittleton, y. c.. July Is. 1899