Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1901-01-17
DO We GROW WORSE
Arp Says the World is More Sinful
Than Long Ago.
HE READS OF HORRIBLE GRIMES
More Murders, Suicides, Etc, AC-
cornding to Population, Than Fifty
Years Ago.

| SORROW endureth for a night. but
| Joy cometh in the morning" | started
! to write my weekly letter last night,
but | was not in calm and serene
! frame of mind and concluded to put
| it off till morning. | had read the
morning paper that was unusually full
| Of crimes and sin and misery and
when the evening papers came there
was another catalogue of calamltles
and l felt sad and depressed, When
will these things stop? But l am no
| weeping prophet nor does the public
care to read the lamentations OF Jere-
miah as matter Of choice. And so
have waited until sleep and rest re-
vived me and the bright sun Of the
morning dispelled the mists and the
gloom.
But how can an old man help COM
pairing the present with the past?
Memory is his capital stock-and his
best recreation If I was now in my
teens l would be better reconciled to
things as they are-to modern man
ners and customs and to the sin and
crime of this fast and reckless age.
Our young people cannat realize that
there ever was better time and bet
ter people. Therefore they give the
morality of the past no thought and
the crime Of the present no great con-
Germ. They look upon the fearful cata-
logue in the daily papers as our nor
NAL condition and many JOIN in : to
keep UP with the procession.
Some apologists say that there is not
much difference between now and
then, but that it appears so because OF
the telegraph and lie ten thousand
newspapers that spread the news. The
records Of the courts tell the truth and
they prove that according to the white
population of our state there are ten
murders to where u44ere was one fifty
years ago. Inere are twenty-five di
vorce cases to one and in our cities
there are forty times as many burg
laries, 1arcenies and shooting scrapes.
The number of suicides does not ap-
pear in the courts, but the increase is
not less than a hundred to one. JET
ferson said that the influence Of great
cities was pestilential to good morals.
Just think of it. In the little city Of
Atlanta here were over 10000 arrests
during the past year. The nineteenth
century leaves us his record as
legacy and our great concern, is what
are we going to do about it. Our le-
mentation is that the people have got
ten used to it and >recdnciled to it's
continuance. It is looked upon as the
normal condition Of public morals and
human affairs. Old men, old editors
and old preachers cry aloud and spare
not, but the young generation do not
seem to be greatly concerned. Young
men, young women and even old WO-
men commit suicide somewhere every
day and the editors tell us Of it in the
press dispatches and pass on without
comment. What an awful condition
of mental distress it must be that pro-
vOkes the deliberate sacrifice of ones
own life. I fear We are getting hard
ened to the presence Of crime-hard
ened by daily contact with it: hard
ened like the rich of New York are to
the misery and crime in her tenement
houses and to the miserab bic beggars
on her streets. They see them every
day and pass them by without Il sign,
but they send large monies down here
to educate a lot of lazy negroes they
have never seen. Wat 3 fool. what a
fanatic what hypOcrite is human
nature.
MS ItullLuo uit ~ dis " u d let CT
Of inquiry from an old democrat who
lives in New Hampshire He wishes
to know who was responsible for the
slave trade that pecpled this country
with negroes. Some OF his neighbOrs
insist that the south did it, Wine the
north protested against it and New
England was especially hostile II it.
How long, ah, Catalina, wilt thou
abuse our patience?" How long will
the descendants Of the Puritans cover
up their own iniquity? My friend will
find in AppIeton's American CyclO-
pedia. fourteenth volume, the best his
tory of slavery and the slave trade
ever published. in that he will find
that slave traders from Portugal
brought the first cargo Of twenty ne
groes and landed them at jamestown,
in Virginia, in 1920. Shortly after this
most of the northern colonies engaged
in it and Indians were enslaved as well
as negroes. The son Of King Philip
was sold as slave at Plymouth in the
year 1886 The slave trade between
the northern colonies and Africa was
carried on with vigor until 1875. In
that year it was resolved by the con-
tinental congress that no more slaves
should be imported. In 1888 congress
extended the traffic to 1903, but the
state Of Georgia refused to ratify the
extension and in 1898 enacted the most
prohibitOry laws against it.