The people's journal. (Pickens, S.C.) 1891-1903, 1901-01-24
THE WORLD rs MORE SINFUL
Bill Arp Reads of Horrible Grimes
and Says We Are Growing
Worse,

Bill Arp Reads of Horrible Grimes
and Says We Are Growing
Worse.
"Sorrow endureth for night, but
joy cometh in the morning" Istartcd
to write my weekly letter last night,
but L was not in calm and serene
frame of mind and concluded to put it
Off till morning. had read the morn
ing paper that was unusually full of
crimes and sin and misery and when
the evening papers came there was
another catalogue of calamities and l
felt sad AMI depressed. When will
these things stop? But am no weep
ing prophet nor does the public care to
read the lamentations of jeremiah as a
matter of choice, And 80 L have
waited until sleep and rest revived nc
and the bright sun of the morning dis
PEELED 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
hest recreation. If was now in my
teens l would be better reconcilcd to
things as they arc-to modern manners
and customs and to the sin and crime
or this fast and reckless age. Our
young people cannot realize that there
ever was a better time aud q better
people. Therefore they give the NOR
ality of the past no thought and the
crime Of the present no great concern.
They look upon the fearful catalogue
III the daily papers as our normal con-
dltion and many join it 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 the 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 arc ten
murders to where there was one fifty
years ago. There are twenty-five
divorce cases TO one, and in our cities
there are forty times as many bur-
Slarlcs, larcenies and shooting scrapcs.
The number of suicides does not ap.
pear III the courts, but the increase is
not less than hundred to one. JEFF
fcrson said that the influence of great
cities was pestilential to good morals.
Just think of it. In the little city of
Atlanta there were over 10000 arrests
during the past year. The nineteenth
ccutury leaves us this record as a
legacy and our great concern is, what
are we going to do about it. Our
lamentation is that the people have
gotten used TO it and reconcllcd to its
continuance. 1t is looked upon as the
normal condition of public morals and
human affairs.
Old men, old editors and old preach
ers cry aloud and spare not, but the
young generation do not seem to be
greatly concerned. Young men, young
women and even old women commit
suicide somewhere every day and the
editors tell us of it in the press dis
patches and pass on without comm cnt.
What an awful condition of men tai dis
trcss it must be that provokcs the de-
llberate sacrifice of ones own life. @
fear we are getting hardened TO thI
presence Of crime-hardened by daily
contact with it; hardened like the rich
OF New York are to the misery and
crime in her tenement houses and to
the miserable bcggars OH her streets.
They see them every day and pass
them by without sign, but they send
large monies down here to educate a
lot of lazy negroes they have never
seen. What fool, what fanatic,
what hypocrite is human nature.
This reminds me to answer a letter
of inquiry from an old Democrat who
lives III New Hampshire. He wishes
to know who was responsible for the
slave trade that pcoplcd this country
with negroes. Ssme of his neghbors
insist that the South did it, while tho
North protested against it and New
England was especially hostile to it.
" How long, all Cataline, wilt thou
abuse our patience?" How long will
the descendants of The Purllans cover
up their own iniquty? My friend will
find in Appleton's American Cyclopc-
dia, 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 negroes and
landed them at jamestown, in Vir-
ginia, in 1920. Shortly aftor this most
of the Northern colonies engaged in it
and Indians were cnslavcd as well as
negroes. The son of King Philip was
sol1 as a slave at Plymouth in the year
1886. The slave trade between tie
Northern colonies and Africa was
carried on with vIgor until l77G. In
that year it was resolved by the Con.
tlncntal Congress that no more slaves
should be imported. In l7SS 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.
The feeling against the traffic was
stronger in the Southern States than
in the Northern. Some of the North
crn States continued to carry il on long
after it had been prohibited. And as
late as 184l Judge Stoly, of Massa-
chusctts, charged the grand jury OF
Boston that their people were "steepcd
up to their eyebrows in the infamous
slave trade with Africa" But New
ENGLAND cOuI1 not make the scrvicc of