The people's journal. (Pickens, S.C.) 1891-1903, 1902-02-27

1h"''"oi-io,ooo llH0Ccnt, nClplCS
babes murdered in one year in Que city
Tom Hood wrote song about the poo
sc VlnS women that aroused all Lon
don. If he were alive in Paris nov
what pltiful subject he would hay,
for another song. What shame upon
our sex, for it is not women who d,
these things, but men and boys. Th'
mothers suffer in giving then
birth. They nurse and cherish ant
clasp the little things to their bosom
and love and hope and pray, but the
destroyer comes and then all she caI
do ls to gricve and weep. England
Strengthening the Bocrs and France hel
innocent children. What next?
| A graphic writer in The New York
Press describes different kind of hor
ror that we know not Of, but is living,
breathing, scething thing that IS not
new, but has come to stay and grows
bigger and more horrible as the years
move on. lie says: "It would have
/ been unnecessary for Gustav Dore TO
follow Dante for a text in order to pic
turc the horrors of hell" The govern
mcnt has established free baths at Hot
Springs, whclc thousands Of the most
miserable OF all Gods creatures con-
grcgatc and bathe for relief and IA cure
from their loathsomc diseases. These
wrctchcs leave their rags upon the
Cemcntcd floors which arc an inch deep
IN water, then staggcr or reel or crawl
naked as the liends IN the chambers of
hell. From thence they crowd into Il
third room where the water and the
air is up t. ll0, and the stencil of foul
odors is horrible. In this room are
two large pools like vats in a tan yard, ,
and the victims tumble into them like
hogs into mud puddle.
No doctor, no soap, no towels, no
attendants, and they arc soon hurried
out TO make room more, for
seven hundred a day is the maxi
mum. Ten, fifteen or twenty at Il
time soak their loathsomc inirmitics
in the nasty, filthy, hot healing waters,
and then rccluth themselves with their
wet rags and 60 somewhere to dry. All
are benefited and l0pcr cent are cured.
What picture. Their lives, such as
they have made them, are not worth
saving, but they cling to them and live
in hope and defy despair. Cne hun
dTcd and seventy. eight thousand of
these human being passed through the
frLc baths last year. One bath room
is for white men, ont for white women.
one for negro men and one for negro
women.
Not far away is magnificent hotel,
and there is a fashionable ball going
on. The rich, the gay, the elite are
there. One moments a man is waltzing
with his wife, the next with some
other mans wife, the next with some
body's mistress, and the next with his
own mistress. Everything goes, and
all IS hell. a famous physician took
his daughter there this season, but sent
her home quickly to keep her from the
company Of wealthy and diseased para
sites. Almost every one who goes
there registers under an assumed name
and plays iHcoSn!to during his stay. a
Southern Judge was recently called
upon for a toast at a hotel banquet and
said: " Here's to the names we left
behind us" But the half has not been
tol1--somc Of it is too bad to tell.
Every night the poker rooms arc III
blast AID thousands WOE and lost. The
reader pondcrs and wonders can such
things be in this Christian land, and in
this Gods country. Verify, tho hum
bic and the poor who live around us on
the hills and in the valleys or down in
the pincy woods should be thankful
for the health and morality that como 8
from poverty. Burns never wrote Il
truer verse than that which says:
"And l know by the smoke that so
gracefully curlcd
From among the dark clms that a cot =
tagc was near,
And said to myself if there's peace in
this world,
The heart that is humble might hope
for it here"
BILL. ARP.