The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-08-04
SOCIAL EVILS DISCUSSED
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 knowing the deeds of darkness and shame, and they have nc desire to know them or to have any fellowship with them, except to reprove them. But oc- casionally excess or accident reveals to the whole community the existence Of nameless horrors.
 Tt makes us shiver for an instant and thank God that once more the lightning has missed our house though 1t hit some other house. But the sor- rowful thing is that it did hit some house; and the unfortunate inmates are by shame and sorrow disarmed from remonstrance or retaliation. They are helpless whether they accept the blame in stricken silence or whether they re- sent 1t in righteous indignation or an- gry protest. They are citizens of a state which has failed to protect them, the victims of most terrible piracy in community which professes to be law abiding and Christian.
 One hundred years ago now it was no strange thing for New England family to be cast into deep sorrow and
 
 been captured by pirates on the Medi- terranean and cast into slavery in the Barbary states. But little navy was created in the administration of Presi- dent Jefferson. and a brave seaman, stephen Decatur, was put in command of it, and the splendid history of the American navy was begun. Nerved for the contest by the sense of a right eous cause, he drove the pirates to their dens, liberated the captives collected proper indemnities at the point of the sword, and established forever the safety of American commerce on the high seas. while all Europe looked on in amazement at the daring of the young republic across the ocean.
 Piracy on the high seas is forever past, but the same impulses of human nature find other outlet. Members of our families are carried away into slavery more degrading than ever ex- isted in the Moorish states and in numbers a thousand times greater. The black sloop of the old pirate has given place to the automobile and trolley of the new, and the scenes of their law lessness are transported from the high seas to the highways and resorts of our own community. We are told that the midnight car from Savin Rock is every night place to be avoided by self respecting people. What then must be the dance halls and saloons from which its passengers emerge, and the haunts to which they afterward betake them selves? We are not left wholly to fam nxyf foro fo1,f nftlY1 tho eI full deeds of darkness come to light. The hospital or the jail take the place of the home. The doctor, the lawyer, the justice or the coroner, or anon the min ister is called in, but none of them nor all together can ransom the pirates victim from slavery or death even with mint of gold. Who could believe that those drunken and infatuated women and those lawless men are the daugh- ters and sons of New Haven families of fathers and mothers who are respect able and law-abiding. who love their kindred as dearly as any, and who if given their choice between the two slaveries, would prefer that of the old pirate to the new every time. "Creditable. rumor has it that the par ticular pirate already referred to is not the hero of a solitary adventure. No one but himself can know whether the victims of his felony in New Haven are two or twenty during his brief and bril- liant sojourn here, nor how many they are elsewhere. He stands as a type of his class whose victims are legion. "A handful of money may silence the vail of the victim, or buy a nominal pardon, or support theatrical display of mock gallantry, but 1t can never mend the violated majesty of social righteousness. What are bank notes in the balance over against blasted life? It may help to turn the dark tale of sin and shame into a cheerful episode of youthful affection, but the bitter dregs are there just the same, and too often there is not even the meagre trib- ute to save the victim from utter want.
 "The state has undertaken to protect it's citizens against criminals of this class by laws punishing unchastity. SIackness in the administration of these laws will in time make people desperate and disrespectful of law, and will lead to the general adoption of that sum- mary style of vengeance which is now so often administered to negroes for this class of offenses.
 "So the first thing to be done towards a remedy for this exposed and danger ous condition of our social life is to se- cure a rigid enforcement of the laws