The Lee County journal. (Leesburg, Ga.) 1904-19??, 1909-04-09

Rev. w. Kingscote Greenland, one of
England's foremost social reformers
and former chaplain of her largest
penal settlement, Dartmoor Prison.
He has arrived at this conclusion only
after years of patient and mature
consideration, during which he has
compared the English metropolis with
New York, Chicago and various Eu-
rOpean capitals. Furthermore, he is
prepared to back up his statement
with an array of lurid facts.
The Rev. w. Kingscote Greenland,
who brings this serious indictment
against the worlds metropolis, has
had a wide experience. He has de-
voted his life to sociology and is fa-
miIiar with all the countries of Eu-
rope, having been an extensive trav-
eler in France, Germany, Italy, Aus
tria, Spain and elsewhere, knowing
their languages and their peoples
and, more than this, their vices.
Comparing them all, and making al
1owaflce. for national traits, climate,
conditions and other mitigating cir
cumstances, he still maintains that
''dear old London deserves the fate
melted out to the wicked cities of the
Bible. The author of this charge
against London also has had the OPP
pOrtunity of studying other wicked
people at first hand in the largest
prison in England, where he was
chaplain for many years.
In the course of a resent interview,
he explained in detail why he con-
sidered London "the worst ever"
SIN the first place." he said, take
the question of the immortality of
London. / notice that many English
people speak of London as if it were
the pink of purity, but they support
what they say merely by pointing out
that London is not as bad as it was.
But If / say to-day is wet day it is
no disproof of my statement to say
that it was very much wetter day
yesterday. Without doubt" he
continues, London has become the
worlds capital of vice. Its immoral
dty is of the stolid sensual sort, I'M
redeemed by the French mans
grace and artistry of loyemaking or
the fasteners glamor. Whatever
its streets were like in the past, they
are at this very moment disgrace
to civilization"
do you maintain that London is
worse than Paris:
You may stroll about Paris all
day and night and never be troubled"
was the reply. when comparing
London with Paris" he continued,
''or indeed any two cities, a national
standard Of morals must be. taken
into account. If man in Cairo or
EConstantinople has three wives, we
are not justified in calling him i'm
moral, because it is allowed under
the Mohometan faith, but three
,Wived man in London or Paris or
New York is indictable. London's
immortality, therefore, is immeasur-
ably, the worse because of London's
ayowed standards of morals.
I suppose you know that the mo-
torious show houses of vice in Paris
that figure so luridly in the after
experience of the Saturday to Mon
day English gentlemen are kept by
Americans and English, and the FAM
GUS Moulin Rouge with its can-can
dance is run by the brother of one of
our greatest English comedians. All
Parisians laugh at it and disown it,
and say that it is kept entirely for
the English "
'-And the American cities?" /
asked ''Do you consider them bet
ter or worse than London?"
Personally, l do not know the
cities Of America" said the reverend
inter-viewee, "and though from in
formation which pours into ones
ears every day about them one feels
sufficiently competent at least to in
gtftute comparisons, I will not do so
because / never have trodden their
streets. This I hope to correct next
August, when am trying to arrange
to accept a few engagements at your
great Chautauqua gatherings. Imay
find Chicago and New York, /" he COM
tinued, better or worse than H. G.
Wells, Donald Fraser and scores of
others have found them, but there is
one thing 1 am confident I cannot
lind them, and that is-worse than
London. If they are not absolutely
better, bad though they are, then
some one has been telling me fairy
tales about the United States all my
life
But the lives of the people them
selves, aside from the strictly moral
SIDE" / Nfurther questioned. rs
there not more luxury and wealth
squandering in America and France