Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1912-12-10

class which deserve special reprobation
Reference is intended to a certain low
and venal class of lawyers, upon whom
the criminal classes depend for defense
against the penalties which they richly
deserve. The rooms OF certain attor-
neys in every city are the resort and
refuge of the rogues and thugs and MUIR
derers who infest our urban communi-
ties. These scape-graces Of the ban
are vultures which feed and fatten upon
the rottenness and garbage of society.
But more than these vile creatures
of the bar are able to injure society
by their .nerfarious arts. the people
themselves are harming the social sys-
tenn by an increasing disposition to hold
human life cheap.
The cheapening of human life is al
ways a characteristic Of an age of sell
fish luxury. The reign of Solomon was
the most peaceful and prosperous in the
history of united Israel; but it was
marked by a vast growth of murder
and blood-shed. Public wars ceased and
private feuds multiplied; crimes of vio-
lence increased on all sides. In the
streets of Jerusalem murder was COM
mitted for the sake of robbery; men
were held cheap and money was held
in high esteem. Hence those solemn
warnings of the wise king to his son,
the young Prince Rehoboam: My son,
if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.
If they say come with us, let us lay
wait for blood, let us Turk privily for
the innocent without cause; let us swaI-
low them up alive as the grave, ana
whole as those that go down into the
pit We shall find all precious sub
stance, we shall fill our houses with
spoil. Cast in thy lot among us; let
us all have one purse. My son, walk not
thou in the way with them; refrain thy
foot from their path. For their feet
run to evil and make haste to shed
blood. 1t is most Significant that Solo
man felt it necessary to warn even the
Crown Prince against conspiracies to
shed blood for the purpose of robbery.
And have we not seen the same com
bination of greed and murder in the
recent revelations of crime in New York,
the metropolis of our country? There
the chief of police formed conspiracies
to take human life in the pursuit OF
gainful criminality.s
These protuberant and purulent Of
lenses, which have broken out upon that
spot in our social system, point to a
deep-seated and constitutional disorder;
they show general arrangement of the
moral life of the community.
An age OF luxury is an era or r10tOuS
self-indulgence; it relaxes all the self
restraining forces of human nature and
stimulates all the self-assertive pas
sions 1t, thereby prepares men for
acts of violence. Any crossing of their
purposes, or disappointment of their
schemes, impel self-indulgent and self
willed men to murderous hatred and ma
licious deeds They are prepared for
murder on the smallest provocation.
Luxury debases while it invigorates
the sensibilities; and hence, it en-
genders a certain lawless emotionalism
which sets aside reason and conscience,
and defies the laws of both GOD ana
man.
Our country is flooded with a turbid
tide Of that sort of polluted emotional
ISM A vast multitude of our people
are the victims of morbid sensibiltties-
sensibilities uade morbid by a debauch-
ing luxury. They fly to the theatre to
have their sensibilities further debauch-
ed. They run to the excitements of the
dance hall and the card table. They
guzzle exciting intoxicants and by all
sorts Of stimulations they keep their
emotions in a morbid condition. The
outcome of it all is divorces on ac-
count OF trifling domestic irritations
and murders for slight provocations. A
land of luxury thus flows at one and
the same time with plenty and with IL
centiousness and with blood. In like
manner Sodom and Gomorrah ran to
ruin.