The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1932-09-29
BY WILLIAM ENGLE
Times STAFF Writer

Copyright. 1892. by the New York World
Telegram Corporation
THERE was no way of telling
Il that this was a Sunday
morning of civic distinction. On
Cherry Hill and Perry street the
slattern houses Of joy slept in the
winter sunlight.
In the Madison Square Presby-
terrain church the congregation
was given to a slight languor.
The Sabbath humdrum of the
nations capital of protected vice,
in the reign Of Richard Croker,
was unmenaced by discomforting
omen.
DR.. Charles H. Parkhurst, the
scholarly pulpiteer from Massa-
chusetts, who heretofore had dis.
tinguished himself largely by dia-
lectic and a penchant for San
scrit, changed all this.
His sharp and eager voice, this
forenoon of Feb. IA, 1892, scaled
into a battle cry in the sedate
old church at Madison avenue
and Twenty-fourth street. 1t
abashed the opulent pewholders
1t rocked the town.
It started as gaudy a crusade on
yice ss New York hes seer and
opened for him a career that
made him for generation the
towns most articulate moral
censor.
He charged vehemently that
upon a SNUG New York, which
shuddered at a neat ankle ex-
posed in public, there lay a blight
of vice, protected, at a pretty
price, by the police, and sane
toned by richly profiting Tam
many.
1T had been the dubious fash
Il ion in those days of the Hay
market and Cairo, Suicide Hall
and Billy McGlory, to take this
for granted, but never to speak
out about it.
So De Lancey Nicoli, then dis
trict attorney, summoned the dis
concerting divine before the grand
jury and asked him for evidence.
He did not have any. His philip
pic on corruption, he admitted,
was based on confessions made to
him by repentant young blades
of his congregation and on 9TH
er's explanation of why his Sun
day morning male attendance had
dwindled.
The grand jury reported these
reasSuring findings, condemned
him for his brash statements, and
the prices of the dives and
bordellos stayed firm.
The doughty black bearded
parson accepted the contretemptS
as a challenge. He had not come
to town as a reformer. He had not
even become a preacher until he
was 80, having gone in for teach
ing before that.
But now, in middle age, he con-
cluded he would find proof for his
accusations if New York held it.
Dr. Parkhurst put out of mind
theology and the Venezuelan
boundary disputes, discarded his
clerical garb, and accoutred him.
self as some ones western uncle.
A parishioner, John L. Erving,
in f1ashy checks, accompanied
him. They let crime-wise De-
tective Charles w. Garner lead
them.
Detective Garner showed them
all = Washington and Water
streets, where forlorn creatures,
a dozen in block, accosted them
from the shadows; back rooms of
bars on the Bowery, where bedi-
zened girls Haunted macabre
charms; dismal parlors in Cherry
Hill, where whisky blurred unpre-
possessing truth.
TINE detectives report on their
IL excursions, made afterward,
ran into reamS This is typical
bit:
In front of No. 342 Water
street stood half a dozen women,
soliciting people to enter the
resort with the same air that a
Grand Central station hickman
asks you to have a cab.
AS we were passing, two of the
women caught the Doctor by the
arm before he knew what had
happened, whirled him into the
place, and sat him down on a
chair. Another did the same for
Erving, and 1, too, was 'Steered'
into the place.
The interior of the room was
something DR.. Parkhurst had
never seen before. l am confident
of that. On the floor was a faded
rag carpet. On the walls were
two cheap chromos. A table stood
in the center of the room, and
around it were half a dozen
chairs.
ION each chair sat something
that originally had been woman.
That is, We supposed so, as each
gaunt figure in an ancient Mother
Hubbard answered to the name
of Alice, Maud or Clara.
The doctor chatted with the
women a few moments and had
no trouble, apparently, in with
standing their Establishments"
Night after night the trio in
disguise went out as the spring of
1892 came on. Always, as the
doctor said, "traversing the ave-
nueS of our municipal hell" They
drank whisky, saw five nude girls
do the ''cancan" in Hattie Adams
place, piled up evidence.
THEN, on Sunday morning,
Il March Is, 1892, the Doctor
assembled the pulpit of his church
and held up 284 affidavits. Each
had been made in a house of dark
report.
They asked for proof" he said.
Here it is"
The effect was almost instan-
taneous. He became the city'S best
known cleric; anti-vice commit