Year: 1879

SAD PICTURE.

 Parke Goodwin, of New York, in speak ing of life in tenement houses in the city says When I was boy read a good book which was called, think, Asmodeus, or the Devil on Two Sticks" and though I forget it's con- tents, remember that the author ren- dered his limping hero capable of lifting the roof of all the houses in order that it may be seen what was going on. The object of this device was satirical. It was to show by contrast of the within and the without what pretences, what falsehoods, what sel6shness, what folly, what hypocrisy often lurked behind the most spacious appearances. We'll, now, we are going to assume this Asmodean power and lift the roofs of some of our houses, not for the purpose of satire, but for the better purpose of instruc- tion, that we may know the truth, and that knowing the truth we may act with justice and with charity. You will sec when these roofs are lifted that 500, 900 of your population, nearly the half, are huddled into dwelling houses better suited to the brute or savage than to civilized human beings. You will sec that large percentage of the pauperism and the vice, the crime, the intemper- ance and degradation of all kinds that exists in the community originates in these lazar-hOuses.

 shall not enter into any of the de- tails, for inc whole subject has inn pressed itself upon my mind in one sim pie aspect-and that is that the places we are considering tonight are the homes of your people; the homestead forgive me that I should desecrate that noble word in this connection. The home as it is consecrated by poetry and by law, as 1t IS embodied in our affec- tions, has no meaning there. The home to us is the resort of peace and joy and hope and love; it is the center of the sweetest and tenderest affections, the source of education to the child, and through the child often better educa- ton to the parents. But these black holes-m-the-wall are the homes where 1ntemperance is nursed where crime is cradled; where pale-eyed fever and famine are lodged where the innocent instincts of childhood are stihed in the birth; where the modesty of girlhood finds no shelter where the sobs of the wife and the sighs of the mother expire 1n their despair, while around them roars the clamor of brutality and the clash of violence. Now, if such are many of our homes, need we wonder at the reports that come to us from our almshouses, from courts of justice, and from police offices and prisons and chari- table institutions? Need we wonder that men desert their cheerless abodes and hurry to the light and warmth and temporary oblivion of the bar-room ? The home is the birthplace of good or evil. It is mightier than the school, the lecture-room, the pulpit, or even the press. In it the first impressions are made, when the mind is pliable and duc- tile, and takes the direction that is given.

 It was to me cheering omen when I read that the churches, in addition to their ordinary observances. had also in terested themselves in this question. I have no criticisms to make of the churches. Christianity was not sent into the world alone to save our souls, but it was sent to redeem our bodies, as St. Paul says, even to redeem these bodies, that they may become the tenn ples of the Holy Spirit.

 The, speaker, after drawing picture of home of penury and home of comfort said: Remember that the suffering of those less fortunate might have been yours had you been placed in different circumstances, and that they, under different environments, might have become as you now are." ,