Year: 1871




From the N. Y. worldl


The recent arrest in this city of Polish
Jew and Pennsylvania woman, charged
with practicing the dreadful trade of murder
by midwifery, has evoked anew the ancient
chorus Cf ululations over the horrible depray-
ity of the metropolis. This chorus naturally
awakens the usual anti chorus of laudations
over the benign purity of the rural districts.
From the seabeaten shores of Passamaquod.
dy to the grassy waters of PembiDa the EN-.
battled farmers thunder anathema against
Babylon the great, that wicked city, and raise
psalms OF thanksgiving that their lot is cast
IN among the barley and the rye, where if
pouy KISS body body need neither cry or
ole' village parsons snatch fearful Joy and
almost persuade their Oldest hearers to foreeo
Tor the nonce the accustomed doze in sermon.
time by elaborately dwelling upon the thrill.
ing themes of metropolitan seduction and in
iahticide. one can easily imagine the whole
long lltany OF urba ne crimes and of bucolic
beatltudes which has been recitino for ton
days past. clever statistician with notbino
else to do might doubtless easily give us the
exact number of times that clersymen and



enzweig and Nine. Van Buskirk, the verse,
"God made the country. and man made the town."
"a verse which throws upon the comparative
morality of town and country just about as
exact and truthful light as would be shed
upon the wholesome ness or unwholsomeness
oil buttered toast by asserting that


'God made the grass but cows have made the milk


If this sort OF cant had no other effect than
to fatter the local vanity OF the dwellers in
Arcadia there would be nothing in ii worth
noticing. We might dismiss it, as Lord
Derby dismissed the incessant attacks made
on him by the young Duke of Aygyle, with
citing the story OF the big bargee who let his
little wife beat hiu, as much as she liked, be-
cause, as he said, sit pleases she and it doant
hurt me-" But the perpetual repetition OF
this Iigmarole has the effect OF generating
widespread impression, not indeed that the
rural districts are absolutely free from crime,
but that they might be so were they not cor
rupted by the pestilenlial influences of the
great cities, and above all of this great city of
New York. This impression it is which
makes the fortune of the monstrOus ralsehoods
set af1oat by the Tribune and papers OF that
sort about the political wickedness of New
York. 1t is a natural inference from the be-
lief that New York is sink of social iniquty
that it must be pre-eminently the source to
Of political corruption.


Now, the truth happens to be quite the
other way. New York may be much more
truly described as disinfecting receL tacle of
evil passions and morbid desires from all parts
OF the country than as poisonous fountain
distributing i'll. The people who come bere
ready to perish, and therefore ready to sin,
aud who escape here through new career
into new conditions of moral lite, are at the
least quite as numerous as the people who
come here virgin OF all wrong, and are here
contaminated into pests OF society. The op
pOrtunities Of the metropolis at least counter
balance in their action Tor good all the infiu-
ence for evil OF its temptations. But without
entering to-day upon wide discussion of the
whole subject let us unite our rural friends to
ponder the full significance of the very sig
niticant fact that, in respect OF these very
denominations which have made the names of
Rosenzweig and of Van Buskirk odious
throughout the country, the wearers of these
names, til ough resident in New York, were
really the servants of rural and not of metro.
pOlitan crime. In the case of Rosenzweig his
victim was a New Jersey girl, living in a
small New Jersey town, who had got herself
into difficulty through the temptations offered
to her by the social customs and practices OF
her provincial home. In both of the cases in
which Nine. Van Buskirk figures her patients
also were girls from the country-one from
town in New Jersey, the other from village
in New York. Both of these girls had been
destroyed by dwellers in their own neighbor-
hood, the ruin of both belongs to rural life
| and rural ethics, both were Arcadians of the
| type which preachers delight to paint as lambs
friskiDg innocently on the Arcadian meadows
| to be some day cruelty devoured by roaring
| lions from the purlieus of Broadway and
Fifth avenue seeking whom they may devour.
Nor is this all the lesson of these foul and
dismal stories.


In the cases at least with which the woman
Van Bnskirk is connected the respectabity
of the provinces and the rural districts, so far
as it is represented by the relations and
| friends OF the ruined girls, shows more black
| and repulsive even than wee itself as incar-
| mated in the person OF the accused woman.
One unhappy girl who was carried half over
Brooklyn at night in a carriage by Van Bus
kirk and her male aecOmplice that they might
leave her TO die ON the hands Of some other
person, turns out to have been put within
their clutcnes by her own father aud brother.
The only object OF these aiicetionate kinsmen
seems 10 have been to get the poor creature
out of their own house, and IL IS not TO b.
wondered at that the woman upon whom she
was thrust with this unhuman purpose should
with like purpose have behaved TO hrr a
cruelty as those OF her own blood. Another
giTl-a mere child, this one, of fifteen-whO
had been taken as an orphan into the family
OF weli-to do farmer In the town Of Thur
man in this State, was seduced by the iarIn
er's son, and upon the di seoyery OF her con-
dition was brutally put out OF doors by his
parents. Her rural young destroyer inIni, h.
| ed her with just money enough and no more
/ to reach the house of Van Baskirk. and then,
1 like his parents deserted her. TO this girl The
| woman upon whom she had been ioisted
/ appears to have behaved with comparative
humanity. She kept her in the house, cared
| Tor her during her confinement, and was EN-
| ploying her as servant at the time OF her ar
| rest. Vile as is the trade of the Rosenzwggs
| and the Van BuskiIks, 1t must be admitted,
We think, that the decent householders OF the
rural districts which expose their erring
daughters in The highway, and fling helpless
| orphans of tender years into the social cess
| pool, for their own convenience, to preserve
| what they call "their good name." or to es-
| cape a financial burden, afford to the philo-
| sophie mind fully adequate cause for the ex-
| istence of such trade and for the prosperity
OF the Wretches who carry it on.