Indiana State Sentinel, Indianapolis, Marion County, 22 April 1891 — Page 12

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THE INDIANA STATE SENTINEL. WEDNESDAY MORNING, APRIL 22, 1891-TWELYE PAGES.

ONE MOKE GREAT PLAGUE.

"DR. TALMAGE'S SERIES CONTINUED. Professional Criminal and Their TTork Ua of tbo Present System of ConGae. ment Uatrustworthy Officials Tha Idlers and tha Oppressed Poor. Dr. Talmage, in continuance of the course of sermons oa "The Ten Plagues of the Cities," last Sunday preached to large audiences in tho Brooklyn Academy of Music in the iorenoon, and at the C7irwtian Utrald service at the New York Academy, of Music in the evening, on "The Tlazue of Crime." He took for his text Exodus vii., 20: "All the waters that were in the river were turned to blood." Among all the Egyptian plagues none could have been worse than this. The Kile is the wealth of Epypt. Its fish the food, its waters the irrigation of garden and fields. Its condition decides the prosperity or the doom of the empire. What happens to the Nile happens to all Egypt. And now ia the text that great river ia incarnadined. It is a red gash across an empire. In poetic license we speak of wars which turn the rivers into blood. But my text is not a poetic license. It was a fact, a great crimson, appalling condition, described. TheNiie rolling deep cf blood. Can you imagine a more awful plazue? The modern plague which nearest corresponds with tii at is the plague of crime in all our cities. It halts not for bloodihed. It shrinks from no carnaze. It bruises and cuts and strikes down and destroys. iUrevels in the blood of body end soul, this plapua of crime, rampant for ages, and never bolder or more rampant than now. The annual police reports of these cities, as I examine them, are to me more suggestive than "Dante's Inferno," and all christian people, as well as reformers, need to waken to a present and tremendous duty. If you want this "plague of crime" to stop there are several kinds of persons you need to consider. (1) The public criminals. You ouht not to be surprised that these people make up a large portion in many communities. The Tast majority of the criminals who take ehip from Europe come into our own port. In 1S69, ot the 49,000 people who were incarcerated in the prisons of the country, 32,000 were of foreign birth. Many of them were the very desperadoes of cities, oozing into the elums of our society, wuiting for an opportunity to riot and steal, and debauch, joining the large gang of American thugs and cut-throats. There are in this cluster of cities New York, Jersey City and Lrooklyn 1,000 people whose entire business in life ia to commit crime. That is as much their business as Jurisprudence or medicine or merchandise is your business. To it they bring all their energies of body, mind and soul, and they look upon the intervals which they spend in prison as bo much unfortunate less of time, just as you look upon an attack of influenza or rheumatism which fastens vou in the house for a few days. It ia their life-time business to pick pockets, and blow up safes, and shoplift, and ply the panel game, and they have so much pride in their business as you have in yours when you Upset the argument of an opposing coun eel, or cure gunshot fracture which other Burgeons have given up, or foresee a turn in the maret as you buy goods just before they go UP L'O per cent. It is their business to commit crime, and I do not suppose that once in a year the thought of the immorality strikes them. Added to these professional criminals, American and foreign, there is a large class of men who are more or less industrious in crime. In one year the police in this cluster of cities arretted 10,000 people for theft, and 10,000 tor assault and battery, and 50,000 for intoxication. Drunkenness is responsible for much of tho theft, since it confuses a man's ideas of property, and he pets his hands on things that do not belong to him. Kurn is responsible for much of the assault and battery, inspiring men to sudden bravery, which they must demonstrate, though it be on the face of the next gentleman. Ten mil. ion dollars worth of property stolen in this cluster of citiee in one year. You can not, as good citizens, be independent of that fact. It will touch your pocket, since I have to give vou the fact that these three cities pay about $S.OOO,000 worth of taxes a year to arraign, try and eupport the criminal population. " You help to pay the board of every criminal, from the eneak thief that snatches a spool of cotton, up to some man who swamps a bank. More than that, it touches your heart in the moral depression of the community. You might as well think to eland m a closely confined room where there are fifty people and yet not breathe the vitiated air, ad to stand in a community where there is such a great multitude of the depraved without somewhat being contaminated. What is the tire that burns your store down compared with the conflagration which consumes vour morals? "What is the theft of the gold and silver from your money safe compared with the theft of your children's virtue? We are all ready to arraign criminals. "We shout at the top of our voice, "Stop thief !" and when the po ice get on the track we come out, flattens and in our clippers, and assist in the arrest. "We come around the bawling ruffian and hustle him ctl to justice, and when he gets in prison, what do we do for him? With great gU3'o we put on the handcuffs and the hopples; but what preparation are we making for the day when the handcuffs and the hopples come off? Society Beems to say to these criminals, "Villain, go in there and rot," when it ought Bay, "You are an offender against the law, but we mean to give you an opportunity to repent; we mean to help you. Here are bibles and tracts and Christian influence. Christ died for you. Look and live." Vast improvement have been made by introducing industries into the prison; but we want something more than hammers and shoe laats to reclaim these people. Aye, we want more than sermons on babbath day. Society must impress the-e roen with the fact that it does not enjoy their suffering, and that it is attempting to reform and elevate them. The majority of criminals suppose that society has a Erudge against them, and they in turn are a grudge against society. They are harder in heart and more Infuriate when they come out of jail than when they went in. Many of the people who go to prison go again and again. Some years ago of 1,500 prisoners who during the year had been in Sing, Sing, 400 had been there before. In a house of correction in the country, where daring a certain reach of time there had been 5,100 people, more than 3,000 had been there before. So, ia one cae the prison, and in the other case the house of correction, left them just as bad aa they were before. The secretary ot one of the benevolent societies of New York saw a lad fi;teen years of age who had spent three years of his life in prison, and he said to the lad: "What have they done for you to make you better?" "Well," replied the lad, "the first time I was brought up before the judge he paid, 'You ought to be ashamed of yourself.' And then I committed a crime again and I was brought up before the same judge, and he Baid, 'You rascal!' And altera while I committed some other crime, and I waa

brought before the came judge and he aid, 'You ought to be hanged. " That is all they had done for him in the way of reformation and salvation. "Oh," yon eay, "these people are incorrigible." I suppose there are hundreds ol persons this day lying in prison bunka who would leap up at the prospect of reformation, if society would only allow them a way into deeency and respectabi ity. "Oh," you say, "I hare no patience with these rogues." I ask you in reply, how mnch better would you have been under the sane circumstances? Suppose your mother had been a blasphemer and your father a sot, and you had started life with a body stuf'ed with evil proclivities, and you had spent much of your time in a cellar amid obscenities and cursing, and if at ten years of age you had been compelled to go out and steal, battered and banged at night if you came in without any spoils, and suppose your early manhood and womanhood had been covered with rags and filth, and decent society had turned its back upon you, and left you to consort with vagabonds and wharf-rats how much better would you have been? 1 have no sympathy with that executive clemency whiVh would let crime run loose, or which would sit in the gallery of a court room weeping becau-e Borne hard-hearted wretch is brought to justice; but I do say that the safety and life of the community demand more potential influences in behalf of public oUenders. In some of the city prisons the air is like that of the Black Hole of Calcutta. I have vihited prisons where, as tho air swept through the wicket, it almost knocked me down. Mo sunl ght. Young men who had committed their first crime crowded in among old otlenders. I Baw in one prison a woman, with a child almost Mind, who had been arrested for the crime of poverty, who was waiting until the slow law could take her to tho alms house, where she rightfully belonged; but she was thrust in there with her child amid the most abandoned wretches of tho town. Many of the offenders in that prison sleeping on the floor, with nothing but a vermin-covered blanket over them. These people, crowded and wan. and wasted, and half su ocated, and infuriated. I said to the men: "How do you stand it here?" "God knows," said one man, "we have to stand it." Oh, they will pay you w hen tbey get out. "Where they burned down one houne they will burn three. They will strike deeper the assassin's knife. They are this minute plotting worse burglaries. Some of the city jails are the best places I know of to manufacture foot-pods, vagabonds and cutthroat. Yale college is not so well calculated to make scholars, nor Harvard so well calculated to make scientists, nor Princeton so well ca'culated to make theologians as many of our jails are calculated to make criminals. All that those men do not know of crime after they have been in that dungeon for some time, eatanic machination caunot teach them. In the iiiBuilerable stench aud sickening surroundings of Biich places there is nothing but disease for the body, idiocy for the mind, and death for the soul. Stifled air and darknees and vermin never turned a thief into an honest man. "We want men like John Howard and Sir Will;am lilackstone, and women like Elizabeth Fry to do for the prisoners of the United States what those people did in other days for the prisoners of England. I thauk God for what Ijraac T. Hopper and Dr. Winos and Mr. Harris and scores of others have done in tho way of prison reform ; but we want something more radical before will come the ble.-inj of him who said: "I was in prison, and ye came unto me." Again, in your effort to arrest this plague of crime you need to consider untrustworthy officials. "Woe unto tbee, 0 land, when thy king is a child, and thy princes drink in the morning." It is a ereat calamity to a city when bad men get into public authority.' Why was it that in .New York there wns such unparalleled crime between 1ST.G and 1871? It was because the judges of police in that city at that time, for the most part, were as corrupt aa the- vagabonds that came before thorn or trial. Those were the days of high carnival for election frauds, assassination and forgery. We had all kind of rings. There was one man during those years that got $12S,000 in one year for serving the public, in a few vears it was estimated that there were ? 50,( 00, 000 of public treasure squandered. In those times the criminal had only to wink to the judge, or his lawyer would wink for him, and the question was decided for the defendant. Of the eight thousand peophs arrested in that city in one year only three thousand were punished. These little matters were "lixed up," while the interests of society were "fixed down." You know as well as as I do that ne villian who escapes only opens the door for other criminalities. When the two pick-pockcts snatched the diamond pin from tho Brooklyn gentleman in a llroadway stage, and the viliians were arrrslod, and the trial was set down for the general sessions, and then the trial never came, and never anything more was heard of the case, the public oflicials were only bidding higher for more crime. It is no compliment to public authority when we have in all the citie of the country, walkinz abroad, men and women notorious for criminality, unwhipped of justice. They are pointed out to yon in the 6treet "day by day. There you find what are called the "iences," the men who stand between the thief and the honest man, sheltering the thief, and at a great price, handing over the good to the owner to whom they belong. There you will find those who are calted the ''skinners," the men who hover around Vall-t., with great sleight of hand in bonds and stocks. There you will find the uneral thieves, the people who go and sit down and mourn with families and pick their pockets. And there you will find the "confidence men," who borrow money of you because they have a dead child in the house and want to bury it, when they never had a house or a lamily ; or they want to go to England and get a large property there, and they want you to pay their way, and they will send the monev back by the verr next mail. there are the "harbor thieves," the "shoplifters," the "pickpockets," famous all over the cities. Hundreds of them with their faces in the "rogues' gallery," yet doing nothing for the last five or ten years but defraud society and escape justice. When these people go unarrested and unpunished it is putting a high premium upon vice, and saying to the young criminals of this country : "What a safe thing it is to be a great criminal." Let the law 6woop upon the rn. Let it be known in this country that crime will have no quarter, that the detectives are after it, that the police club is being brandished, that the iron door of the prison is being opened, that the judge is ready to ca 1 on the case. Too great leniency to criminals is too great severity to eociety. Again: In your effort to arrest this plague of crime you need to consider the idle population. Of course, I do not refer to the jieople who are getting old, or to the sick, or to those who cannot get work: but 1 tell you to look out for thoso athletic men and women who will not work. When the Trench nobleman was asked why he kept busy when he had so large a property, he said, "I keep on engraving no I may not hang myself." I do not care who tho man is, you cannot afford to be idle. It is from the idle classes that the criminal clashes are made up. Character, like water, gets putrid if it stands still too long. Who can wonder that in this world, where there is so much to do, and ell the hoots of earth and heaven

and hell are plunged into the conflict, and the angels are flying, and God is at work, and ti.e universe is a quake with the marching and countermarching, that God lets his indignation fall upon a man who chooses idleness? 1 have watched theee donothings who spend their time stroking their beards, and retouching their toilet, and criticising industrious

eople, and pass their days and nights m ar rooms and c ub houses, lounging and chewing and card playing. They are not only useless, but they are dangerous. How hard it is for them to while away the hours! Alas for them! If they do not know how to while away an hour, what will they do when they have all eternity on their hands? These men for a while smoke the best cigars, and wear the best clothes, and move in the highest spheres; but I have noticed that very soon they come down to the prison, the alms house, or stop at the gallows. The police stations of this cluster of cities furni.h annually between 2,000,000 and 3,000,000 lodgings. For the most part these 200,000 and 300.000 lodgings are furnished to able-bodied men and women people as able to work aa you and I are. When they are received no longer at one police elation, because they are "repeaters" they go to some other 6tation and po they keep moving around. They get their food at house doors, stealing what they can lay their bands on in the front basement, while the servant is ipreadini the bread in the back basement. They will not work. Time and again, in the country districts they have wanted hundreds and thousands of laborers. These men will not go. They do not want to work. I have tried them. I have ect them to sawing wood in my cellar to see whether they wanted to work. I offered to pay them well for it I have heard the saw going for about three minutes, and then I went down, and lo, the wood, but no saw 1 They are the pest of society, and thev stand in the way of the Lord's poor, who ought to be helped, and must bo helped, and will be helped. While there are thousands of industrious men who can not get any work, these men who do not want any work come in and make that plea. I am in favor of the restoration of the o!d-fehioned whipping-post for just this one class of men who will not work, s eeping at night at public expense in the station house ; during the day getting their food at your doorstep. Imprisonment does not scare them. They would like it. Blackwell's Island or Sing Sing would be a comfortable home for them. They would have no objection to the alms house, for they like thin soup if they can not get mock-turtle. I propose this for them: On one s:dn of tt.em put some hea thy work ; on the other Bide put a rawhide, and let them take their choice. I like for that class of people the scant bill of fare that Paul wrote out for the Thessalonian loafer: "If any work not, neither should he eat." By what law of God or man ia it right that you and I should toil, day in and day out, until our handa are blistered and our arms ache and our brain gets numb, and then be called upon to support what in the United States are about 2,000,000 loafers! They are a very dangerous class. Iet the public authorities keep their eyes on them. Again: Among the uprooting c'assesl place the oppressed poor. Poverty, to a certain extent, is chateninz; but after that, when it drives a man to the wall, and he hears his children crv in vain for bread, it sometimes makes him desperate. I think there are thousands of honest men lacerated into vagabondism. There are men crushed under burdens for which they are not ha f paid. While there is no excuse for criminality, even in oppression, I state it ns a timple fact that much of the ecoundrelism of tho community is consequent upon ill-treatment. There are many men and women battered and bruised and stung until the hour of despair has come, and they stand with the ferocity of awi.d beast which, pursued until it can run no longer, turns round, foaming and bleeding, to fight the houuds. There is a vast underground New York and Brooklyn life that ia appaliing and shameful. It wallows and Bieams with purification. You go down the stairs, which are wet and decaying with filth, and at the bottom you will find the poor victims on the fior, cold, eick, threefourths dead, s'inking into a still darker corner under tbe g earn of the lantern of the police. There ha3 not been a breath of fresh air in that room for five years, literally. The broken sewer empties its contents upon them, and they lie at night in the ewiuiming filth. There they are mn, women, children; blacks, whites; Mary Magdalen without her repentance, and Lazarus without his God. These are "the dives'' into which the pickpockets and the thieves go, as well as a great manv who would like a different life, but can not get it. These places are the tores i of the city, which bleed perpetual corrup- I T i .... - ,.i I that threatens us with a Caraccaa earthquake. It rol s and roars and surges and heaves and rocks and blasphemes and dies. And there are only two outlets for: it the police court and the potter a held. In other words, they must either go to prison or to hell. Oh, you never saw it, vou Bay. You never will see it until on tho day when those stagg.-ring wretches shall come up in the light of the judgment throneand while all hearts are being revealed God will ask you what you did to help them. There is another layer ot poverty and destitution, not ho squulid, but almost as helpless. You hear the incessant waling for bread and clothes and fire. Their eyes are sunken. Their cheekbones standout. Their hands are damp with slow consumption. Their flesh is tutfed up with dn psies. Their breath ia like that of the charnel houst. They hear the roar of the wheels of fashion overhead, and the gay laughter of men and maidens, and wonder why God gave to others bo much and to them so little. Some of them thrust into an infidelity like that of the poor German girl who, when told in the midst of her wretchedness that God was good, said: "No.no god God. Just look at me. No good God." In this cluster of cities whose cry of want I interpret there are said to be, as far as I can figure it up from the reports, about 300,000 honest poor who are dependent upon individual, city and state charities. If all their voices could come up at once, it would be a groan that would shake the foundations of the city and bring all earth and heaven to the rescue. But, for the most part, it suffers unexpressed. It sits in eilence, gnashing its ceth and sucking the blood of its own arteries, waiting for the iudgment day. Oh, I thould not wonder if on that day it would be found out that some of ns had eomo things that be onged to them some extra garment which might have made them comfortable in cold days; some bread thrust into the ash-barrel that might have appeased their hunger for" a little whiie; eorae wasted candle or gas-jet that might have kindled up their darkness; some fresco on the ceiling that would have given them a roof: some jewel which, brought to that orphan girl in time, might have kept her from being crowded off the precipices of an unclean life; some new testament that would have told them of Him who "came to seek and save that which waslost." Oh, this wave of vagrancy and hunger and nakedness that dashes against our front door-step I If the roofs of all the houses of destitution could be lifted so we could look down into them just as God looks, whose nerves would be strong enough to stand it? And yet there thoy are. The 50,000 sewing women in these three cities, some of them in hunger and cold, working night after eight, until some

times the blood spurts fiom nostril and lips. How well tneir grief was voiced by that despairing woman who etood by her invalid husband and invalid child, and Baid to the city missionary: "I am down-hearted. Everything's against us; and then there are other things." " What other things?" Baid the city missionary. "O," 6he replied, "inv sin." "What do you mean by that?" ""Well," she eaid, "1 never hear or see anything good. It's work from Monday morning till Saturday night, and then when Sunday comes I can't eo out, and I walk the floor, and it makes me tremble to think that I have got to meet God. O, eir. it's so hard for us. We have to work bo, and then we have so much trouble, and then we are getting along so poorly; and eeo this wee little thing growing weaker and weaker; and then to think we are not getting nearer to God, but floating away from him. O, sir, I do wish I was ready to die." I should not wonder if they had a good deal better time than we in the future, to make up for the fact that they haa (uch a bad time here. It would be just like Jesus to say: "Come up and take the highest seats. You eurtered with me on earth; now be glorified with me in heaven." O Thou weeping one of Bethany; O Thou dying ono of the cross. Have mercy on the starving, freezing, homeless poor of these great cities I I have preached this sermon for four or five practical reasons: Because I want you to know who are the uprooting classes of society. Because I want you to be more discriminating in your charities. Because I want your hearts open with generosity, and your hands open with charity. Because I want you to be made the sworn friends of all city evangelization, and all newsboys' lodging houses, and all children's aid societies and Dorcas societies, under the skillful manipulation of wives and mothers and euters and daughters; let the spare garments of your wardrobe be fitted to the limbs of the wan and shivering. I should not wonder if that hat that you give should come back a jeweled coronet, or if that garment that you hand out from your wardrobe should mysteriously be whitened, and somehow wrought into the Savior's own robe, so in the last day He would run His hand over it and say : "I was naked, and ye clothed me." That would be putting your garments to glorious uses. But more than that, I have preached the sermon because I thought in the contrast you would see how very kindly God had dealt with you, and I thought that thousands of you would go to your comfortable homes and sit at your well-filied tables end t the warm registers, and look atthercuni faces of your children, and that then you would burst into tears at the review of G d's goodnes to you, and that you would go to your room and lock the door, and kneel down and say: "0 Lord, I have been an in grate; make me thy child. O lxrd, there are bo many hungry and unclad and unsheltered today, I thank thee that all my life thou has taken such good care of me. O Lord, there are so many sick and crippled children today, I thank thee mine are well, Bome'of th-ra on earth, 6ome cf them in heaven. Thy goodness, 0 Lord, breaks mo down. Take me once and forever. Sprinkled as I was many years ago at tho altar, while my mother heid me, now I consecrate mysoul to thee ia a holier baptiBtn of repenting tears. For tinners, Lord, thou can'it to bleed And I'm a inn-r vile Indead ; LorJ, 1 bolieve tbjr gram) Is free, O magnify thai grace to me. THE OLD MAN'S ADVICE-

His First Marriage for Love, tha Second Cor a Form. There was a young man in a seat by himself, says the Sew York Sun, who betrayed such impatience every time the train stopped that tbe old man in front of him finally turned and inquired: 'Anything special on yi-r mind to make ye act bo narvoua? Heard any bad news?" "Xo, sir." "Didn't know but somebody was dead." "No, sir. I'm to ba married at 5 o'clock this afternoon in Eut'.alo." "Shoo ! You don't say so !" "Yes. eir." "And it makes you narvous? "Somewhat, I suppose." "Good-looking gal?" "Yes." "Lots o money?" "No." "Then it's a case o' love?" "Yes, eir pure and simple, as I am proud to say. "In other words, you hain't got nuthin', she hain't got nuthin', and you don't either of you expect nuthin' from nobodv?" "That's it." "Waal, young man, that's the way with lots of folks, and it can't be helped. Started in that way myself. It hain't none o' mvbizness, of course, and probably this thing has gone too far to let you back out, but let mo give ye some advice. I've tried both sorts. I fust married a gal for love, and lived fur five years on johnny cake and barley coHee. She died, and I married a widow for forty acres of land, 6ix cows, three horses and fifty-four sheep, and I'm highway commissioner, postmaster at our corners, school trustee.and referee of all jumpiu' matches in the county. If it hain't too lnt- when ye git to I'.uilaio just move that the meeting do now adjourn, and then peel yer eye fur a wilder with a farm. Love hain't nuthin' but a tort of mist, anyhow, and it passes off sooner or later, but wben ye kin go out and lay yer hand on land worth $80 an acre, and hear the bosses, cows and sheep cuvortin' o'er the downy lea, you know you've gotsunthin' back of ye in case yer bones ache with LIVING IN THE PAST. Sohlletuann the Aroiaaoloa;tat and BUTd Meeuiu. lXw Eng'and Mtsazine. I met fcchliemann one day on board a steamer in the Gulf of Corinth. He was pacing the deck, apart from the other passengers, absorbed m perusing a book. I asked him what he was reading. "Ad acco .nt of the naval eneagement," he replied, and went on with the reading. He seemed to think that the "naval engagement" was all that it was necessary to explain, and I was left to my conjectures to determine whether he was interesting himself with an account of the battle of Trafalgar or some other modern achievement. Soon after he came to me, as I was seated some, distance from him on the main deck, in1 an excited manner and exclaimed: "What a wonderful man he was, was he not?" "Who was?" I asked. "Why, Themistocles. What foresight! What astonishing power of conception and adaptation to circumstances!" lie was reading from the original Greek the account of the battle of Sal am is, and was as much excite d by it as if for tbe first time in hi lite he had become acquainted with an historical fact with which he was really as familiar as a child with his a, b, c. Aa Appropriate Costa m. (fuck. "What wan the idea of dressing the little page at tbe Be vera wedding like a western desperado?" "Oh, he waa to hold up the train, you know." x;lr Togothor. IPock.l "On what date does congress usually adjourn?" "That depends entirely on the size of the surplus to be expended."

STRANGER THAN FICTION.

A STORY OF MANY BROKEN HEARTS. How a Toons; Girl Forsook II or Homo and Friends to Lead at Lit of Sliavma The Story of a Grief -Stricken rathor. It is no doubt true that in real life there are daily occurrences more replete with romance than the fertile brain of the author of fiction has yet been able to invent. Ofttirues some of the more trivial scandals, involving persons of both high and low estate, find their way into the newspapers and are talked of for a day, and less frequently the names of those high in the eocial world are dragged down so low as to become the subject of street badinage, but all the time, and especia 11 in largo cities, the grand mansion ol the millionaire and the humble cottage of the tradesman alike are the guardians of griefs hard to bear, and of secrets of which the world at large is not aware, and thus cannot profane. Not long ago some two weeks the editor of one of the large newspapers of the country received an anonymous letter bearing an Indianapolis postmark. The letter was exceedingly graphic in its description and 6 h owed the writer to be Eome one of education. It 6tated that Dr. was one of the wealthiest physicians of this city and resided on one of the most aristocratic streets; that he had one son who had but recently graduated from a prominent medical institution with the highest honor, and three beautiful and accomplished laughters, the younget and most beautiful of whom had graduated from four colleger, waa a versatile linzuist, a finished musician and an artist with bright possibilities before her. This daughter, the letter went on to state, had, some three months prior to the date on which the letter was written, suddenly left her beautiful home with its sumptuous surroundings and her whereabouts were still a profound mystery. The author of the letter, however, as is common with most authors of anonymous communications, had a very plausible explanation for the young girl s disappearance from home and friends. It was that a young man occupying an equally high social position had left the city at about the same t mo and the anxious inquiries of his friends as to his whereabouts had in each case proven futile. The newspaper to which the letter was addressed did not print it, but instead mailed it to its accredited correspondent in this city with the simple inquiry attached "What does it mean?'' "The correspondent, who is acquainted either by association or reputation with almost every prominent man in tbe city, failed to recognize in the name of the person referred to in the letter any physician of wealth or prominence, but with the epistle in his possession and the newspaper instinct guiding him he started out to look for a clew. The city diiectory did not contain in a very tangible form what is to a detective his indispensable stock-in-trade. Clews wew few and far bf-tween and tht correspondent hid merged himse'f into the detectivd. In the epitome of the city's population he found doctors whose surnames corresponded to the one mentioned in the letter, but ia each case the given name was different. This was not very encouraging, but selecting one from the number, which, from a cursory examination, Beemed most likely to prove the one, the correspondent determined to prosecute his investigation. The street on which the gentleman lived was remote from the one named in tbe letter and inhabited by people in lees pretentious circum-tances. but the correspondent was not daunted. Very cautiously he inquired among tbe neighbors in the vicinity of the gentleman's houpe if there was anything wanting in his domestic happiness, but he did not call at the physician's house, having arrived at the conclusion that the anonymous letter-writer had simply related a mythical 6tory. However, that evening, after having thought the matter over, and beiDg unable to free his mind of a sort of intuitive feeling that he had "struck the right trail," he addressed a letter to the physician. In it he apprised him of the contents of tho anonymous letter, but the communication was worded bo that it could not possibly give offense. The fol owing morning at 9 o'clock the correspondent was busily engaged in hia ofiice when a visitor was ushered in. He introduced himself as Dr. , and eaid he had but a few minutes before received the letter written by the correspondent. He had a fine looking, intellectual face, but in his hair was a sprinkle of gray, and his whole appearance suggested anxiety and deep-seated grief. The correspondent, patisfied now that the man before him could have no connection with the anonymous letter that had been forwarded to him by his paper, was profuse in his apologies; he had merely endeavored to secure a clue it possible. Almost the first question his visitor asked was to see the anonvmous letter. It was handed to him immediately, and after a quick, searching glance over its pages he exclaimed: "I thought eo; that letter was written by my youngest daughter." The correspondent was astounded but Baid nothing. After a Ehort pause the o'-d gentleman continued! "It is true that I hare one son and three daughters, the youngest of whom the one who wrote that letter is rather good looking but not beautiful. My bod, far from graduating from a medical institution, has gone to school but little. My youngest daughter has a fairly good education, but she knows nothing about music and painting. It is hard for a man who has endeavored to rear his children into becoming honest men and women to cay it, but I must confess that from her very intanry my youngest daughter was a liar. It seemed to be a mania with her: she would lie about the most trivial things. Thus she grew into womanhood a constant menace to the happiness of her parents. Two months ago she left ho i.e and was gone for months. By pure accident I one day met her. face to face, on the street, and asked her where she was going. She refused to tell me, but by threatening to call a police officer who was standing near by I compelled her to lead me to her home. May God prevent that any other man shall receive such a shock as was in store for me. I found that my daughter had been leading a life of shame for many months and I was upbraided by a woman at the house for having driven ber away fiom home and into such a life. After much persuasion I got her consent to return home with me and ehe did eo, remaining there quietly tor several months, when she again left. I have heard of her rince still leading the o!d life, but I have never seen her and do not wish to. Her mother and I have, In a measure, become reconciled to our great grief, and our constant desire is to forcet that we ever reared such a daughter. You 'can Bee by this anonymous letter that her penchant for lying has not abated. It is an uncontrollable mania." As he finished relating the story of his great grief, large teardrops coursed down the old man's furrowed cheeks. Quietly bidding the correspondent a adieu be left the office to renew again the battle to overcome his grief, which had been so forcibly recalled by the incidents connected with the anonymous letter.

WSia

f f&W W GUh n n . m

Castoria ia Dr. Samuel Pitcher's prescription for Infants and Children. It contains neither Opium, Morphine nor other Xarcotlc substance. It is a harmless substitute for Paregoric, Drops, Soothing Syrups, and Castor Oil. It is Pleasant. Its guarantee is thirty years' use- by Ililllocs of Ulothcrs. Castoria destroys Worms and allays fcyerishness. Castoria prcTents vomiting Sour Curd cores Diarrhoea and Wind Colic. Castoria relieves teething troubles, cures constipation and flatulency Castoria assimilates tho food, regulates tho stomach and bowels, giving healthy aud natural sleep. Cas toria is tho Children's Panacea the Mother's Friend

Castoria. "Castoria is aa excellent medicine for cMdren. Mothers have repeatedly told me of its good affect upon their children." Da. O. C. Oeaooo, Lowell, Mass. Castoria Is the- best remedy for children of which I am acquainted. I hope the day is cot far distant wben mothers will consider the real interest of their children, and use Castoria In. ste&d of the t arious q uack nostrums which era destroying their lored onee, by forcing opium, morphine, soothing syrup and other hurtful agent down their throat, thereby seeding (hem to prematura fmet." Da. J. F. KrucnxLoi, Ooaway, Ark. The Centaur Company, 77

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Practical suggestions to Young ITousekeepcrs, Kecessarr Kitchen Utenrils,

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FRAY MB FRUIT TREES ! VIHES Wormy Fro'.t and t Bilfh HI Applea, Paam, Chrrs CYfCKIflQ SPRATIM) Gnpt and Potato Uot, Plum Oaroulia prvrsclwi Ij asiuc CAwCLwIl'it CTFIT. PERFECT FRUIT ALWAYS ".FLUS AT COOD P RICES. tlatalocw.ah.mina; all Injurious insaota toFruita mailsd fraa. I.nrarr ntork of Km it Trre. Tlnraw aad Berrr f Uaia at Uauaaa rricea. AddrwM V iU. &TA11U Ukc7i Him

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r ..... Castoria. Caitoria la to well adapted to children Cial I recommend it aa auperior to any prracrirtica known, to infc" IX. A. Abchkk, 12. D., 111 So. Oxford St., Brooklyn, Jf. T. Our physicians in tha children deperV meat have apokea highly of their experience in their outside practice with Castoria, and although we only hare among oar med cat euppliea what is known aa regular products, yet we are free to confess that the merits of Castoria has won ua to took wlUa favor uron it." Uxitko EosnTAi. aud DrETcrsaET, Amor C Burrs, Pres., Murray Street, No-or York City.

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ana ri-ar.t children. All hanrteompiv iilntrete1.f It lae bou aouio circ.e, full of common-tense itieaa and sua wI'1 reeo'm TIE IN'DI VNA STATE S NTINEL a!t tna LADIRS HOME COMPANION one Jtsr will also re -eive ibe aiv Coot oot, postpaid. renewal well as new nam. 3 ibieribert whose renewed sr privileged to aept tls ijreat o!lr, lo Unlet one Trsr. Th-i or,l rj mu te me dir-ct from Year For $1.25. BALM Cleanses tie -. I.A imM.tUn. TIa.lSi Tatta and bmsll. and t'ui . once iyr vtuu m jnrcvu. r vVYVT-f ELY KXOS.,ta Wanen 8t, N. T.E ! year; enier auy urue; ciecuve rr sroacnoea rrrvluatei : CO rharrw for roittonB fftrnUhM.

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