FLOCKING TO THE CITIES.
By T.
THE United States census so far as completed for 1900 shows a large increase in the population of the most of our leading cities. Toledo stands the highest, with an increase of 61 per cent.; Chicago comes next, with an increase of 54 per cent.; then comes Cleveland, with an increase of 46 per cent.; Buffalo and Greater New York each show an increase of 37 per cent.; while Baltimore has passed the half million mark, with an increase of 30 per cent. This large growth of the cities indicates a dissatisfaction with country life, which is the natural life for man. It is altogether unnatural and unscientific for individuals to be herded together in large cities. There is sure to be a lack of work in these cities, and the idleness that is consequently enforced upon individuals who are there, breeds all sorts of crime and vice. There is a certain excitement about city life that draws a great many individuals. They love to spend their time at the theaters, at the race tracks, and the other places of questionable amusement. All of this costs money, and the individual is tempted to risk what little he may have in betting, in order that he may get more. But if he loses, then he is still further tempted to resort to almost any kind of fraudulent work, even going to the depths of the basest crimes, in order to get money by means of which to indulge himself in the excitements and the amusements of the place. Then there is another stratum of society in these large cities that descends to the lowest depths of slum life, and, living in this sphere, every ray of hope for a better condition of things is forever shut out. Individuals in this condition settle themselves down to lead the most miserable kind of an existence. Some of the large cities are rivaling each other in their desire to increase their population, but, looked at from the true standpoint, it is no very flattering condition to think that so many of our large cities are doubling themselves, and some of them even more than doubling, in ten years. There is a time just a little way ahead of us when the angry forces of capital and labor will clash, and when that time comes the degraded and discontented, debased element that is filling all our cities will break loose, to murder, plunder, and burn. And all the time that these cities are filling up, the country places are being desolated. There are thousands upon thousands of acres of unused land that might furnish happy homes to these people if they were only encouraged to go out and take it up. The wealthy men who are holding these lands for speculative purposes will find before long in the great upheaval of society that is surely coming, that they have speculated in a wrong way. These men have an opportunity now to encourage individuals to leave the filthy depths of the slums and go out into the beautiful country, with its health-giving and purifying atmosphere, and make for themselves a decent living, and leave behind them their temptations to vice and crime. It may be that not nearly all of them could be induced to go, but there are a great many who, if they were helped a little, would gladly do so. But if this matter is treated with indifference, and the wealthy go on with their pleasures and frivolities as they are doing, it will only be a little while until they bring upon themselves the greatest disaster of all the ages. These questions are worthy of candid and serious consideration. Men of wealth were never in such awful danger as they are at the present time. They ought to be able to see it, and they ought to be able to see that it is time for them to be taking an interest in something besides debasing pleasures, and the degrading pastime of continually pursuing wealth for the mere sake of having money and still more money. The craze for getting money and the craze for pleasure that are being manifested so strongly in this large increase in the population of our cities, are the seed-sowing that can but produce a bountiful harvest of terrible evils. Such persons are flocking to the cities because they think a much better opportunity is afforded them there for making money and getting pleasure. Everywhere you will hear it said that there is no money any more to be made on the farm, and that it is simply drudgery to stay there. This is bearing false witness against the soil that God has given us from which to gain our livelihood; and unless this sentiment is changed, the evils that will follow can not be imagined nor combated. We may not hope in the entire mass of humanity to change this sentiment that is so strongly set on going the wrong way, but individuals wherever they are who see the evil that is coming should plan at once to set themselves upon right principles and go in right lines. And especially should those who are wealthy consider the responsibilities that are resting upon them to devote their interests as actively in the direction of alleviating these evils as they have been engaged in the past in the work of amassing wealth. As already stated, the situation is a serious one and is worthy of most careful consideration. T.