A Modern Sodom by Editor

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 1, 1857

A Modern Sodom.

By Editor

We have only to judge the world out of their own mouth. The following glance at one day's events of New York is applicable to more than one city of this union. And when God shall by terrible judgments prove to mankind that he looks not now with more allowance upon sin than he did anciently, will any have grounds to complain of their doom? None. Their own lips have pronounced the just sentence of condemnation. The following from the New York Golden Prize is by no means a solitary instance of secular papers' calling attention to the moral deformity of the age, and acknowledging its desert.

"In the city department of one of the daily papers last week, we read the following heads: 'Elopement from Saratoga,' 'The late Bank Defalcation,' 'Barnum Arrested,' 'A Pitiful Case,'—man found dying of consumption on the ground, 'Highway Robbery, and Attempted Murder,' 'Arrest of Coiners,' 'Little Girl found in the Water,' 'Theft of Valuable Diamonds,' 'A Man Accidentally Killed,' 'River Thieves at Work,'—one shot, 'Accidentally Drowned,' 'Forgery,' 'Swindling Operation,' 'Alleged Swindle by the Keeper of a Loan Office,' 'Supposed Infanticide,' 'Petty Theft,' 'Attempt to take Life,' 'Attempt at Suicide,' and so on. That is a pretty good one day's catalogue; but it would swell out an ordinary newspaper to record all the crimes and casualties that occur in the city during a day and night. Criminals are as thick as mosquitoes in Jersey meadows, and a majority of them escape the vigilance of the police, while a countless gang of swindlers infest and curse the community whom the law does not pretend to interfere with, such as Peter Funks, Ticket swindlers, Tombs lawyers, and Wall-street brokers. We often wonder what sort of places Sodom and Gomorrah were, to be destroyed for their sins, when New York is still above ground."