The Signs of the Times.
By Editor
ONE of the Cincinnati papers says: “For the last two months our city may be said to have been earning to herself a reputation that is not much in accordance with the law and order principles we have, in past times, claimed as her just meed. During the past month, we have averaged at least one murder per week openly known to the public, how many yet undiscovered we cannot say, while minor affairs in the same catalogue, such as knock-downs, stabbing, wife-whipping, &c., have been mere matters of after supper recreation, to be indulged in whenever the opportunity is afforded and the inclination of the participants tend to such amusements. “In one case a man shoots his companion on the highway, because he simply thought proper to disagree with him; in another, a husband murders his wife, from no reason whatever, so far as has yet been ascertained; in another still, a rowdy slaughters a citizen while in the discharge of his daily duties, from no other cause than he is in want of a little excitement, and must have it, no matter at what cost. The latest feature in the catalogue is that of Saturday evening last, wherein a young woman is basely slaughtered in her own home, simply because she thought proper to defend herself against the attack of those who brutally assaulted her.” We will say nothing of similar crimes lately committed in Louisville and Baltimore; let us be silent about minor crimes with which the columns of the press teem; let us only mention two more crimes black as pitch, one in New York, where a young man commits any murder Satan himself can scheme, and ends with cold-blooded, preconcerted suicide—and one in Canada, where two bullies disgraced human nature in the presence of a vast concourse of devils in human shape, who, on returning from the disgusting scene committed any and every outrage of which such fiends are capable, still none of the perpetrators is reached by the arms of justice. The telegraphic wires must carry the news of a prize fight into every town, must speak of the defiance of the law, the outrage of public morals, a pasquil on humanity, and then again the press must publish a card of the beaten rowdy to save HIS HONOR (!!!) Is there any philanthropist who can look upon these crimes, and not feel his countenance mantled with shame, his heart mortified and disgusted; can any man look on all this without weeping a tear over the mourning goddess of humanity, and looking pain-stricken and sorrowful into the future of this country? One might well exclaim with the prophet Isaiah, “How hath she become a prostitute, the faithful fortress, justice once dwelt in her and now murders.” Every honest man must confess, this is truly alarming; the signs of the times are ominous, terrible. But we did not sit down to repeat the lamentations of Jeremiah. It is our intention to investigate into the causes which produce the deplorable effects. Most of the public papers are apt to ascribe this state of depravity to the frequent use of liquor, and charge the whole account of crimes to the rum sellers. But they change cause and effect. The frequent use of intoxicating liquors is already the effect of moral depravity, a want of self-dominion and self-respect, a relaxation of the moral energies which allows man to indulge in the very thing which maddens his brains and renders him brutal. The same is the case with the gambling houses. Only depraved and immoral men set down at the gambling table. Rum shops, gambling houses and houses of prostitution are dens of vice and schools of crime, but not the cause thereof; for they are frequented only by demoralized men. It appears that some men lack the moral courage to despise the drunkard and gambler, to condemn those who frequent houses of prostitution, to let them know and feel their contemptible and vicious character; because degeneration has deprived man of their own moral firmness, and weak as they are, they find an excuse for every man’s faults. Whoever knows that his neighbor gambles, drinks and goes into houses of ill-fame, admonishes him not to stop his vicious course of life, contemns him not if he does not stop, and lets him not feel on every proper occasion the just aversion and disgust he feels for him, is nearly as weak as his sinful neighbor, and a cause of his downfall. Yes, those silent sages, who excuse every man’s faults and again associate with the depraved, are the cause of depravity. There is no public opinion powerful enough to chastise the vicious man; to put those to shame who indulge in less conspicuous vices. Therefore minor vices grow into deep-died crimes.—Israelite.