978 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 15 



In one sense the man is to be pitied, because 

 he lets Satan get hold of him. 



Then I wish to emphasize what friend Ab- 

 bott has so well said, that the parents of this 

 girl were greatly at fault for letting this 

 thing go on to its culmination, for it must 

 have been the work of weeks and months if 

 not years. Once more, how does it happen 

 that this man's wife and relatives had no 

 intimation of how he was wasting his time, 

 to say nothing worse, and yet did nothing 

 to stop it? Besides, the other hands in that 

 factory must have noticed things— it is un- 

 avoidable. How about the boss or employ- 

 er? Did he think there was no harm in this 

 singular intimacy between a married man 

 and a girl of 13? I myself have made sever- 

 al disturbances, and may God be praised 

 that I happened around and noticed what 

 was going on. I have made a fuss or a 

 " row " when the greater part of my friends 

 and neighbors said I was stirring up trouble 

 needlessly. They said I had some old-fash- 

 ioned puritanical notions about such things. 

 They said that it was customary for men, 

 out of courtesy, to bestow these simple at- 

 tentions on even very young girls. My re- 

 ply was, " All right; but let this man (I do 

 know but I should call him rascal) show his 

 courtesy and gallant ways to all woman- 

 kind. What I complain of is that he singles 

 out one particular young girl as the recipi- 

 ent of all his acts of gentility. I am glad 

 to know that such men are being stopped. 



In yesterday's daily we are told of a fel- 

 low who asked a couple of young girls where 

 he could find a certain street. One of them 

 told her companion that the man knew the 

 street perfectly well. They crossed over 

 to get away from him, but he crossed over 

 too, and then they came back where they 

 were first; and when he followed them 

 again, one of the girls screamed. You may 

 think she was foolish to make a fuss in an 

 open street in regard to such a trifling mat- 

 ter; but a policeman who had spotted the 

 man before this occurrence was standing 

 where he could keep his eye on him; and 

 iust as the girl screamed the policeman had 

 him by the back of the*neck, and marched 

 him off to the lockup. Now, it is perfectly 

 right to ask anybody— man, woman, or 

 child— to direct you when you are in a hurry 

 in any town or city ; but after you have done 

 so. go straight about your business. If you 

 follow the incident up by making it an excuse 

 for scraping up a further acquaintance you 

 ought to be arrested. 



God grant that this zeal, or, better, mis- 

 taken zeal, to lynch people instead of wait- 

 ing for the slow process of law, may be 

 turned in the direction of nipping the whole 

 piece of iniquity in the bud. Prevention is 

 better than cure. If there is no other way 

 to do away with lynching colored people in 

 the Southern States, we had better ask our 

 intelligent and God-fearing friends to unite 

 with us in spotting these loose lewd colored 

 men and boys who are hanging around, and 

 have them shut up before they get far 

 enough in their career of crime to commit 



these outrages. Everybody should be on the 

 alert to get hold of such characters, and 

 have them cared for. Better have asylums 

 and prisons especially for them, and have 

 every one, black or white, who shows any 

 tendency or disposition in that line shut up 

 as a means of public safety. I think such a 

 course would soon cure the evil; and by all 

 means let the penalty of the law be admin- 

 istered by the officers of the law. If there 

 must be a mob in order to have our laws ad- 

 ministered, let this mob, or, better still, an 

 assembly of law-abiding and God-fearing 

 people, tell the oflficers of the law what they, 

 the people, expect of them. And I do not 

 know but it would be well to tell these low- 

 down criminal lawyers who defend such 

 wretches that your particular locality is not 

 a healthy place for them. 



In a recent case of this kind where a 

 crazy mob pointed their guns at the sheriff, 

 and told him to open the jail so they could 

 get out a colored man and string him up, 

 the brave sheriff replied to them something 

 as follows: 



"My friends, if you put this man to death 

 whom I have in charge, you may get off 

 with a light punishment, perhaps none at 

 all; but if you shoot me, an officer of the 

 law, because I insist on upholding the law, 

 you will bring down the indignation, not 

 only of our State, but of the whole country. 

 I am defending our laws, and trying to de- 

 fend the honor of the American flag. If 

 you want to shoot me down, shoot! but you 

 can not get this prisoner without walking 

 over my dead body. ' ' They did not shoot. 

 They dispersed and went home. 



One thing more before closing. When 

 that man found that his daughter had been 

 outraged it seemed to him that nothing 

 could ever satisfy until he could put a bullet 

 through the offending neighbor; and may be 

 he felt a little bit of pleasure in seeing the 

 offender die before his eyes. But what 

 then? When you get into a fight with a 

 man it must be a struggle as to who shall 

 kill the other. You think, and the world 

 seems to think, that, if you come out ahead 

 before he kills you, you have done a big 

 thing. I am not so sure of it. I have got 

 as much of a temper as anybody; but I know 

 already what remorse is. If I were in a 

 fight with a neighbor, a man who is not a 

 highway assassin, and I should by my supe- 

 rior strength or agility kill him before he 

 could succeed in killing me, I am inclined to 

 think I should have the worst of the bar- 

 gain. The remorse that would trouble me 

 would be worse than death. 



Another thing, you do not make a man 

 any better by killing him. I do not know 

 that you change his attitude of heart at all. 

 He is not an antagonist any longer; he is 

 gone; I confess we do not know exactly 

 where nor to what extent, but he does not 

 oppose you any longer. A friendly contest 

 may be a pleasant thing. It may stir you 

 both to greater activity and praiseworthy 

 achievements; but who wants to see his op- 

 ponent wiped off in an instant of time from 



