But
now I make complaint, not to the Mayor or Common Council, but to the
masses of the people, who have the power to lift men up to office, and
to cast them down, against a hundred thousand slaughter-houses in
our American cities. In the name of our happy homes, of our refined
circles, of our schools, of our churches,--in the name of all that is
dear and beautiful and valuable and holy,--I enter the complaint. If
you now sit unconcerned, and leave to professed philanthropists
the work, and care not who are in authority or what laws remain
unexecuted, you may live to see the time when you will curse the day
in which your children were born.
My belief is that such an exposition of public immoralities will
do good, by exciting pity for the victims and wholesale indignation
against the abettors and perpetrators.
Who is that man fallen against the curbstone, covered with bruises and
beastliness? He was as bright-faced a lad as ever looked up from your
nursery. His mother rocked him, prayed for him, fondled him, would
not let the night air touch his cheek, and held him up and looked down
into his loving eyes, and wondered for what high position he was being
fitted.
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