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Book, page 221 / 281 for a moment will see that it cannot be otherwise. From this moral ulcer there flows out daily and nightly an ichor as destructive as that from a cancer. Here theft and robbery and murder have birth, nurture and growth until full formed and organized, and then go forth to plunder and destroy. The life and property of no citizen is safe so long as this community exists. It has its schools of instruction for thieves and housebreakers, where even little children are educated to the business of stealing and robbery. Out from it go daily hundreds of men and women, boys and girls, on their business of beggary, theft and the enticement of the weak and unwary into crime. In it congregate human vultures and harpies who absorb most of the plunder that is gained outside, and render more brutal and desperate the wretches they rob in comparative safety. "Let me show you how this is done. A man or a woman thirsting for liquor will steal anything to get money for whisky. The article stolen may be a coat, a pair of boots or a dress--something worth from five to twenty dollars. It is taken to one of these harpies, and sold for fifty cents or a dollar--anything to get enough for a drunken spree. I am speaking only of what I know. Then, again, a man or a woman gets stupidly drunk in one of the whisky-shops. Before he or she is thrown out upon the street, the thrifty liquor-seller 'goes through' the pockets of the insensible wretch, and confiscates all he finds. Again, a vile woman has robbed one of her visitors, and with the money in her pocket goes to a dram-shop. The sum may be ten dollars or it may be two hundred. A glass or so unlooses her tongue; she boasts of her exploit, and perhaps shows her booty. Not once in a dozen times will she take this booty away. If there are only a few women in the shop, the liquor-seller will most likely pounce on her at once and get the money by force. There is no redress. To inform the police is to give information against herself. He may give her back a little to keep her quiet or he may not, just as he feels about it. If he does not resort to direct force, he will manage in some other way to get the money. I could take you to the dram-shop of a man scarcely a stone's throw from this place who came out of the State's prison less than four years ago and set up his vile trap where it now stands. He is known to be worth fifty thousand dollars to-day. How did he make this large sum? By the profits of his bar? No one believes this. It has been by robbing his drunken and criminal customers whenever he could get
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