October 11, 1894
THE Lexow Committee, appointed by the legislature to investigate the Police Department of this city, has resumed work after its summer vacation and astounding revelations of depravity and corruption are being made.
FROM top to bottom the government of this city seems to be reeking with corruption. Bribery and extortion have been found everywhere. Perjury is so common that, as a member of the legislative committee expresses it, “the atmosphere is blue with it.”
THERE may be honest policemen and police judges in this city, but according to the published reports of the doings of the Lexow Committee, they are scarce. Policemen make arbitrary arrests and false charges and police justices, so-called, either wink at these things or shamelessly abet them. “Judgment is turn away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey.”
A MAN was found dead recently in this city, and on his person was found a “prayer for the repose of the soul of Catherine Carr.” Following the prayer was the promise that—
They who shall repeat this prayer every day, or hear it repeated, or keep it about them, shall never die a sudden death, nor be drowned in water, nor shall they fall into the hands of their enemies, nor be burned in any fire, nor shall be overpowered in battle, nor shall poison take any effect on them, and if you see any one in the fits lay this prayer on his or her right side, and he or she shall stand up and thank you. Believe this for certain which is written here; it is true as the holy evangelists. They who keep it about them shall not fear lightning or thunder, and they that repeat it every day shall have three days’ warning before their death.
It is in such senseless superstitions that Rome educates her votaries, and it is to faith in such vanities that Leo XIII., pope, invites “the princes and peoples of the universe.” And it is upon such superstition that “Protestants” invoke the divine blessing, saying: “God bless the Catholic Church of to-day!” [313]