OCR Text |
Show .sale under municipal supervision. These latter features my friend did not observe ; but the milder forms of vice led him to say that in all th. world he had never seen such hideous ylce and open Bhame New York and London and Paris not excepted. Chicago bad nothing to compare with It, eyea ten years ago. Barbary Coast Is a revelation revela-tion of the possible degradation of human hu-man life which brings pain to the soul that sees . It, not soon eased nor forgotten." for-gotten." - A BAD CITY. Rev. Geo. E. Burllngame, In tho BaptlBt Standard, places San Francisco Francis-co among the cities unfit to exist. From Its earliest history, he says, the city has been godless and immoral.. The historian Bancroft is quoted as marking mark-ing the community as one in which a religious man was regarded not exactly exact-ly as a crime, but a misfortune. "There was not wanting on element of godly people in these first days," declares the minister. . "Among the arrivals from the eastern east-ern states were many earnest Christians Chris-tians of the Puritan type, and those laid the foundations for evangelical Christianity. A Protestant minister from Honolulu was chosen as chaplain for the town late in 1848, and the next year witnessed the founding of several 'Flr6t churches. Yet the predominant predomi-nant character of tho people was godless, god-less, and from the beginning moral conditions were almost hopelosslv bad. The annalist of these early days, Soule, describes with graphic fidelity the dissipation, revelry and 6hameless Indulgence and uncontrolled vice which prevailed. In his desperate effort ef-fort to cower th caso ho resorts at last to this series of expressive adjectives: Stiffiolent for the day Is the evil thereof. This maxim abundantly Batistes Batis-tes the oxcitoment-oraving, money-seoklng, money-seoklng, luxurious-living, reckless, hearon-earth-and-faell-darlng cltliene of 6on Francisco.' This characterization was written when the city was five years old; but the city has nevor lost its right to this 6uperb aggregation of hyphenated verbiage. "Barbary Coast Is unique. There Bin does not flaunt itself; it has no need, tor it is naked and open. A distinguished distinguish-ed minister from tho east recently visited vis-ited the missions and also the resorts ou Barbary Coast dance halls, brothels broth-els and wine rooms. Thero was much that he did not see; the wretched wlno dumps where the lowest dregs of humanity hu-manity gravitate; the opium dons, where white and yellow men He in stupid and shameful degradation; tho Oriental brothels, whore girls are lock--d behind grim prison bars; the mon-troi3 mon-troi3 'cribs,' now suppressed whoro prostitution was maintained at whole-' i |