Southport telegraph. [volume] (Southport, W.T. [i.e. Kenosha, Wis.]) 1840-1850, 1843-06-13
SOUTHPORT TELEGRAPH.
TUESDAY, JUNE 10, IS43.
GIT rs NO CRIME TO BE POOR"

| tS NJ ChIMf4 ~ DE- IOOh.
| There is no sentiment more universally admitted
| in theory, than the which is expressed In the
| above caption. Go where you will, this popular
sentiment is in the mouth of every one who has the
least regard for public favor and the applause of the
| people. "Poverty is no crime" is rung through
the Republic in defamation and in song, and such
is the overwhelming popularity of this doctrine,
that the great of the people captivated by
it, without stopping to enquire, whether the millions
in this land of liberty, many living examples
of its truth. Never was there grosser perverslon
of generally received principle, than in the one
under consideration. Practically, the world treat
poverty a crime or, at least thing to be
stunned, and its society avoided. Look around on
the great theatre of human action; mark the infu-
ences in the social relations OF mankind, and the
causes which produce distinctions in society; and
then say if you that the poor and the rich are
treated alike on the score of merit, and that char,
acter in the one class, is estimated by the same
| rule as in the other. See that man, who moves in
what is too.often mis- named the higher ranks of
life; his external appearance indicates that he has
plenty of pocket money-perhaps he is rlch-per-
haps he is not. Possibly he may be luxunating
upon money gained by fraud and dishonesty or
perchance he would now have been the inmate of
a prison. had he not escaped the righteous demands
of the law. But mark how the fashionable, the
oenteeL and the we'll dressed. bow to him in the
street; gather around and fondle him. Then e
that poor man who tolls hard day by day, to gain
subsistence for his wife and children. He Is but
coarsely clad, yet blood never flowed through the
veins of an honester man; he would not wrong his
neighbor of sxpence, though he should suffer
hunger and privation in consequence OF his strict
integrity: he would divide his last loaf with fell
low being in distress, for he knows well how to
sympathise with the poor and needy; but who are
his associates; court his society and make him
their familiar companion? Mark how those clad in
broadcloths. and who by fortune, or by ingenious
dishonesty are enabled to live above hard work,
pass him by with cold Indifference. 1t is true they
speak to him, but it is only to use him as thing
of convenience They treat him not as an equal,
entitled to all the immunties and privileges of good
society as themselves, but as a piece OF mortality
destined act in a lower sphere of life.
Say not then, there is no such thing as an arts
tocracv in wealth and in the assumed appearances
of riches, and that poverty is not treated though
it were crime. There is an unhoy principle in
corporated into the organization of society, which
causes mankind to bow obsequously to the trap
pings of wealth, and to look upon all familiar
ISOLATION with the poor a kind of contamination
Goldsmith never uttered a more truthful sentence,
than when he said ''If you are poor do not seem
so, if you would avoid insult as well as suffering"
How many hundreds are there, who were in
alfluent circumstances, but have met the reverses
of fortune, and are now struggling hard to keep up
the equipages and the appearances of wealth! Let
the fashionable world but know that they poor
and the friends who fawned around them but yester-
day, will pass them to day with Indifference or cold
ness; 7muttering perhaps, poor devil and remem-
Der them no more. What avails then, the popular
defamation that penury is no disgrace, SO long as
the great mass of mankind strangely belle the max
i'm. If poverty be not treated crime, human
actions have meaning, and every days observa-
ton of men is unintelligible to human understand
ing.