Eastern times. [volume] (Bath, Me.) 1846-1857, 1854-03-16
Philosophy of Beggary.

Fnllosopny OF beggary.
The master vice Of the age is Beggary.
Every man is seeking to saddle his burden on
some other man. The patriot loves his coun-
try, but loves the dear people all the more that
fat Offices are given or withheld at their op-
tion.. He would scorn to beg money, yet he
can easily stoop to begging support in Con-
ventions and voters at the polls. The aspiring
youth looks anxiously around for some rich
relative or benevolent friend of the family on
whom he can quarter himself for the cost of
an education. At the seminary he forms
literary association of some kind to supply
himself and partners with periodicals ; and
unblushingly proceeds to beg them Of their
editors and publishers, whose labor and prop
erty the coterie thus convert to their own use
without rendering an equivalent. So nine
tenths Of our young men, with many of their
seniors, are constantly importuning influential
friends or acquantances to procure for them
places where they can obtain more money for
less or lighter work.
And thus the world runs over with servili-
ty, fattery, fawning, whereof the radical inn
pulse is Beggary. The wooden-legged negro
or blind stroller who cumbers the sidewalk
with an unseemly carcase, while he whines
out his appeals for charity, is but type Of
the universal condition or universal tendency
Everybody is trying to ride on everybody's
shoulders. Cant you get me place in a
store, or steamboat, or railroad = implores
the man Of forty years, as if his existence de-
pended on some other man wanting to borrow
his brain and muscles, and being willing to
pay him for their use in the hope of making
profit out of them. 1t seems to be the general
notion that God has given most of us nothing
to do in this world, but left us to perish in
Incidence and want unless some trafficker in
human sinews should fancy that he has need
of us.
How deplUrably this operates on mental
freedom and activity, need hardly be depicted
A. b. would naturally like to have an opinion
of his own, but he must stop to consider
whether he can afford it. His livelihood de-
pends on his standing high In the good graces
of this or that dignitary, who has no patience
with erratic and visionary notions so A. B.
swallows and keeps down his convictions, lest
he should be left with nothing else to swal-
low. Hence the world is full of servility,
trucking and fawning, which have their i'm
pulses in the fact that the majority prefer to
live as satellites rather than step out, axe in
hand, into the worlds rough places, and there
hew out each his own fortune.
Borrowing money, buying goods on long
credit, begging endorsements, soliciting i1fiu-
ence toward procuring an Office, an engage
ment or a settlement-it is thus that half man.
kind are content to wriggle and crawl through
life. Hence the man with money, with or
without heart or brains, is inflated into enor-
nous consequence, because everybody wants
to use him. five were willing to work on
without him till the right time, the loan we
ask of him might be regarded as a mutual ia
vor; but while fifty are scrambling for it, he
may dictate his own terms and still hold US
the solely obliged party. T6 be i'll debt or
some ones hireling, is regarded BY a majority
as their natural and almost Inevitable condi-
ton to be under mortgage seems the natural
state Of the poor mans farm, If he has one.
We must gradually cure all this. Our lads
must be taught to prefer laboring for an edu-
cation to obtaining it at charity school, or by
running in some ones debt. Our young men
must be imbued with preference for forty
acres Of rugged wilderness and an axe where
with to convert it slowly, steadily into pro
ductive farm, to clerk-ship, custom-hOuse
place, or any subordinate position which is
only obtained by interest and favor. Our la
borers must learn to work cheerfullY and
faithfully on farm, railroad, or wherever
fair wages may be manfully earned, but with
a resolution to be their own masters as soon
as they can save the means of buying snug
little place, and with this view, to postpone
marriage until they have home to take a
wife to. Or, better still, our young men must
ings, and thus provide themselves with houses
to inhabit, soil to cultivate, and the best i'm
plements Of industry, with less than half the
outlay that would be required if each were to
strive for solitary house and farm. Half the
necessities and deficiencies which now depress
and embarrass the poor would be obviated, il
they could only be induced to have faith in
and sympatEfiae with each other. And these,
in Heavens good time, shall yet be attained.
A Retort