New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1855-02-03
WORK AND WANT.

We are nearing the close Of the great Soup dis
pensatiCn Of 1e54-5. Not that there are not
many Thousands IN our City still really needy and
sufieriDg-,bere has long been and always will be
fearful amount of restitution in great city like
this. Under the 5almiest skies Of June, in def
arce of the rich profusion Of the most bounteous
October, there are tragedies of hunger and des-
peratiOn still proceeding in every great huldle Of
tuman beiI g like this. But the victims are gen.
orally entire strangers, unsuccessful elsewhere,
Who have brought their families to this mart 10
the mad expectation of finding employment here
as teachers, clerks, book keepers, or something
of the soit, when they might as sensibly have
gore to Washington expecting thereupon to be
chosen Presdent-or they were invalid', Grip
pies, widows with small children, or, worse still,
the famiIits OF drunkards, having husband and
father in name, but brute and nuisance 10 reili-
#, as their natural proyider and manager, and 80
doomed to utter and remedies ruin. But this
winter, unlike any Of the fifteen preceding it, has
seen Thousands Of able and generally industrious
men and women reduced to distress and beggary
by the sudden and wholesale failure of their a,-
customed work. Journey men discharged from
closing fouDderies, factor es, yards and workshops
sailors without ships; porters and even clerks,
from broken mercantile establishments, or tn )se
which had taken in all possible sail in order TO
weather the raging storm; labore-s hitherto en-
ployed in the vas: building operations of our City,
low almost wholly suspended; servsntgir
thrown out of place by the colapsing of fortunes
The vanishing Of incomes-all these, in addition
TO chronic pauperism and professional mend-
concy, have crowded around our soup-hOuses and
other points whence aims are dispensed, clam
orous for relief-for food.
And never were appeals for charity more gener-
ously responded TO. Our City has doubtless its
fair proportion Of the nesn-souled, but psrsimoDy
10 not the form which mcanness utu,lly takes 10
New-York. We think there is no other city of
its size wherein unostenfatous private charity is
more active and general than in tbis-wherein
Hen who are popularity accounted money hunters,
and women yulgarly supposed 10 have no thought
but for dress and fashion, devote so considerable
q share not Only Of their means, but Of their time,
TO the good work Of alternating the dissresses &C.
cssioned by want, disease, aad bereavement Say
of compassion for suffering is deep and general,
and the great majority OF toleraoly educated hui
man beings are willing TO make personal sacrifices
rstter than have children 60 hungry or families
uLshe.teIed. II the voluntary contribution of
One Million Dollars per snnum, in addition 20 our
enormous load Of taxation, would relieve all the
real distress annually occurring in our City, the
money would be promptly made up, even ia such
hard times a. these. 1t is the painful conscious
ness that large portion of all that is given is
inevitably grafped BY unworthy hands-that in
the cares where relief il most deserved and
needed, the suffering shun observation and shrink
from taking ams-that mendicity il not cured
but rather fostered and difased by miscellaneous
charity-thst no amount which could be given
would reach and relieve oil the eases Of urgent
netd-which chills the fervor of Benevolence
and dims the glow of Generosity.
We have assumed that the season Of whole