The day book. [volume] (Norfolk, Va.) 1857-1867, 1865-09-06
{" PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN GLASS
HOUSES &c"

The successful career of the man who at
tended to his own business, and thereby made
his fortune" might with profit be initiated by
those of our Northern brethren who are for
ever pointing out the deEnquencies of the
South. If there are any people under the sun
who have good reason for exclaiming unto
others, Z" Look at homeP it is those of tho
Southern States to their revilers. Il That con-
sentative journal, the New York Journal Of
Commerce, administers fitting rebuke to this
class in the following brief article '''o'
CITIZEN OR No CITIzEN.-It would much
better eomport with the mind your own.
business" doctrine of sensible life, if the phi
lanthropists of New England would stop both
ering their brains about negro citizenship down
South, and look at home little while. There
is clause of the Constitution which guaran-
tees the citizen of one State all the privileges
and immunities OF the citizens of other States
in their respective States. Now, there is a
csutom in New England Of having poor peo-
pie Virtue does not insure comfort, aud SUI
perior morals, even on the negro question:,
seem incompetent to the prevention of poor
houses. 1t is strange fact that those insti-
tutions which are unknown in large portions
of the South, should flourish in such quantity
and quality in Massachusetts and other East
ern States. 1t is equally strange that their
regulations should be SO much at variance
with the principles of liberty. We are in
clined to think that the amendment to the
Constitution abolishiug involuntary servitude
except for crime will abolish great many, of
those poor-houses The custom of selling the
lot of town poor to the lowest bidder for the
year, and authorizing him to extract the high
est possible quantity of work out of the small
est possible quantity of food through the me-
dunn of the miserable bodies and bones Of the
paupers, prevails to a lanlentabe extent in
Eastern Communities Nor is this all. A
citizen of New York has not the privilege of
being poor in Connecticut or Massachusetts,.
The Constitution is Of no account there in this
respect Woe to the New Yorker who re-
lapses from self-governing independence to
the condition Of a selectmans ward an object
of public charity. He cannot even be per-
mitted to die and be buried where perhaps his
wife and children are buried. He must be
shipped off to his native State, lest he become
a town charge, and some ones rates for the
year be thereby increased to the amount of 10
or 20 cents It would be- we repeat it, more
sensible for the people of New England who
are given to philanthropy and misanthropy
flor the lover of the negro slave is the Halter of
the white slave-owner0 if they would devote
some attention to their home slaveries and sor-
rows. There are agonies in the. poor-honses
of the North which humanity might well seek
to soothe. For some years past these institu-
tons have been neglected, while the attention
of the people has been turned to the war; but
it is now greatly to be feared that the poor
houses will fill up with widows and children
of the fallen soldiers Without other pro-
vision many must go there. 1t would be Gu
rious to know the rates at which the poor are
now sold in the Eastern States. Can any one
furnish us statistics of this market