The Portland daily press., 1868-04-21

BOSTON PHILANTHROPY The Boston cor
respondent of the Springfield Republican in
dull. in some rather depreciatory reflections
upon the Cretan mania now prevailing in
Boston. Ee says:
An enterprise is now in progress here which
strikingIy illustrates peculiarly OF Boston
philanthropy or perhaps 1 should say GER
tain department of it. There are some people
in the world-and {, good many of them call
Boston home-whose sympathies will respond
only TO appeals on behalf OF objects which are
invested with romantic or poetic interest,", OF
which, at least, nave the charm that distance
lends. Eyes that are blind TO the moral ieprosy,
the physical misery, aye, even 10 tne physical
need OF food and drink, clothing, IN the next
a pimple on the face OF Crete, some thousands
of miles away. These eyes belong TO heads
that loom ia fashionable circles, a tunult fol
lows the discovery; society" is agitated; the
members thereof hear voice that you, COM
mon folks cannot hear, and it bids the
feminine ones among them set TO work ana
fabricate pln-cushions and tides ana lamp
mats and watch-cases, and call their m3scu-
line acolytes to come together ana aduilre
and buy. 1t is potent voice; a voice that no
body who is ANYBODY dares to shut his or her
ears to. 1t commands the arlstocratc DANES
and demoiselles OF the Highlands OF Boston
(late Roxbury) to go into the kitchen and COM
pound cake,-dames ard demoselleS, who are
as ignorant OF the moue OF making bread as
thew are of Cretan history or the reasons why
the rebels against Turkish tyranny have
stronger claims on our sympathy than the &C.
centric sovereign OF Abyssina. 1t commands
the danes and demoiselles of the West e,d
the South end, and Dorchester, and Jamai-
ca Plain. and Cambridge, and divers other
Initiative suburbs to leave domestic sovereign
ty to Bridget and toll increasingly for BoOri-
boola- CHA. 1t CON mandS the young men and
maidens of the hGUte n0bteSSe TO attire them
selves IN purple and fine linen to go on exhibit
ton in Music Hall, for several successive days
and evenings, that Cretan women may have
sugar in their coffee and Cretan men wear pa
tent leather boots.
A pimpe has been discovered on the face of
Crete, al d fashionable Boston is getting to-
gether whole medicine-chest For the vice
and the suffering at its own doors, for the
souls and the bodies that are dying of want,
it has mol even a dose of ginger-fea or the mild
prescription of word OF kindness. Through
streets and lanes Of Squalor and crime it rides
III its gorgeous carriages down 10 The end OF
Lown Wharf, and putting its Eyeglasses On
It's delicate nose, peers pltvingly ont TOWARD
Crete. All through this weary winter three
thousand mouths have been fed at the public
soup kettles, and the fair hands OF our rich
aud high-born have been toiling for Crete
Thousands of Boston women, hungry and half
clad, barter eternal life for bread and warmth,
and their sisters of Beacon street and the
Back Bay see not the fearful bargain, for their
eyes are ii led with the woes of Crete.
1t is hardly fair, after all, to say "Boston
philanthropy, since the traits inveighed
against by the correspondent are more or less
characteristic of philanthropy everywhere,
and Mrs. Jellyby is lid igeueous to every cline
Ii is hardly fair, either, to pass over the Cretan
woes so lightly, and try to crowd the Candote
Had into nutshell. The most generous hing
that can be done for that brave and suffering
people is not too much, but it is an unpleasant
and discreditable anomaly in beney"lence that
it so often happens that feelings almost NOR
bidly sensitive to microscope distress, should
be so obtuse when appealed TO in behalf OF
real suffering near at hand.