Elizabeth daily monitor. [volume] (Elizabeth, N.J.) 1868-1880, 1869-01-13

be left at this office. Mr.. WILLIAM G. JONES
viii supply those at the Port.
Copies may be obtained ut the Post Office.
-',-a.a r=e~,r
THE SEASON AND THE POOR.
There has been nearly two months
of freezing weather. Now is the time
when the poor feel most bitterly and
hopelessly all the privations and deep
distress of poverty. 1t is not alone the
outcast, the homeless vagrant, the I'm
worthy and worthless drunkard, the
poor little wretches of street beggars.
who feel the pinching biting cold
through their thin and tattered gar
ments, and the knawing hunger of
Of their empty stomachs; but many q
worthy household. the children of the
bereaved widow, whose industrious
hands fail to earn enough to keep the
stove warm and the table supplied with
the coarsest fare, and the families of
those who, by misfortune, the failure of
employment, or the fearful hand of
sickness, are unable to provide against
the seventies of the season. These are
the ones who suffer most. not alone
from cold and hunger, but from that
most intense of mental sufferings, the
shame of honest poverty. 1t is such as
these that should receive the earnest
~ &C
men land to the credit of our people he
it said they are vast number in this
city who are always ready to alleviate
suffering if they only knew how to do
it to advantage. 1t happens, however,
that in deflult Of this knowledge, their
generous desires are frequently defeated
and their benefactions too often wasted
on those who deserve it least. Hap
hazard benevolence always encounters
the risk of being turned in the wrong
direction.
We are of the opinion that it wonld
be easy to demonstrate i'll figures that
the surplus of food and clothing of
those in Elizabeth who have plenty to
spare, and that is either given away
without discrimination or wasted in
other Improbable ways, would be en-.
tirely sufficient to keep severe hunger
and cold away from the bodies of all
those in our city who are helpless or i'll
want in seasons like this. With this
hack of iudicious benevolence in the be-
stowal of surplus food and clothing.
there is the additinoal waste q, small
sums of money among the professional
beggars, who are very numerous, and,
ais class, too crafty and INSCRIPTIONS
10 be detected by any but those expert
enced persons who spend their lives in
ministering to the worthy poor. We
DO not mean that the poor, shiyering
Wretches on the streets should he dis
missed without thought or without
any help, for they, too, notwithstand
lng the utter unworthiness, of some If
them, suffer i'll times like the present );
but that they should not be allowed to
step in so as to deprive others who are
more worthy, and upon such benefac-
tons can be better bestowed The
krne way is for any one who has any
thing To spare iii charity or bencyo-
ienee, whether in food or in clothing or
in money, to send his or her conrihu-
tions to some one of the we'll establish
cd and approved organizations, whose
efforts and opportunities have taught
them the proper means for finding out
the truly deserving, and the best me-
thOds of making n small gratuity do the
greatest amount of good. There are
Numbers of such organizations in Eliz-
abeth, of which the Female Benevolent
Society is among the highest types --
They are officered by women who have
no object but to do good, aud whose
characters are such as to guarantee the
highest fidelity to their noble trust,
and the largest intelligence in the pro-
per bestowal of charity. Their pro-
cecdings in the way of disponsation of
charity are carried on by devoted wo-
men, who by long experience are able
TO detect stimulated poverty from real
want, and how to search for and find
out those worst of all sufferers, the poor
who have seen better days, and who
strive to conceal their poverty, even
At the sacrifice of health and life.