New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1871-01-09
HOW Err is ALMS-GiVING IDENTICAL

HOW Err is ALMS-GIVING IDENTICAL
WITH BLESSED CHARITY
Mayor Hall lately made public boast that
New-York is the City of Charities;" and two
or three of our most powerful and wealthy tax
absorbers have been making display of their
generosity to the poor, by distributing among
them two or three per cent OF their stealings
in the shape of Coal, Flour, and Groceries.
Does any one doubt that there will be more
want and suffering in our City next Winter
because of these reckless dispensationsf
Undoubtedly there are cases in which food,
shelter, clothing, and even money, ought to be
given to those who need them. There Is
hardly duty more imperative than that OF
giving; and there is none more heedlessly,
culpably, imperfectly fulfilled. To give TO
those who need and to give to those who seek
are radically different actions. If n rich man
were to stand all day on the City Hall steps,
handing out dollar to every one who APP
preached to receive it, he would probably
relieve some real distress; but no would create
far more Not to insist on the prOneness OF
our vagabonds to repeating, we maintain that
his largess would tend to demoraize most
of those who crowded to profit by it,
and blind them to the inexOable Sc
auence of Cause and Effect which per-
vades and rules Gods Universe. 81 per-
"ceive that virtue has gone out OF me-" said
the Savior, when a seeker had merely touched
the hem of His garment; and the virtue that
thus exhales from the alms-giver is rarely
arrested and appropriated by the receiver.
Nothing done by man requires moro circum-
spection, inquiry, and thought, than SS::;Tiing.
The National Standard has letter from
Sarah Z. Wall of the Friends Mission in Wash
ingtOn City, on the condition of the negroes
who crowd that metropolis, whence we extract
as follows:
"The South IL st parayzed by the blightng effect OF
Slavery and the desolaon of War. 1t is sufficient for
me- for the present cOnfne my remarks to this city,
which probably OF the most favored OF any OF tho
Southern cities Here Congress appr0prates twenty fyo
or thirty thousand dollars year for the support OF the
poor and charitable societies add considerably TO that
Yet some touching appeals were circulated in sew
era OF the Northern papers last year in relation to the
extreme destitution existing here which were doubtless
true TO the letter. 1t would require million Of dollars
every year supply these people with the nero neces
sares Of life, 10 say nothing OF It's comforts And this
state things has gone year after year without any
effort apparently to raise them nom this state Of pau.
perism to selfsupportng community. Go among them
when you WILL in Summer Winter. you will and the
men idlng about unable TO find employment quickly
falling those vices which idlencss always hegets
"The women and children already overworked in the
great struggle for e picking up coal and rags or out in
the latter ought 10 be In school II you ask for the hus-
band aud father he IL always on the street trying TO
catch Job which perhaps he does or twice week.
thereby possibly earning dollar to help pay his rent
There is enough more of this, showing
that mtemperance and all Vices follow natur-
ally, if not necessarily, in the train of idleness,
whether partial or total.
But why are these negroes huddled and
starving in Washington
They focked thithcr during the War, escap-
ing from Slavery to Rebels. One by one, their
families, as they found opportunity, came
trooping after them. In Washington, they
were free and safe 4; and there was much to do
and to get there while the War lasted But
the War was long since ended and there is
no longer work there for half of them, while
the farms and gardens on every side are but
partially TILED and scarcely at all fortified.
There is work enough within days ride Of
Washington for every bodied person who
will resoutely seek and faithfully do it. We
do not say that all can find just that work
that would suit them best, and command
their own price for doing it but we do insist
that three-fourths of all the Blacks in the
Metropolis could have secured permanent en-
ployment last Spring and Summer, at wages
that would have enabled them to live without
aims, if they had earnestly tried.
But they did MT try-they rOuld nj try-they
nerer tcW try, so long as misguided charity
shall enable them to live in Washington by
only "doing job once or twice week.n
Generations of bondage have cursed them with
a hate of bona Jide work; and they mean to
live by "dOing a job once or twice a week."
so long as they can. We do not blame them
so much as the sickly philanthropy that ena-
bles them to protract the wretched existence
which satisfies their aspirations. Had they
been authoritatively told, five years ago last
April, "You must get out of this before the
"hurrying Summers work is over, or you shall
starve for it next Winter" two thirds of them
would have found q way to leave the Capitol
out of sight. Half a Million men have mi
grated to this country aud found ample, fairly
recompensed work on embryo railroads, cut
ting and cOrding wood for charcoal furnaces,
digging ores, Quarrying limestone, &C., while
these negroes have hudded, and shivered,
and whined for aims in Washington, of no
use to themselves aud burden TO their
country.
Are we down on the niggerW Not bit Of