The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1874-10-24
For the Dispatch.l
The Winter Provision for the Poor

Seeing, Messrs. Editors, that this subject
is before the city authorizes, ! beg leave to
make a suggestion, which l venture to think
is worth their consideration. l think if each
station from which charity is dispensed were
made an intelligence Office, at which persons
in need Of labor could register their wants,
that thereby the worthy poor could in many
cases be found in work, and tie lazy poor
could be detected and expelled from the city.
negro, tor instance, male or female, who
could get place in the country should be
denied all rations and other assistance from
the town. 1t is generally believed that num-
bers of that race congregate each winter in
Richmond, and subsist by thieving, eked out
BY public rations, until the warm weather and
its avocAtlons enable them to live more
cheaply and get some work.
The mischief of this city bounty is very
great. 1t not only collects the idle, who
never can get work as long as they are per-
mitted to live on other peoples means, but
it teaches them that they are entitled to q
living at the hands of the white folks, re-.
wives their old visions of forty acres and a
mule, and makes them mutinouS, insolent,
and criminal. This charity and the high
public wages which were paid last fall to the
very few that could be thus employed crea-
ted the greatest discomfort among the bal
auce, especially in that portion of the coun.
try so near this city as to feel the effect OF
city wages. 1t was remarked in their de-
pertinent long before there was any manifes-
tatlon OF it in acts, and the fuel Of their dis
content was fed by those who flocked to the
city in such numbers that, to use the express
sion which was heard 10 escape from one Of
them, ''tbe rag business "-the farorite
trade Of these laZZlroni-"h had ceased to be
profitable"
The negro has been the victim of the pre-
vaiing hilanthropy-Whereby mean inf.
del humanitarianism-long enough. 1t has
made him bis own master-that il. the slave
to his own vices-whlch it calls setting him
free. 1t has deprived him OF the advantages
of religious worship by. giving him separate
church organiZilions-the. heaviest reSponSl-
biiily professionalism has ever assumed 10 this
country-3nd has thus remit ed him TO devil
worship. 1t has gwen him manhood suf-
frage "a fatal gift even to white people-anG
thereby put him up TO the highest bidder.
And now it would feed him, and thereby
encourage him TO course of destructive
idleness.
Suppose now we try if we cannot get him
a little work and force him TO take 1t or
Quit the city, One consideration, think,
should recommend at least a trial OF the
plan. The improvident negro is now a
source of double expense to the city. The
town is taxed collectively to feed blm IN the
winter; and then, again, citizens are taxed
individually to make an election fund TO
buy his vote in the spring. speak plainly,
perhaps bluntly, Messrs. Editors; but we
do buy his vote and a good many white
votes besides. If he is made to work
in the winter, and the white laborer is em-
poyed in his place in the summer. there
would be less grooming when respectability
is called on to subscribe TO the expenses ~
of an election.
When a man who deliberately and OF
choice employs a. negro ia preference to a
white man to do city work, public or pri-
yate, except, of course, menial services, Tells
me he is a Consel vatiye, l di,trust his Know
ledge Of bis true position, for how can Con
seryatiye consent TO risk Radical rule that ne
may have his laborer at little lower rate /:
And how can a city encourage class OF
laborers which involves relative excess OF
burden? I understand that one OF the
greatest aud most salutary reforms of Peters
burg under white rule has been wrought
precisely in this direction. l DO not think
we can deport the race yet awhile, as you,
and MIR. Stuart of Augusta, do, but think
their number and nuisance can be reduced
in the city to the improvement OF the morals,
politics, and revenues thereof. OBSERVER.