The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1874-02-10
Wretchedness In the City-The Need
Of Systematic Charity.

Every great Guy mas uS mass OF misery ~
all times Gathered in the remoter byways
are the hnddled groups of humanity that have
been borne down in the desperate struggle for
Lfe-the crippled stragglers out of the great
battle creeping away to die in some wretched
corner. Pale mothers and puny children, left
penniless by the sudden loss of one whose
daily labor earned their only support little
brothers and sisters, orphaned altogether
and scarcely removed in age from babyhood.
and broken down fathers thrown by illness as a
burden on those whom they have barely kept
alive for years-such are the classes OF the
city poor sustaining a Pickering vitality by
scarcely known devices.
In prosperous times they live upon the easy
habits of the many. Our people are ordi-
narlly lavish in expenditure, and opportunity
comes often TO all, so that starvation scarcely
occurs and the EXTREMIST misery is but little
known till there comes a time of greater
pressure, such as was lately precipitated upon
us by the panic. An event of that nature not
only dries up all the little streams of charity
that feed the ordinary poor, but by arresting
many industries it also adds greatly to the
numbers of those incapable of sustaining
themselves. At the present moment we have
therefore absolutely without resources those
thousands who have received q precarlous
support on the miscellaneous OUTLAWS that are
no longer made and other thousands of me-
chanics and their families and working
women who commonly live upon fair wages
honestly earned, but now are without employ
ment-and all these in their desolAte homes or
in the street are suffering the pangs of cold
andshunger.
All these have just claim upon the gen.
eral public, which is under an obligation COM
mensurate with the distress. An extensive
application Of charity for the regular support
Of masses of the people is burden on
many cities of the Old World; but this has
never grown to any proportions with us
because it is the tendency of every fact of our
daily lives to teach people to help themselves,
and because the morale of even our poorest
people keeps them from beggary while their
own exertions may suffice for their support.
1t is therefore not possible that general chart
table help could be urged here for any con-
slant occasion; but the present is a
visitation like some Of those great natural
calamities that devastate whole districts
and often extlrpate the population.
It's results are to be compared with those of
great conhagration like that which destroyed
Chicago rather than with ordinary poverty; or
with the failure of crop and consequent
famine, such as has made desert but lately
many parts of Persia and India. Our people
have never been slow to respond when the call
has come upon them to relieve the misery Of
the plague or famine or fire stricken people of
other cities, and they must now comprehend
that the case is substantially the same with re-
gard to the distressed who wander homeless
and hungry in our streets craving DANGEROUSLY
for aid or dying silently in spirit of semi
savage pride that is ashamed to acknowledge
such final and utter defeat of all its projects
and attempts.
Misery of this kind has claim on the
ground of the natural human sympathy ex-
cited by the painful facts themselves and
there are also reasons under the head Of self
defence why the public at large should take
the subject in hand. As the great city is but
| an agglomerated mass of human Mfe-a larger
| aggregate vitality-the fate and condition of
one part of the mass Is intimately related with
the fate and condition of every other part, and
no considerable portion can suffer degrade
ton without the bad effect being felt by the
/ whole. War, famine and pestilence are the
terrible associates whose dependence upon
one another has seldom been broken since men
have lived in masses and though famine may
come without war, pestlence follows famine as
necessarily as night and day follow one another.
Immunity from pestilence in the months to
come must be purchased now, therefore,
in the dispensation Of food to all
that need it. whoever and wherever they
are. If the distressed Gnger through the
winter months to pine and die finally in
crowded tenements of famine fever, an cpl
demic Of typhus in the coming summer will
be an inevitable consequence. For this sufi-
cient reason, if for no other, the public should
feel that the care of the hungry is its own, and
act accordingly. Another epidemic will also
follow our neglect in this emergency with
scarcely less certainty than the fever, and this
is the epidemic of crime. Hunger dissolves
all the obligations that civilization imposes.
No respect for law, no consent yielded to the
restrictions of society is valid against the
man whom hunger has restored temporarily to
barbarism and to the control only of primitive
instincts. Murder, robbery, arson must
necessarily become more frequent facts, and
the race of children abandoned to the streets
will grow up with predatory impulses and with
the obvious understanding that society is the
common enemy
| For an occasion such as is now before US
the usual machinery of charitable aid is made
quate, mainly because it is scattered and fitful
in its operation. Our public provision for
charitable service, though large is well nigh
worthless for any application to the imme-
date wants, because so much of it as is not