Sunbury American. [volume] (Sunbury, Pa.) 1848-1879, 1874-11-27
WHAT TO DO WITH TIE POOR


ly occupied in solving. Not few of the
radically-disposed newspapers finish the
question in sufficiently easy way to them
selves by denouncing all plans Of relief, and
all charities except the offer of work The
dread Of drawing paupers from outside of
the city, by the idea Of soup-houses aud
free lodgings, weighs heavily on the minds
of some respectable gentlemen, aud not
those who contribute most to such chari-
ty either. 1t is very well to say, if any man
will not work, neither let him cat but
what about the women and children, who
arc likely to starve when the foundry door
closed, and the factory turns off its hands
before work can be hunted up. Josiah
Bounderby, of Coketown, has a large num-
Der of family connections, who are busily
crying down the idea of relief, in the news
papers. Every effort will be made by the
benevolent to find work for those who want
1t this season, but there must be piteous
suffering among the destitute, which only
the freely-given loaf and pail of soup, and
warm shelter, will prevent from staining
our civilization with wholesale starvation,
and deliberate murder. There is not work
enough for the thousands who must have
work whereby they may earn their bread,
and the bread must come from somewhere.
The objection 10 soup-houses and free
distribution generally, which has positive
weight, is the fact that within a week after
the Inauguration Of any free system of
charity which gives food and shelter to. al
who ask, every lazy cur in the country
makes his way somehow TO the city, ard
lives here till the charities close, in the
luxurious idleness that such men love. The
number of great, stout, big-limbed, healthy
men who haunt the soup-houses and the
frec-lodging houses would surprise you.
They come by the thousands the moment
the cold weather prevents them from Sleep
ing in barns and living BY beggary and
theft in the country. 1t is discouraging
thing to have well-meant charity diverted
from its proper channels in this way to
have relief intended TO assist the deserving
poor made to foster professional beggary.
But what can be done? Because the thieves
get the half of all that is given, the honest
poor cannot be allowed to starve. And 80,
presume, the sOup-houses and free-lOdg-
ing houses will be opened again, and the
just and the unjust fed together.
REDUCTION OF WAGES OF TEACHERS.
There is trouble among the teachers
The instructors in the public schools of this
city have always been paid just enough to
keep soul and body together, that is, if the
body is strong enough and the soul suffi-
ciently subdued not to require much for to
keep them alive. The average wages of
the teachers in the primary schools was
$3.50 per year, and in the higher schools
$50. Now nobody can get decent board
in this city for less than so per week, or
$500 per year, and the board you Get at
that price would not come under the head
of luxurious by any means. Add to this
the cost of washing, of car-fare to and from
her school; and you can figure how much
the poor girl had left for clothes, to say
nothing of an occasional book, or concert,
or anything in the way Of diversion.
What do you suppose the Board of Ap-
pOintment Of this great, rfoh citv r--r~-'''
to do, or rather ha"- 10y? They have
off . r. rF
meagre salaries Think of it The teach
ers demonstrate, but to no purpose. They
are informed that thousands of qualified
people stand ready to take their places, at
even greater reduction, and that the in
evitable Law of supply and demand" must
come in here, as it does everywhere else ;
that The Board is bound, by its duty to the
taxpayers, to get its work done as cheaply
rs it can. And the Board, after making
this reply, probably adjourned to n supper
that cost all it had wrenched from the poor
teachers which you may be sure the tax
payers paid for.
How natural it is to pass from this state
ment of oppression to picture that follow
ed it, namely,
THE RAID UPON HOUSES OF ILL FAME
that took place Saturday night. This was
a curious scene. The police were put into
plain clothes, so as not to alarm their in
tended game, and an indiscriminate raid
was made upon gambling dens, houses of
prostitution, and street-walkers. In one
greasy den sixty-two men and women were
arrested, all of them playing policy -
Thirty-on houses were pulled" =" the ar
rests numbering over thousand, then
operations we're commenced on the street
walkers. Officers were instructed to gUb-
bic every woman of bad repute on Broad
way and the streets leading from it, and in
less than two hours, three hundred were
safely slowed away in safety. 1t was sad
sight, those persons on Sunday morning
l cared nothing for tA men, but my heart
bled for the women. There were among
them hundreds of modest, innocent-looking
girls, who bore upon their faces only the
slightest traces of sin, who were unmis-
takably the victims circumstances. These
wept bitterly at the exposure of their de-
graduation, many keeping their faces to the
walls or hidden in their hands, that they
might not be seen. Possibly the next raid
will catch some of the very teachers whose
salaries a well-fed and comfortable board
cut down to below the starvation point.
Who knows? Necessity drove half the
girls captured last Saturday night 20 evil
courses, and every such action swells the
ranks Of the vicious. If q girls love for
life is stronger than her power of endurance,
when hunger and cold and despair have
conquered her sense Of shame, it is q very
short step from virtue to vice, and an easy
one. The girls who hid their faces Sunday
morning from shame will, after one or two
more arrests, look out squarely and bra
zeny in your face, and laugh at your pity
ing looks. After this stage, there comes
about year of wild Eiot, and then some
morning the body is taken out of the river,
and, without Identification, buried in Pot
tpr,S Field Rut the fat sleek ROarl ayprV