The Portland daily press., 1874-02-17
NEW YoRK. Feb. 18th 1S7.

One of the most noticeable features of a great
CITY is the contrast between luxurious wealth
and pinching poverty, which obtrudes itself up
on the least observing denizen. On the one hand
we have palatial houses, gaudy equipages, at
tractive picture galleries, and great shops be =
dizened with the costlest fabrics which human
ingenuity can produce; on the other, densely
packed tenement houses, comfortless, untidy
and unwholesome, where men, women and chill,
dren are huddled together, eking out precari-
GUS subsistence, on wages so scanty and uncer-
tam that they are altogether inadequate to the
supply of the actual necessities OF life, much
less for the laying by Of any savings for a time
of still sorer need. By strange faulty, the
poorer classes will persist in remaining in the
over crowded metropolis, notwithstanding the ex-
pense of living here, is SO largely enhanced by
excessive taxation, and its legitimate concomi-
tants, dear rents and high prices of food and
clothing. Consequently when financial ca
lamity interrupts the currents OF enterprise,
and deprves any considerable number OF work
ing folks of their regular employments, there
occur so many cases OF extreme want and abso-
lutte destitution that the sympathies of the
charitable aud humane, become warmly enlisted
in an effort to provide means Of relief.
just now, owing to the arrangement Of BUSH
ness, there is more suffering than usual, and
an epidemic of beuevolence has broken out
which promises some good results, alike to be-
neficiaries and almoners-to the latter espe-
cially, for whatever opens the heart to gener-
GUS care for fellow being, promotes the growth
of broader humanity, and quickens into &C
tive vitality the sublime principle embodied in
the golden rule. In large communities where
people often do not know their next door neigh
bors, and the man of largest acquaintance is
an utter stranger to at least ninety-nine of
every hundred persons he meets, the problem
of dispensing charity jud:ciously is somewhat
difficult one, The most deserving objects of
benevOlence, shrink with instructive self re-
spect from mendicity. The beggars who solicit
aims on the street, or tramp from door to door,
are generally lazy and shftless creatures
whom it is wrong to encourage, with gifts of
any kind. Begging is their trade, and as long
as they can pursue it successfully they
will not work. The bestowal of money
on the poor shivering children, who
perambulate the main thoroughfares, often
bare footed in the coolest weather, and always
the very picture of EXTREMIST squalor, is mis-
taken kindness though prompted by noble i'm
pulses. For these wretched little creatures are
sent out to procure, by appeals to the sensbili-
ties of the passer by, the means whereby their
worthless and unfeeling parents may live with
out thrift. The true way to deal with these in
fantle wanderers is to hand them over to the
pc ice, that they may be taken to some of the
mil lic if1f nd roI for Eu-
cry penny given them, is an Indictment to the
cupidty of the monsters who p1USst by their
miserable vocations, to keep them engaged in
it. 1T would be well II a concerted and resoIure
movement were set on foot by the authorities
to drive this clas of mendicants from the high
ways. This would be an act of practical phi
lanthropy, for it would rescue many poor girl
or boy from present misery, and future igno-
rance and degradation, and give them chance
for fair start in the great race of life.
One of the most questionable forms which
the epidemic has taken is a multiplication of
soup-houses. These establishments are OBJ
jectionabIe for two reasons; first that they
cannot be conducted on any basis which admits
of discrimination between those who could but
will not and those who would but can not earn
their bread; and secondly,-thls is the most Sc
rious drawback to their usesulness-they create
community of beggary and thus deprive that
last resort of want, of the responsiveness which
should make it impossible, except when it is
the only alternative by which starvation can be
azerted, or suffering all eviated.
While it may seem ungracious to criticise the
mode in which the charitable may see fit to
dispense their free-will offerings, it is we'll to
consider carefully what evils may spring from
the adoption of system which virtually rec
ognizes mendicity as permanent, rather than
a temporary social condition. For, say what
we may, whoever places himself in the catago-
ry of an open solicitor of aims, has parted with
SO much of his manhood, that the chances are
greatly against his ever regaining it. l hope
the time never will come wi en- any town on
this continent large or small will ever witness
the advertised misery and abjectness which Of
fend the eye and detract from the pleasure of
the traveller in every city in England, every
hamlet in the southern portion of ireland, the
most beautiful parts of Italy, and too many of
the European capitals. There is less excuse for
it here than abroad. Amid crowded popula-
ton, and where labor is inadequately requited
the degree Of restitution must be far greater
than in a country whose soil invites tillage and
rewards toll with teemilg harvests. 1t is
safe proposition that the major part of the pow
erty with which we are surrounded is the fruit
of culpable improvidence. 1 would by no
means refuse on that account to relieve it, but
I would render the relief as far as practicable
by putting the object of it in the way of re-
gaining the lost opportunity of manly indepen-
dence. In order to accomplish the desideratum
we want an organization of a charitable socie-
ty, literally endowed and capably managed,
whose business it shall be to find remunerative
work for the unemployed When it is not to
be had in the city, transportation should he
furnished to necesstous people to migrate
to sections of the country where agriculture
can be prosecuted with advantage, and where
nature has provided ample resources for all who
come. The tendency to huddle in cities ought
to be discouraged, not less for the benefit of
those who cannot earn living than for those
who prosper by usefulness, but are now COM
PEELED to share their substance with the drones
who have nothing to do.
/ am brought to the conclusion, therefore,
that the present spasm of conspicuous charity,
though conceived in commendable spirit, and
impelled by worthy motives is i'll advised, i'll
directed and certain to result in more evil than
good; that the soup house project is premium
on voluntary pauperism; that the rich have
neither the time nor the knowledge of human
nature, indispensable to wise disposal of their
bounties; that the highest philanthropy con-
s'sts in making beggary impossible, rather than
An MINIS tering to it with ostentatious prodigal-
n.y. a'a that it is one of the most urgent du-
ues OF humanitarians to devise a compreben-
slve system OF private munificence. the central
idea OF which shall be to help the moor to holm
themselves; to put every man in the place vyhore
he will "do the most good"
1t is thousand pities that the grand cprron.
of benifcence which is now flowing SO pusb-
ingly through the public heart could not be
turned into useful channels and made to SUBJ
serve the welfare of all classes. The moment is
opportune for creating an establishment which
would ameliorate the condition of the needy
without subjecting them to the degradation of
beggary. This is the imperative want of our
time. If some modern Howard, with heart
to feel and the mind to plan, would set himself
to working out broad scheme for such an
II