The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1874-02-19
what tho City Is Doing for tho Poor.
and Why 1t Should Do Moro.
RICHMOND, February 1f 1874

RICHMOND, February 1G, 1874.
Editors Dispatch,-By the courtcsy of
Captain c. P. Bigger, superintendent of the
Almstouse, | am enabled to compare the
relief afforded by the Council Committee and
the Citizens Committee. The chairman of
the Finance Committee, who is also men,
Der of the Poor Committee, said in the meet
ing of the Council that $4,000 had been eX-
pended by his committee in relieving the
poor for the month Of January alone, and
therefore he would not vote another dollar
to the Citizens Relief Committee. | find
from the table of Captain Bigger before me
that one,hdy only of thissSun was ex-
pended by the Council CohHInees From
the week ending January Sd to the week
ending January 31-fce a0eeks-1 ,o36 bush
of meal and 535 cords of wood were issued.
The value of these two articles is, say 81 ,0Oo-
meal selling in January for 80 cents, and
wood not costing the city more than $40
per cord delivered on Broad street.
Under ordinary circumstances the Coun-
CLIPS plan of issuing meal and wood only is
wise, bee luse with these helps the poor need
not suffer much. To supply all their wants
would ruin both the city and the poor. But
the times are peculiar and extraordinary.
Citizens Relief Committees have been eStab-
ilSncu ASOItu SDIuit WV u
large cities. Manchester and Charottes-
vile, even, in this State, have found it pro-
Der to establish them. And everybody
knows that the larger the city the greater
the amount of poverty.
The work of the Council Committee is
with the ordinary poor people who have
been living, especially in winter, chiefly by
charity. some for twenty years tc my knoWl.
edye. The work Of the Citizens Relief
Committee is with men and women now out
of work for months people who never be.
| fore thought Of asking for aid. They are
| industrious, sober, honest people, whose
wages. in many cases, and the size of their
| families did not allow them to save money.
Others may not have been proytdent, and
many good men do not know how to save
money. and never will. 1t may be that they
are too large-hearted. Our committee
| must also relieve the sick poor. Many
woman or child, if the first meal
after an attack of illness should he no.
thing better than corn-bread, would never
have need of food. Death would end
the trouble. Food is often more important
than physic, and the kind Of food as impcr-
| tant as the kind Of physic. We have no free
respectable hospital here, as in other large
cities. A man who enters our city hospital
| the pOOr-houSe-lnus Sut1eT In character as
we'll as in body. This ought not to be, but
it is so.
Bread and water is the fare of the felon.
| The honest man and woman, willing to work,
should have something better, when the
earth yields abundanty, and when their
neighbors- Christian netghbors-are faling
sumptuously every day. This distress, thank
God. will not last many days: and the Citi-
zenS Relief Committee would gladly labor
to relieve it had they the means. The citi-
zens whom we represent have given $1,000,
and the Council $1,000. We have sup
piled partially 2,764 families. containing
1000 inmates, with sugar, coffee, tea,
bacon, &C. We also delivered at the doors
Of 700 families load of wood free of all
cost. AS the Council, las the report of Captain
Bigger shows, expended fo- the month
only $4,000, instead of 1000, as was sup
| posed by the committee, can they not fur.
ther aid the Citizens Relief Committee by
another appropriation? In so doing they
will most certainly carry out the wishes OF
the citizens generally.
WILLIAM W. PARKER, NJ. D.,
| Chairman CommissTy Committee Citizens
| Relief Association.