New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1874-09-24
TIE OLD FOLKS HOLIDAY.

Here is an incident which will serve as a
text for the sermons which nOn-church-g0ers
preach to themselves on Sunday Oftener than
is supposed. Our neighbors of Philadelphia,
who are accused of making haste slowly in
business matters, have thereby had time it
appears to make of charity fine art 1t oc-
Cured to some of them, while they were
taking the poor children out on free eScur-
sion, that there were some miserable creatures
left behind in courts and tenement houses,
poorer even than these, as they had reached
their second childhood, and were beggared
even of time in the world that had used them
Int hardly. An excursion for old folks was
therefore sent out, which proved so thorough
success that it has been followed by others.
The Qray-headed old men and women were
gathered out of their wretched homes on
bright, pleasant mornings, driven in state to
the cars or boats, and taken far out OF town,
further than some of them had ever been in
their lives. They were treated most carefully
and gently; they sat down in the thick
woods, summed themselves, heard the birds
sing and the noise of the hidden brook
" that to the sleeping woods all night singeth
ga quiet tune )" they were fed on all the
dairties which old people, like children, cOvet.
When one remembers that the old grand
father and mother in the houses of the poor
are of necessity not the objects of veneration
and care which they are in families where
there is money enough to make old age a
season of repose, but are usually drudges
TO the last forced to feel themselves q
burden in the swarming cellar, we may know
what a wonderful delight and rest these
unexpected holidays brought to them. Each
one of the feeble creatures, tottering uncared
for to the edge of the grave, felt himself to
be for the moment the object of popular at
tention-the one man whom the town delighted
to honor Some of them were centenarians !;
these had special carriages their only anxiety
was to surpass each other in the matter of
age all of them appear to have had history,
and when they talked-(and how they did
talk D-the Committee formed a model audi
ence, eager to applaud and to hear the story
over again and again Immediately. Now and
then really good band played for them, and
we are glad to learn the old folks preferred
the gayest music to any funereal strains, and
insisted on somebody's dancing jig which
some old bucks of ninety-odd did very credit
ably.
Children on free excursions are apt to be
hard to control through the day, and to prove
clamorous and Disconnected when the day is
over. But these poor creatures had lived 80
long that they had learned how little the
world has to give, and how to make the best
of that little. They were satisfied and pleased
with every little incident, and declared at the
end it was tho happiest day of their lives.
The Summer is over, but there surely is
time for us to take hint from this beau
tiful idea of the good Quakers. We do not
spare money on civic or club dinners to
notable strangers, who may do us some ser
vice. We forget who it was that commanded,
"But thou, when thou makest feast call in
"the poor, the manned, and the blind, for they
"cannot recompense thee"