Connecticut western news., 1875-06-04
A CHAPTER ON TRAMPS.
The Vagabonds who Go About the COuntr! BegginG--TOO Lazy to WOrk--A Sermon.

Gry newspapers, the NeW 1OrK IT1Ount
 says, there has been a complaint of vaga
 bonds, their number, their impudence
 their unfailing appetite, their looped ane widowed raggedness. Numerous, toe
 are the municipalities, large and little
 which maintain free lodgings and afford
 eleemosynary prevent for these, partly
 upon some prompting of philanthropy
 and partly from some polite idea tha
 during the opportunity of the night {
 loafer is less dangerous than loafer ai
 large-that, his stomach moderately
 filed with hash and skiddy, he is less
 likely to invade the unprotected henroost that repose on public bunk will keef
 him out of the private haymow, and that
 having been to1erably refreshed in one
 hamlet he will move on to another. So,
 through the hard season, poverty has
 been peripatetic. and the nomadic beg gars have idly meandered in squalid pro. cession from Dan to Beersheba, and sc
 back again. It is unnecessary to prove
 by statistics what is within everybody y's field of observation. There is hardly a back door in the Middle or New England States which has not this winter been darkened by some street Arab rather demanding than beseeching his break fast The highways have been populous with paupers, and so will continue to be, even though work may be had for the asking upon the farms. Laziness is in- vincible. Shittlessness is very sweet to certain natures. Always we have with us those political economists, the begin ming and end of whose doctrine is, that "the world owes them iving;" and, be the debt just one or otherwise, it is a debt which the world is obliged to pay. We may arraign wretch for having "no visible means of support" but sending him to prison only makes our means of supporting him visible; and if we can force him to work out ten per cent. of the cost of his keeping, we consider our selves fortunate. From those who are relieved only for night we get nothing The reporter of West Chester (Penn.) newspaper found fifty two lodgers packed in the little station house like herrings in tub-in the berths, on the floor, and on the benches. Fifty two by no means fragrant creatures slum- bering in space of about ten by twelve feet, with red-hot stove in the center. There must have been plenty of carbonic acid gas there, and more smells than Coleridge counted in Cologne. Gazing upon the scene, the reporter framed this query: "Why should the people of West Chester assist half hundred vaga- bonds to pass comfortably their lazy livesa" He printed this in the next issue of his newspaper, but out of his infinite wisdom he vouchsafed no answer. He merely remarked: "The problem deserves discussion. We suppose so.
 A man who has always had roof over his head, and something upon his dish or in his mug when he chanced to be hungry or thirsty, whose pocketbook has never been utterly vacant, whose back never as bad as bare, is in no position to judge intelligently one who might write oauperrinauS after his name, if he knew how to write at all. So he looks scorntully upon the solicitor of aims, just as he who has always been success fl1l in trade regards the bankrupt. He rings the changes upon shiftless, thrift less, luckless; "some people" he says, utters much graver truth than he has any notion of. It is exactly so.
 Some people have no faculty. Moth ing which they undertake succeeds, even if they have force enough to undertake
  body comes to buy of them, for good reason probably, and so they eat their stock in trade. If they hire house, the rent money is never ready upon rent day. If they SOW. it is never wisely, and they reap nothing; if they make contracts, violation upon one side or the other is sure, if they keep focks and herds, it is for the murrain; their wives 4,,,,, Jo o1o kIoS, larcenous and their girls lewd. Add to peculiar in being under the blighting, ness-of that disinclination to lift a matter of temperament, but which this ,a matter of morality. ''He could if he s+wo1l1d" and "could were not often convertible terms. Nobody is lectured as the lazy is, but did all the featuring in the world ever make one such indus trious? In vain we point out to him the busy bee and the industrious ant; in vain we recite to him the verses of Dr. Watts ('' Iris the voice of the slug gard ''), and in vain we inform him that those who will not work shall not eat He knows better, and it would make no difference if he didn't. , He ate yester- day without working; he will eat to-day without it; and let tomorrow take care of itself He is simply lazy. It is a disease. It is destiny. It is in his head, arms, legs, and dorsal muscles. It is fatal complaint which will not kill.
 If this view of our lazy friends is cool, we submit that it is also comfort able one. Respectable people, with two coats and everything pleasant about them, fancy when the tramp is sentaway unrelieved that he suffers dreadful agonies of mind, the hot distress of de- spair Go back to your breakfast, dear madam, with no self-reproach. The beggar dismissed without even the smallest currency or the least crlmb is not around the corner tearing his hair, beating his bosom, and calling upon death to relieve him. Nothing of the kind, we declare to you. He is simply swearing at your stinginess, and consid- ering at which door he shall next apply. He isn't in the least poetical. He isn't saying: 70 heaven what will become of my dear wife9 of my poor hungry children?" He is determining whether he will try your village little longer or push on to the next. Be satisfied that he will not die of hunger. Heaven helps the helpless and lifts up the lazy. The honest pity which you unnecessarily feel for him, rest assured, is the best part of this little transaction. Keep your money for the really worthy, your bread for the needy widow, and your raiment for her shiverinp children,
 Statistics have recently been published showing the condition of the Church of England. Since the year 1900 and be- O Il. T IL