Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1876-11-15

people have been out of employment
through the summer tells plainly what
this winter has in store for them and
those dependent upon them. Manv
who had by industry and economy
been only partly able to meet thu
wants of former years Will find the
coming months to be too much for
them, and for the first time in life
they will face the monster called
want" 1t is terrible thing to he
without clothes and fire and food. II
is terrible when one must feel this
calamity for self alone, but infinitely
more terrible when one must feel #
for the group of loved ones at home
The details of the case need not ba
made out. How to help modify the
evil, should be the inquiry of ali and
each. There is only one method nv
which the distress about to come can
be abated, and that method is summed
up in the word benevolence. PRAYER
to heaven will not feed and clothe and
warm the poor, but benevolence, the
love of man for man, will meet these
coming dark days and extract from
them half their sorrow.
But this benevolence must follow
some method, and must assume many
different shapes, or it will be made
quate or badly directed. One of its
first moves might be this: The man
of money might resolve to carry ON
his public works, his building, or his
digging, or his industry of any kind.
to the end that he may furnish work
for some who seek work. Works
which might possibly be postponed.
year should be carried on now. that
there may be work for somebody. If
any family of wealth is debating about
papering, or painting, or repairing.
this is just the winter for the lob. for
though the times are SO hard, one NAV
not wish to pay for the work, vet the
times are SO hard that to furnish such
work is charity, and the best shape
of charity. In the old nations war is
invented to employ the idle and to kill
off any excess of population, but in
this country war is not a pursuit, and
population is not to be lessened by
constant slaughter. Industry is the
solution of our troubles, and hence in
such crisis as is now coming, men of
capital and of human feelings should
take special care to furnish as much as
possible of labor.
Next to such a mitigation of the evil
should come an economy as to self,
that there may be something in the
pocket for the deserving poor. The
old Hebrew law forbade the farmer
from gathering his shea,-es with ~
most scrupulous care. A sheaf must
be forgotten here and there, so that the
Ruths might not CLEAN in vain. Also
a few figs must be left on the tree, a
few lunches of grapes on the vine.
This nineteenth century ought to sur
pass the charity of the Mosaic age and
hence each citizen in circumstances at
all tolerable should be practicing an
economy that will leave something in
his purse for the "widow and the
fatherleSS.'
A rash giving away of money or
goods may work an injury 1t may
feed the idle or may make idlers out of
persons who once toiled hard for a
support. Hence any one expecting to
help any of his fellows to weather the
storm of this year should seek 10 be-
come personally acquainted with the
person or family he is to aid. Money
and food given at the door to beggars
is kindness most recklessly bestowed
The only safe way is to find the family
that needs the food, or the clothes. or
the ten cents, and then the cold
victuals will go forth each day as
blessing.
Nearly all this basement-door char
ity goes toward the manufacture of
paupers. Hundreds of men and
women have quit all forms of work
and live on the daily rounds of these
children. The whole system of street
begging should be terminated by the
police, because it brings about a two
fold calamity; it builds up an idle and
wicked class and induces half the good
people of the city to feel that they are
filling up at the basement door their
part of Christian charity.
The only safe benevolence is that
which knows the man or the family
or the child it is helping. A citizen
one day said, g cannot help you be-
cause | do not know YOU. The person
replied, If you will come to my house
you can know all. The citizen went,
and found the father an invalid, the
mother industrious and honest, and
the children barefoot and cold and hun
CRY. lie knows now when his cold
victuals and old clothes pass out OF the
house to what grateful and worthy
hearts his charity goes. Nothing can
save the world from being bad one
for many, but its suffering may be
modified by an earnest and wise ben
evidence. -Chicdgo alliance.
The Welfare of the Human system