The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1877-09-06

~ 04ly VA4V AAe0 0AAy AAAOAAVye OAvAAoA " Jaw
or to keep, is preposterous. BE must have
bored the pine forests for double eagles
and found them In every tree, otherwise
he could not have amassed any such sum
as he is credited with.
According to New England journal, a
woman Of forty, who, on the loss of her
we'll known at Plymouth, Mass. died
and left 0,0O0 or 81, 900 Of property
This 10 altogether TO heavy
a draft ON credulity. Plymouth is ono Of
the poorest towns in the whole Republic,
but one in which beggary would not be
tolerated for twenty four hours. Even if
it were permitted, he or she who should
beg would not be likely to get at the most
over dollar year. And to ask us to be-
lieve that q woman could obtain thou
sands in five or six years is an affr0nt to
intelligence. Plymouth is Is proud as
poor-and she is very poor-and her citi-
zens are q little likely to beg a. they are
to have large incomes.
These rich-beggar stories are pure in
venti0ns, of course; but it is strange the
inventors are SO devoid of skill and &C.
Quaintance with facts. There is no use of
falsifying when nobody will believe your
for this joins laundering to
and deepens sin by superadd-
ing stupidity. When romancing jour-
nalist wants to be believed, he should To-
cate his affluent mendicants here, or in
some other great center, not in the rural
districts or villages of New England,
where rocks and sand are the chief
sources of revenue. 1t is possible for us
to imagine that an active beggar, in q city
of from half q million to million Of
people, might, by many years of dishon-
est industry and fraudulent perseverance,
acquire small pecuniary independence.
But that he should grow 10 be million
aire by depending on charity in CON-
munity where . twenty dollar note il con-
sidered phenomenal, and where to have
seen one is remembered as q financial
event, involves sense of the improbable
rather embarrassing to faith.
Amazing epics whose heroes are wealthy
beggars have bcen scarce of late in the
gazettes. Even those imaginative folk,
the correspondents Of the country press,
have not heard recently of any of that
class. and this leads US to infer that they
are consulting verisimilitude more than
their wont. Plainly, this is NO time to
make anybody believe that mendicants
are bloated bondholders or heavy SUBJ.
scribers to the National loan. 1ndustri-
GUS, upright persons of excellent reputa-
ton are suffering too much in purse to
render creations about luxurious mendi-
cants acceptable. The hard times have
had even . depressing effect on the market
for lies; these show the general shrinkagc
in values, and are circulated only at dis
count. In the flush period narratives
touching rich beggars were at premium,
and taken without distrust.
If we remember, the old fellow who
used to make torturing a consumptive
fiddle, ON the east side Of City Hall Park,
an excuse for eleemosynary aid was fire.
Quently set down as q capitalist disguised
in old clothes and constant exhalati0ns of
cheap and cOpiOus rum. But when he
broke the last screw of his dismal instru-
ment by trying to tune it to the far-Off
strain Of eternity, his entire worldly effects
were, the degenerate Cremona excepted,
an ancient and broken brler-woOd pipe,
two matches and three cents, one Of them
90 disfigured a. to render necessary ita
withdrawal from circulation. A liberal
fund for q capitalist that-was it not
Fancy what new firms of R0thschilds il
would set up. The old fellows disguise
surely was very deep.
The One-legged Pole (he was supposed
to be Pole because he called himself by
a name in which number Of cOnsonanta
were SO tangled up at the end that it made
one sneeze to attempt their prOnunciatiOn),
who importuned passers-by for silver OF
copper in the B0wery ten or twelve years
f1,o v,nrc
as the owner of several houses and lots UP
country folk that he was the silent part
houses in Wall street. He, too, passed
away, and all his glittering wealth proved
to be half Of pewter spoon, an antique
Cancelled postage stamps.
We recollect reading Of German wo
man who begged on the ferry boats, and
who at last went to Heaven by way q
Hoboken-a dangerous route, it is said
with many interruptions. She was as.
serted to have large sums in several Of the
city savings banks, and to have clandes'
timely kept her coach and-fOur. Investi.
CATION showed that counterfeit twenty.
five cent piece and an old brass knocker,
Ou WHICH was euSIovou Tue C0UoAAeslC ics'
tiers, up. JONES'" constituted her secular
possessions. 1t was shown, furthermore,
that she had sometimes procured nineteen
cents per day on the ferries, and it was
presumed that her riotous mode of living,
engendered by such limitlcss income, had
destroyed her naturally fine constitution,
and brought her to an untimely end.
Such is the wealth OF nearly all beggars
when it is examined. We doubt if there
are any authenticated examples of rich
professional mendicants. To be beggar
and to get rich is contradiction in terms.
Riches, any accumulation of money, in
fact, generally requires self-denial, sus.
tanned exertion. shrewdness, vigilance,
independence Of spirit, individuality,
which . beggar never has and cannoi
have. A man who gets money without
sarning it, cannot keep II. To do . man
good, money must come In regular way;
and the possibility Of q man being . beg
gar presupposes him . vagabond. Who
cannot take care Of himself, cannot take
care of money. IN. 7. Times.