Litchfield enquirer., 1878-06-13
UNWISE CHARITY.


 ApPlelon's Journal speaks IS follows of the efIec.s of the lavish generosity of the late Gesritt Smith lis Giis:aHos leach Q valuable lesson Ia such of oir benevolent institutions as are wise enongh to learn:
 ..He did not comply literally with the Scrip tural injunction to sell all one has and give to the poor, but he really did far more he de- voted all the energies of rare business abilities to the accumulation of successive fortunes, which he successively and unreservedly gave away. During the greater portion of his life, according to his biographer's estimate, his in come varied from forty to sixty thousand dol lars a year, and of his princely revenues he not only gave away regularly, year by year, by far the greater part, but sometimes en- croached upon his capital in order to meet the multitudinous demands which his reputation for benevolence brought upon him. What he reserved for his own uses amounted to much less than he often bestowed upon a single ob- ject that appealed to his sympathies. He rare ly turned a deaf ear to any sort of an appeal for charity. Besides his public contributions, he literally gave away fortunes to relieve pri- vate distress. The daily applications from strangers often amounted to tens of thousands of dollars; more than once they reached a hundred thousand and over. Old men and women asked for sustenance in their infirmity To redeem farms, to buy unproductlve land, to send children to school, applications were made from every part of the country A girl wants piano a boy wants money to buy a watch. and incloses photographic likeness ot himself, to be returned in case the request IS declined A woman solicits the gift of an alapaca dress, and is particular that the trim mings be sent with it. The small cheeks flew about in all directions, carrying in the aggre- gate thousands of dollars; but, not content with meeting the ordinary demands upon him, Mr. Smith was continually devising new meth ods of searching out and assisting the needy. At one time he distributedthirty thousand dol lars among the destitute old maids and widows of New York State In 1S46 he gave to the poor colored people of the State three thou sands farms averaging from forty to sixty acres each, and himself bore all the expenses connected with the drawing and recording of the deeds In 1S49-50 he gave similar farms to one thousand white males of the State, and, beside accompanying each deed with ten dol lars in cash, gave fifty dollars to each of five hundred white females.
 Certainly Mir Smith, if any man, had the right to expect to see and recognize those ben efits that are supposed to wait upon charitable deeds; but what, in fact, were the results His gift of the farms not only impoverished still further the poor recipients, but was the prolific source of innumerable disputes and wrangles and was eRn made the occasion o1 imputatiOns upon the donors candor and integ rity. NIT. Smith himself was compelled to ac- knowledge that this particular beneficence- which had seemed SO wisely adapted to avoid objections to ordinary modes of giving-had done more harm than good to those who had been designed to benefit by it. Of the effects of his bounty upon his immediate nelghbors 4Ir. Buckingham gives an account Whlcl would be laughable, but for the weighty les sons which it teaches He ruined his beloved PeterbOro by excessive indulgence, doing SC much for the villagers that they became quite incapable of doing anything for themselves His generosity dried up the sources of public spirit and made men positively sordid. Ht proposed to build and endow library there and the owners of desirable land sites were, al at once, misers who held the ground at prices So exorbitant that the scheme was abandoned He opened free reading room, and the thirs for information, being anticipated, was dis couraged. He offered to erect fountain ol the common, and the jealousy of the residents each of whom wanted it in front of his owI house, caused bitterness which the waters O Bethesda could not cure. He presented
 town-clOck to the authorities. and they grew at once so parsimonious that he was requested to provide a man to wind it up. The com mon-raiIing was dilapidated, and remained SC because he did not choose to repair it at his own expense The brood of parasites increas ed on this branchingoak. Tramps, swindlers cheats, multiplied. Liars sprang up like weeds Beggars infested the county. His bount! in many cases, if not in most, would have beer mere wisely bestowed on the devouring SC; which it could not poison, or bury int the ground where 1t would lie forever hid"