The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1880-02-05
[From the Spectator
COngenital Wastefulness.

A notable pauper is said to have
died last week in Chorlton workhouse,
at the age of sixty-four. The clerk to
the board, who may be presumed to
know the facts, informed the guar
dams that the deceased, Charles Cart
wright, was a man Of education, and
had once possessed very considerable
means. He had run through two for
tunes, one of 100000 and one of
e80000, spending the money, it would
seem, chiefly in an ostentatious style
of life, and when utterly destitute had
betaken himself. to the workhouse,
where he lived quietly, and apparent
ly contentedly, for many years, earn
ing a few luxuries for himself by
writing poems for the country papers,
and sermons for neighboring clergy
men. Occasionally his feiends would
take him away and grant him an al
lowance, but their efforts were always
useless, as he instantly resumed his
old habits, frequented the dearest res
taurants, and drove about in cabs. At
last he died, in the work having
never, the clerk thought, been unhap-
py, though the chairman on that point
snubbed the clerk, asking if he sup
posed that any contented man would
ever write sermons. We are not, of
course, responsible for the story, which
we take from Manchester paper; but
there is nothing prima facie improba-
BILE in it, though it might be necessa-
ry, if the exact truth were wanted, to
halve or quarter the two fortunes; for
every one has known in his own ex-
perience an instance or two of the
strange disease which we have called
''congenital wastefulness," which
seems incurable, and which every year
contributes it's quota to the human
drift" always filing the wards of
English workhouses. The extent of
that drift is often Inexperienced.
A politician with unusual means of
knowing the truth once told us that
this was the one fact in connection
with the working of the poor law
which most Englishmen did not
know,-that from third to half of
the adult indoor paupers in the king
dom constituted a human drift, a
residuum from the population Of per-
sons who, from accident, mental weak
ness, long-continued drinking, or ply
steal infirmities, could not, under any
circumstances, be relied on to earn
their own living. But for poor relief
or charity, they must die horribly.
To these must be added few whom
i'll luck attends so persistently, that
their lives seem to be one continuous
misfortune-and continuous misfor-
tune is as conceivable as a temporary
one and many in whom wastefulness
seems to be congenital mental dis
ease. They are not merely expensive
persons. Expensive people are very
often not essentially extravagant, be-
ing perfectly capable of economy, and
even of parsimony, after a certain linn
it, fixed in their own minds, has been
reached or passed. They will not live,
so to speak, upon thousand a year
but if they have two thousand they
are perfectly capable of putting away
five hundred, their mental standard of
needful expenditure being fifteen hun
dred. Men of this kind are ruined
every year in heaps, and their friends
denounce their extravaganza; but
they are not so much extravagant as
unable to practise self denial before an
ideal standard Of comfort or freedom
existing in their own minds has been
reached. They are not so much weak
br incapable as dominated by an ideal,
usually, but not always, of the baser
and more selfish kind "a passion, for
instance. for certain luxurious order