The Press., 1884-08-21

side is worth and you shall have as much of it as you can honestly pay for. You shall have seat in the village church, and if you can, you may sing Ill the choir. You shall dance at the weddings, and cry at the funerals. You shall have wife who will love and be proud of you-a husband who will love and respect you. Your children shall rise up and call you blessed, and your honest industry shall es- tablish them in the land They shall cherish your old age; and when you die your r ighbors shall come in sorrow to your burial, and your children's children shall hold you in honor and loving remem- brance. You shall not be among Us and not of us, because
 1st-We owe you the best chance we can give you. and you shall have it.
 2d-The state has use for men and wo- men, and not for out-casts.
 3d-Paupers cost money, and we intend that you shall not be Q pauper; for we would rather raise industrious men and women and save our money, than to raise paupers and spend it on them. @2@
 Now, to anybody, if such there be, who sees nothing in what have been saying, and who thinks that those first two reasons why these children should not be among us without being of us are unworthy of consideration, that third reason ought to be as meat to the famishing, for it is a simple proposition ill primary arithmetic, unrelieved by any impulse of generosity, and undimmed by any warmth of human feeling. It is dollars and cents to the fore, Gods grace and mans mercy to the rear. It can be figured out with chalk on shingle, and anybody who can keep milk account can do it. The proposition
 that poor-house children generally make
 adult paupers is an axiom, as incontro-
 vertible as the proposition that two and two make four. Which is the cheapest, to
 support children as they ought to be sup ported, and make self-supporting men and women of them, or to keep the breath of life in them by such treatment as no child
 ever deserves, andImake' paupers of them ?
 Which costs the most, a child for year or
 two at $1. 50 or $2 per week, or a pauper for thirty or fifty years, at $l, or even at fifty cents, per week? It is said of office- holders that few die and none resign. Paupers die, but rarely without heirs to
 their misfortunes and dishonors, and to
 their claims upon the public treasury-and
 they almost never resign. It is the rule of | the human race to increase and multiply,
 and vpaupers are not exceptions to that
 rule. When we send boy or girl to the
 poor-house, we send the father or mother
 of unborn children there. If we have but
 two to support now, we may have dozen
 to support twenty years hence. Which is
 true economy, to make self-supporting
 man and self-supporting woman of the
 boy and girl or to make them paupers,
 and support their multipl lying progeny
 from generation to generation?
 Adult paupers mean taxes always, and
 criminals frequently. Criminals, too, cost
 money. And they also mean more than
 present taxes-they mean more criminals
 and more taxes. Thistles do not bear figs
 now any more than they did thousand
 or two thousand years ago. Be 1t paupers
 or criminals, they breed their kinds, and
 both kinds are expensive. And the peace
 of communities as well as the pockets of
 taxpayers, must suffer from neglect of poor children.
 Benjamin Franklin's saying, "Take care
 of the pence and the pounds will take care
 of themselves" has long been thought
 sound doctrine. Take care of the child
 and the man will take care of himself, is equally sound doctrine. The man or the
 town that takes care of the pence and lets children take care of themselves will surely | lose the pounds in taking care of men. At
 ss fl4mel in everybody's life somebody Ielse must take care of him. By the ap- fpoiptment of nature that time is in child hood, aiid ends with child hood in. a vast majority of instances, unless transferred to manhood by neglects which bear fruit in heavier burdens and longer care more hopeless of reward. A people which turns its back upon its poor children will meet them at the ballot box. Lost sight of in poor-houses, or in worse places, they will reappear in the poor lists, in the courts, in the jails. From wherever else they may !. be absent, they will always be in the taxes. However obscure as individuals, they will l be host which can not be ignored an in- fuence which can not be limited, @ con- = tagion which can not be shut in or destroy , ed, And they will be product of the in- !" stitutions which they belittle, and of the society which they debase.
 : Some of the chief reasons for this law . Y. have been suggested, and I hope that we all feel that its principle is right, and that ; we arc ready to go ahead with its work z Let us now examine 1t for little in detail r and see:
 What children this Home is intended A for.
 - 2-How they are to be got into it. , 3-How they are to be got out of 1t, and !, into family homes,
 The Home is intended for children be , tween the ages of two and sixteen years ., (GnOSe QomenGeu, 1ulIIlC, or SuIlorlnS IrOH incurable or contagious diseases being ex ;. r ceptedl of the following classes: | 1-Waifs and strays. our purpose 4 1t is sufficient to say that these words art . . descriptive of children lost or abandoned D by their parents, guardians, or natura protectors, whether such parents, guar 4 [ dians or protectors be known or not 2-Children who are, or may hereafter f b. in charge of overseers of the poor viz, the selectmen. ....
 3-Children of prisoners, drunkards ol ' plupers, who are, or may hereafter be . . committed to hospitals, alms-houses, ol D work houses, ... >.. , 4-All children deserted, neglected 2 cruelty treated, or dependent-This clause is intend d to cover cases that might no = be included in the narrower terms of tho V preceding clauses. t4', he . Children may be got into the Home il . . the following ways
 :, u If they are, or ought to be in charg < {, of overseers of the poor (selectmen), the. :. may be sent to the Home by them. . law forhids overseers of the poor to plac 70 children with the lowest bidder Ca thin, J that has been, and perhaps now is done V in some towns of this county, and else $ where ill the state), or to place or retail l' them in alms-houses, except that, if one o o the parents, who is of good moral charac h T. llz1 Al. | =