The Arkansaw traveler., 1884-12-27
For The Arkdn5dz0 TraVfEey.
 THE POOR.
BY URA STORY.

BY URA STORY.
 In considering the various daily trans actions of men, the force of events often leads me to reflect oN the invincible con- dition of..the poor, especially their hard ships and disasters.
 An you do not wish to hear about the poor2 Then l am sorry, for l fear we will have to part company this even- ing, as I:propose to talk about them. But stay now: Are you not unjust in thus heaping invectives on them2 1t is their fault,' you say, that they are poor. They could have been something if they would" May-be-so, yes, and may-be-so, no.
 There are thousand things to look at in this matter,..a thousand ways whereby their fortune may have been lost, and they beer doomed by an iron fate to
 Poverty's dark, eternal commonplace War, pestilence, famine, wild specula- tiens, the oppression of the rich-all these could they make vocal tue homes they have --desolated, the hopes they have crushed, not one of us who has spark of manhood in ..him could hear with un- moistened eyes.
 The poor! Did you ever think just what that means? Ten millions of peo- ple-the motliest crew on earth-battling against starvation striving by any means to keep the wolf from their door. Men of all conditions-some the man. Hest, some the most dishonor able-ever they stand doing their part in the worlds history. And sad part it is Throw ing up the breast-works, burying the dead, taking tn. filth from the streets doing all kinds of dishonorable (?) work, which were it not done we could not live.
 Did you call them a mean factor in society? That may be so, but yet l tell you they are mighty one! Insignifi- cant in the eyes of her majesty, they do the work tn at sustains the universe and others reap the fruits of their labor.
 Many fathoms down in the sea where the sunlight perhaps has never pene- trated, the unostentatious coral rears his little mound. Day by day it grows up- ward as a blade of grass, till in the course of time small mound bursts through the water, which eventually be- comes an island whereon men come and reside with never thought for the pa- tient little builders. So is the reef of SO ciety constructed by the poor, unobsev- ably perhaps for long time, but their work eventually becoming manifest in the shape of revolutions of thought, action, etc. Silently they work asking no honors, no indulgences, "but to be let live"
 The poor! have often wondered why they must bear the (" heat and burden" while their wealthy brothers dwell in such bombastic luxury. It seems that they have been singled, set apart by fate for this sad office; and from his stern majesty there is no appeal. Philosophers have grown gray trying to solve the problem; to give them life of com parative ease, legislators famed alike for statesmanship and philanthropy from beyond the days of Lycurgus have sat in solemn council deliberasing, debating this enigma, and when death overlook them have owned that it was beyond the solution of man. Law after law was en- acted but the poor went still without re- lief, calling for food, and !" calling in vain to ears that never hear" For a time it would seem that during the admins tration of Lycurgus there was a sempor- ary relief in Sparta, when in order that he might expel from the state arrogance and envy, luxury and crime, and those yet more inveterate diseases of wanr and superHuity, he obtained of them to re- nounce their properties, and to consent to new division of the land, and that they should live altogether on an equal footing merit to be their only road to eminence: and the disgrace of evil, and credit of worthy acts, their one measure of difference between man and man."
 But this came near causing the death of Lycurgus, and it was only by the most stringent prohibition of intercourse with other states that it succeeded at all A few years after the death of Lycurgus, avarice again resumed her former sway. So has 1t ever been with acts of this kind.