St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1884-10-02
A Poor Economy.

than it does to accomplish them.
1t costs more to take care of the idle |
poor, the able paupers, than to see
that they are trained, in some wise, to |
work. and the means of self-support |
put before them.
1t costs more to cure than To pre-
vent, ten times over; and cure is rare
ly brought to perfection even then.
Crime and its results, the original
injury it works, its police, its magis-
tTates, its commitments, its trials, its
courts, its sheriffs, its clerks, its judges,
its iuries, its prisons, its penitentiaries,
its gallOws, cost more than all the
other expenses of government COM
bined. And what does ii cost besides
money!
Does the state-having provided
schools for these little vendors of pa
pers, of matches, these hangers-On
about wharves, and buildings in con
structiOn, these small thieves and va
grants, these street Arabs take them
in hand, and save them for its own
sake. as well as theirs! Why, then,
are they where and what they are
The expenditure for maintaining a
pauper child-and there are tens of
thousands in the different state and
county houses he can be of some
service is not less than five hundred
dollars of which not one cent is now
spent in making him self-supporting
and self-respecting citizen. The
school and the industrial information
he ought to have bestowed upon him
left unbestowed, he remains Il pauper,
or becomes worse,-for the sixty or
oh In
curse the world with his presence.
OF II 80 convicted criminals in New
York, 7,232 that is to say ~ per cent.
were orphans or half orphans.
What parent has the state been to
these
The ratio of well educated in the
prisons is about one in seventy-tive.
The prison tables that give "a respecta-
bile percentage are tallacious. Every
man, not put to the test, will Overstate
the amount of his education. He "can
read and write, reading and writing
that require ingenuity to comprehend
and to dccipher
The night school whereby myriads
of boys and girls have been saved to
an honorable, self-supporting and
helpful manhood and wOmanhOOd, con
sumo on an average two dollars year
for each scholar. The average eXpen-
diture for every state prison convict,
aside from any previous burthen to so
ciety. is two hundred dollars II year.
Ii takes two dollars ii year, and IL little
attention. to save Il waif to manhood.
1t takes two hundred dollars Il year to
support this waif when he has run the
streets in ignorance till he graduates
in crime, has lost manhood and idcnti-
ty together, and has become thing
behind ccll-door, and number on
the outside of it.
If the evil effects of the neglect of a
life ended with that life, they would
be sore and heavy weights for society
to entail upon itself; but they spread
in ever widening circles as the genera
tiOns move on and down.
1t is a difficult matter to trace the
record of criminal and pauper de-
scent; since, like all dark things, it
burrows in the dark, where investiga-
ton follows with uncertain feet.
Here and there, however, by unusual
prominence of vigOr and crime, by un
usual persistence of interest and study,
the dismal road can he traced-nOt to
its end. but from dreary past to a
hideous present.
At certain meeting of the State
Charities Aid association of New York,
DR.. Harris presented some verified
statements of the OutgrOwth of single
life of neglect and misery.
Two hundred years ago, in Il small
village on the Upper Hudson, "Marga-
ret was left adrift; a solitary child,
without family, or friends. or home.
All if there had been Il school for her,
a shelter for her, IA law that had been,
in sort mt least, foster father and
mother to her; and some one to see
that she received all that the law al
lowed, perhaps going step out of the
waV to make sure that this life had its
feet planted on the right road
But, no; neither the law, nor any
man nor woman within or without the
law, cared for her body or her soul.
The little unregarded animal lived
its animal life; grew, found others of
its kind, perpetuatcd its animal life :;
died and, dying, left II long line of
criminals and paupcrs to curse those
who had made no effort to turn the
curse of its life into Il blessing.
Shooting down through six genera
tions, the county records show nine
hundred descendants of this one ahan-
doned life to have been and to he
drunkards, lunatics, imbecilcS, idiots,
paupers and prostitutes two hundred
of these convicted of and punished for
crime.
In one generation alone, there We're
twenty children, of whom seventeen
grew. like poisonous weeds, to MATURE
ty. of these seventeen, nine served in
state prisons, for high crimes, AN ag
gregate term of fifty years; while the
remaining eight divided their existence
among jails, penitentiaries and aims
houses.
"Behold, how great a matter little
fire kindleth -
This one spark of life, that, watched
and tended, might have made a cheer
full blaze on a domestic hearth, warm
ing and vivifying home, excel
lent thing in itself, comfort and help
to others,-left to run wild, has grown
and grown till it sweeps II tempest of
flame, consuming property, persons,
morals, and that thing for which we
care so much, money, by hundreds of
thousands.
"Whatsoever man sOweth, that
shall he also reap Anna Dicken-
son.
GIcaningS.
1t is thought that Senator Anthony'S