The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1884-05-23

ance. Then, and only then, can we intelli-
gently strike. For we must, in loyalty to
truth, keep our eyes open to the fact that all
poverty and mendicity are not the results of
intemperance; pauperism and mendicity are
older than Free Masonry. Street begging on
principle we have reason to believe is five
thousand years old at least. Begging was
common in the tabled golden age it was
bold, persistent, and fawning when Homer
lived and wrote, as we may infer from the
character of Isus and we are told by ancient
writer's how sturdy servile mendcants
thronged about the chariots of the great,
making themselves as annoying in their i'm
portunities as their probable descendants of
modern Italy. Among the Fakirs of India, a
people who claim high antiquity, thousands
of years ago, beggary and saintliness were
synonymous terms. With them poverty was
virtue, and begging worthy practice A
too liberal and false Interpretation of gospel
precepts led to monasticisn and the founding
of mendicant orders, and both among the
pagans and the christians, bad people, too
lazy to work, attached themselves from mo-
tives of gain and the love of a vagrant life
to misguided views and orders.
Through the centuries, it is curious to OBJ
serve this race of beggars, distinct in their
occupation and their practices have come
down to US The modern gypsies are proba-
bly, descended from the Fakirs, or some kin
bred tribe. 1t is known that India is their
fatherland, and they were perhaps the camp
followers of Goth, Hun, Tartan and other
Asiatic hordes which spread over Europe in
the early centuries.
Beggars were plentiful in the "good old
times" There book written in 1909
(Siber Vagatorum). An edition was printed
in 1928 with preface by Martin Luther, who
had doubtless been imposed upon by some OF
these ancient tramps. From some accounts
of this book, it seems to put to shame, I'M
perfect as it is, the analysis of paupersm by
modern writers.
It mentions the honest poor who could find
no occupation; the bread-gatherers the lib
Grated prisoners, who carried chains and pro-
fessed to be captives of the lnfidels; the
cripples, one of whom was said to have OBJ
tanned leg Ga wooden one | presume) from
dead body, and to have tied up his own ;
knaves with the falling sickness, who from
the use of soap made themselves foam at the
mouth blind rogues, some of whom bound
their eyes with bloody cotton, and declared
that robbers had destroyed their sight; men
and women of noble birth who had been
ruined by war; merchants who had been
robbed baptized Jewesses, and still others,
whose tricks, like the secrets OF Indian doc
tors, seem to have come down from father to
son through the generations, for the vagrant
of the day is fertile in resources and cunning
in ingenuity.
This form of yagrancy we believe did not
originate in intemperance, and though that
evil may aggravate the nuisance, it is not the
fountain of its life. With the gypsies and
like Migrants, begging seems natural. Their
nature was changed by centuries of mendicl-
ty 1t would be very interesting as well as
useful, to know with accuracy how far intern
perance among us tends to produce vagrant
class, with the hereditary vices and qualities
which such class usually manifest.
Mistaken notions have produced such a
class whose bad qualities have affinity with
intemperance and it is not unlikely that in
temperance alone does produce hereditary
vagrancy.
The cure of hereditary vagrancy must be
found in the laws and their strict enforcement,
Joined to the unseen and quiet, but powerful
forces of our modern civilization, among
which education and moral influence are the
strongest But it seems more than probably
that we can best overcome pauperlsm not con-
nected with wandering bands, with pecu-
liar history and strange traditions, by direct
ing our attack largely against intemperanee.
The result of such course would tell more
as time advanced for it strikes at the root OF
the trouble Great advantages would imme-
diately ensue upon the suppression of intem-
perance but the richest blessings of good
work are not always at once bestowed
| We believe that four-ffths of the present
pauperism would disappear with the abolition
of the use of alcohol, and the treatment of
the remaining one-fifth, and of hereditary
yaprancv would be simple matter. But the
first requisite is full and reliable statistics.
We already believe that lntemperance is the
main trouble but men are not disposed to
believe our beliefs. Yet we can startle them
with facts and figures. There is no eloquence
which stirs our cool, calculating, intelligent
communities, like the eloquence of fact.
HELPERS Impending Crisis was second only
to Uncle Toms Cabin in arousing the spirit
which destroyed slavery, and yet 1t is merely
book of facts and figures, showing the re-
suits of free and slave labor IN contrast SO
striking and true as to conquer our wills and
Judgment at blow
We will look however at some facts con-
nected with intemperance and pauperlsm.
It has been estimated by the chief of the
statistical bureau of the United States, and by
others. that the direct cost of alcoholic liqnors
in the United States, during recent years
has never been over half billion dollars an
nually. This is understood to be the money
paid for liquor alone to be drunk as bever-
AGE. Add the value of the labor of those
engaged in it's manufacture and sale, the
value of the drunkaris' labor, which is lost
the grain destroyed the cost of caring fol-
the insane, the idiots. the sick, the criminals,
courts notice and all legal machinery which