The Press., 1885-02-26
Issued Every Thursday Evening.

the common necessaries of life. A lady in Staflord Springs, who has imposed upon herself the task of seeking out and reliev- ing the needy and sick to the extent of her ability and influence, told me two weeks ago that she knew of more than thirty families whose only food for some weeks had been a small ration of Indian meal to each member-without milk, butter, or seasoning of any kind, salt excepted, to soften the poverty of the diet. The town is without such 8 provision as hospital 1; indeed, the only way that the paupered sick can obtain physician, whatever the emergency or urgency of the case, is to apply to the selectmen, or one of them, who, after taking day to consult with his fellows, may employ doctor and bring in his bill against the town-provided the pa- tient Is not dead and buried before the man of medicine arrives. 'sIt is the sad dest sight in the world,' said the sympa- thetic lady just mentioned, describing some of the scenes that were daily coming under her notice, ''to see, as l have seen, poor, haggard, sunken-eyed girls and boys, whose only real illness is the fever of hunger, dying by slow degrees, and not to be able to bring them relief"
 Perhaps cannot give better idea of luo COuulbOu LII dudlI6 1ltF0 Uudu Uy ClbluS single significant fact. For the last three receive from the farmers in barter such commodities of the farm as butter, eggs. even potatoes, on the ground that there is no sale for them except on credit, which, under the present circumstances, they can- not afford to give. Poultry, beef, pork, and other sources of farm revenue have be- come equally unstable, owing to the ina bility of the wages earning classes to pay for such luxuries of the table; and thus money has almost altogether ceased to circulate, what there is being locked up in the coffers of the mill lords, who, having made their fortunes out of the protective tariff, are evidently determined to hoard what they have and take no risks. Young men and women, skulking in rags or shiv- ering in tattered calico, start up from every nook of shelter, like spectres of poverty, and to state a significant fact-one that furnishes telling comment on the situa- tion-a Jew from Hartford has started a pawn-shop on one of the principal thor oughfares. What the end is to be, with the winter little more than half gone, and no prospect that the mills will start before June next, if then, it requires no econom- ist to predict.
 And one of tue saddest features of the situation consists in the facts that these large manufacturing towns are totally without efficient organization for such emergencies. Almost cities in population, they are as primitive in economics and mode of government as they were forty years ago. Three selectmen, elected an. nually, control the affairs of the town. The paupers are farmed to the lowest bid der, who houses them all in single shanty without 8 superintendent and without supervision. On the occasion of visit te this prison-pen of poverty by your core spondent month ago, the shanty contain ed twenty-four inmates, with only one bee and that the personal property of al old woman. The rest slept on the floor The other articles of food in the house were potatoes and lard, upon which the paupers subsisted, frying the potatoes il an abundance of the fat. One of the pau pers, an old man, dirty, half-clad, and GOV cred with vermin, was lying on the fool in comatose condition, breathing ster terously. He had fallen of a stroke O paralysis on the preceding day, and stil lay where he fell-no physician having been summoned. A mad old crone o eighty has migrated to miserable shanty or cabin, in the woods, where she lives alone, upon what she can beg, poor old soul, preferring it to home with the reg ular paupers, with diet of potatoes frieG in rancid hogs lard. It was the rawes day m December-rememb in the calendar of the winter as ssthat cold Fri day." the temperature 15o below zero In kind of ont-house, tethered by rope 1 to a stake driven into the ground, howl Ir,ro11ino hnrooloco idiot olNfhol i,, ( tattered pair of trousers and many layers of filth and ordure, was dancing to his owr music to keep from freezing-a rather diff fcult task, under the circumstances, for person in full possession of his wits.
 If this picture of New England paurer house seems an ugly one and offends tho aesthetics, the more's the pity that it should be true; that is, true Ill so far as bold coldly stated facts can convey the squalor misery, neglect, and hopeless privation O. the place. It is noted here to show how totally inadequate to the present emergency and utterly inefficient is the method 0 dealing with poverty adopted in one of tho most thriving and opulent centers of Nev England industry. The overseer of tho poor receives stipend of $2, GOO year
 and the selectmen grumble at that-they l insisting that upon him devolves the duty of providing for the scores of half-starvias families created by the stagnation of bus, ness and he, with volleys of vigorous i'm precautions, declaring that they are thre' niggardly hounds. Meanwhile the poo suffer on, in silence, or otherwise, as suit
 their individual tastes; the tramp problem grows more and more urgent; and nothing in the way of practical relief is accomplish ed until the clamor becomes so loud, ant the cry for bread so desperate, that neith CT can be ignored.
 It must not be supposed that the ex ample presented by the town of Stafford i an exceptional one, save in the fact that i comprises larger number of woolen fac tories, with less variety in its industrie than most New England towns. In Rock vile, ten miles to the southwest, the con ditlon is scarcely less deplorable: In Will limantic, twenty miles south, povert, peeps out from many windows. In Mon son, Mass, adjoining Stafford on tn north, the factory owners have adopte, the. more enlightened policy of running their mills six hours per day and payin, half wages. But everywhere through al New England, with bright exception now and then, the operatives classes ar reaping the legitimate result of the grea imitation of the last twenty years.
 Dyed-in-the-wool republicans argue, o course, that the election of Cleveland ha done it all, and that there is worse to come No doubt about the latter as to the form CT, if it paid to run the mills, if the marke for woolen stuffs and stuffs of all sorts Ina.