Smyrna times., 1886-06-09
Bread W aSters.

We have all become familiar with
the term bread-winners," well, says
the New York Observer, to designate
those members of a family who earn
its support, and hence those in a COM
munity who contribute by their indus
try to the supply of the necessaries and
comforts of life. 1t is an attractive as
well as a suggestive word, not only en-
bodying in itself whole treatise of po-
litical economy, but calling up to the
sympathetic imagination a hundred
pictures of domestic life, with its lights
and shadows, of brave struggle and pa
tient land cheerful sacrifice. 1t is
fraught no less with moral suggestion,
giving a higher significance to the busy
scene about us, touching its more sor-
did aspects with a certain poetic light,
imparting a human and almost divine
quality to the commOnest objects
which are the work of mems hands,
and entailing upon those accumula-
tons of productive industry which we
call wealth " and capital the high
responsibility of n sacred trust.
The statistics would be curious, and
perhaps rather startling, if we could
know the percentage of bread winners
that is, of those who produce more
than they individually consume-to
/ the population of even so thrifty and
industrious a land as ours. Take out
the children, the superanuated, the dis
abled, the incompetent and the idle
and we should find that the nation is
kept fed and clothed and housed and
cared for by the few and not the
many.
What, then, shall we think of the
class whom we propose to designate as
bread-wasters, a term which ought to
have us wide a currency as that of
bread-winners, for it contains in itself
a tract-full of moral philosophy and
economic science. Under the two
terms bread-winners and bread-wasterS
are ranged the defenders and the inter
mediate classes are the camp-follOwers
of one or the other army.
The bread-wasters include, of course
all who prey upon society, producing
nothing themselves, and lying in wal
to obtain without equivalent what ha,
been won by the industry of others
There is the army of thieves of every
description, from the burglar with hi!
Jimmy and dark-lantern to the
trustee or official with his forged Sc
curities and crooked returns
There are the professional gambler
and spectators who seek to live, no
by creating wealth, but by adroitly alb
stracting it from the unwary and The
unfortunate The path Of many sucl
land even that Of single swindles o
corners or " transactions of one kline
or another) has been like a cyclon
over whole communities of humbl
homes and hard-earned savings.
There is the whole swarm of shark
which follow in the wake of society
seeking whom they may devOur AM
swapping up every unguarded morse
or exposed limb. The number of thos
who thus hang upon the skirts of soc
ETY. with keen and greedy eyes, an
ravenous and reeking jaws, is a dread
ful thing to think of. In bal
barOus or semi-civilizcd countries the
appear as savage hOrdes, or as bris
ands. But where industry is organ
lied, and society is policed, and wealt
. has been accumulated, their method
5 are more concealed and ingeniOu
I They approach us, in fact, as contrib
; tors to the gaiety of life. They al
1 bread-winners for themselves and fan
l lilies they would claim but it is as
u man who should make wages by car
:, ing maniac's stores and shOVelin
u them into the sea.
5 Such are all who pander to men
II lusts and follies, and who tempt the
d to dissipation, extravaganza and idl
$ ness. And such are all those, in tur
1t who spend their money for that whit
2, is not bread-in other words, for tn
+, which adds weakness instead
o strength to society, and inanition il
{ stead of nourishment to manhood, al
$ which renders men less able or less di
K posed to contribute to the elements
l. human wealth and welfare. This dc
Ie milton, it will be seen, opens up a wiC
g range of occupations and eXpenditur
y which we would shrink from dwellir
IS upon, even ifspace allowed.