The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1888-09-14

gary. l have qualms against giving to
these little, brown-eyed creatures, because
l see they, too, have this instinct. They
do not blush at asking. They can go from
door to door without sensitive revulsion.
The man is a freak in his class, and it is
probable the family will not emerge. But
I am sure that our habits of giving to beg
CARS will prevent them from emerging.
OF the 1000 reported from the city /
have quoted, nearly all sprang from about
t~hirty-five families, that came TO the city
twenty years ago as beggars. They multi
piled rapidly; some families having seven
teen to twenty children. Of course this
soon bred a small army Of beggars. Mar
riages took place mostly within the limits
Of the caste. 1t is said that n young
man who left the ranks, and became a
well-to-do business man of the middle
ranks Of society, was looked pom as a
traitor, and attempts made on his life. He
is the solitary exception in the history of
these people, so far as known. Marriage
laws have been wholly disregarded, and
relatives have married and intermarried,
until the relationship can hardly be traced.
In one case a woman had married her own
son, after having lived with half a dozen
men. The original thirty-fve families
were, so far as known, not interrelated
when they first made their appearance,
but now they are thoroughly a conglomer-
ate. Beastly habits have steadily degener-
ated them, until now they are barely above
the brutes.
But it will not be possible to stop at
this point, or we should despair 0 fciyiliza-
ton. a happy law comes in to help us
The average life of the first generation of
these people was about sixty years, but
now. in the third generation, the average
is about fifteen years. This is the fortu-
nate end of moral and physical degenera-
ton; it is se~lf-destructive. II kills out VIZ
tally and so we are rid of them. They
viii not work; they will beg. This is one
distinctive definition of the degenerate.
They will not put forth any effort to rise.
Motive power is gone. They move on the
line of least resistance. Shame is a lost
faculty with them. They cannot UNDER
stand their own degeneration.
The following history of one of the tribe
| quote: ''The family is hard to describe.
They wander all over the country, living
toms. When cold weather drives them to
shelter they will take any ~nnoccupied
premises they can find. From their beast
ly habits they are diseased, idiotic and de-
formed. They are like half-civilized ami
mails, governed more by instinct than by
knowledge. The family numbers 137.per-
sons. Several of the women have made
themselves nearly blind by the use of acids
to keep their eyes sore" OF another fam
lily the record says; s'They have eighteen
dogs, and have been known to nave as high
as thirty. Nearly every male member has
served in the penitentiary. Recently a
COW died in the pasture near the city, and
after nightfall the entire family, consisting
Of over twenty, went out and cut up the
creature, and carried it home to eat"
This illustration from a single city | give
as length, because it is an exact parallel OF
what occurs in every city of size in the
land. Besides, there are townships in
every state. outside OF cities, where there
is something so similar that the lesson is
the same.
The first condition Of degeneration is not
reversion, but perversion. The evil man
does not 60 back on the line of his animal
heredity, but turns aside into the paths
that are neither human nor animal. The
human creature acts precisely like a de-
generate animal or insect; he becomes
parasitic and lives off his neighbors.
Some vegetable existences learned this
trick long before man did it; and in doing
so lost faculty and structural perfection.
The comparison is very striking between q
human hanger-on and a parasitic plant
that all its life clings to some other plant,
smoking the life out of it. You never saw
such Il person who had not lost self-respect,
manly features. sound judgment and abil-
ity to use himself to advantage. T. p,
in be-DemOcrdt.