Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1888-04-06
SOMETHING FOR NOTHING.
That Seems to be the Great Effort, the
Great Desideratum

That Seems to be the Great Effort, the
Great Desideratum
The other morning I found upon my desk
an elegantly addressed letter. I opened it.
The penmanship was noticeably fine, the
phrasing correct, the purpose clear The
writer introduced himself as a man of mis-
fortune, who ventured to ask some aid, how
ever small and begging, in case had to go
out, to inclose whatever I was willing to
give, in an accompanying envelope adj
dressed to himself. The letter was signed by
a stencil plate, with a fac-simile of the
writer's signature, and the accompanying
envelope was addressed to himself, in the
same way. Familiarity with that sort of
thing enabled me to decide at once to have
nothing to do with the man, and to give him
nothing. Later in the day the door opened,
and person with patch over his eye, very
well dressed, entered the room. SIS there
any answer to Mr.. Blanks letter." he asked.
eyes; the reply is that there is nothing for
you. You are altogether too systematic. l
am surprised that you succeed in SO thinly
disguised fraud as this"
Without a word he turned and left the
room.
There are more than hundred tenants in
the building where l have my office, and it
would be strange indeed if from some of them
this fellow didn't get IS or $40 bill, and
there are several hundred similar buildings
in the city, and it would be stranger yet if
from them all he didn't derive very hand
some income.
But, see the pointa
In the first place he had to think out the
scheme. In the next it required time and in
genuity to frame and write his begging ap-
peals. Then he had to have them delivered,
and then to call, all of which means indus
trious pursuit of a chosen business, and, as
we all know, the industrious following of
chosen business results, ninety times in
hundred, in success. Why then could he
not find some reputable calling, in which the
same industry, the same degree of wit and
endeavor, would bring him fair return for
honest labor, return for honest labor not
only, but return to the people from whom
he gets his reward?
Something for nothing
That seems to be the great effort, the great
ambition, the great desideratum. 1t is kind
of speculation in futures. In some respects
it is not different from the speculation which
Wall street makes respectable, and which
after all is little more than betting that
stock which stands here today will be some
WneTo elSe IoHlOITOW, Will tue DdIduce Ill
favor, however, of the Wall street OPERATOR
because there is chance for man there to
lose, and that chance he has to take; whereas
with our friends, the begging fraternity, the
extreme possibility is failure to connect
with an accommodating pocketbook. An
unfortunate feature Of this sort of thing is
found in the fact that many men are mis-
placed in life, and the misfortune which at
tends them falls upon their families, adding
to their burden and their disappointment at
the keen and incisive piercings of positive
physical suffering. Men with hungry wives
and starving children will do almost any,
thing, and don't know that they are to be
censured one iota if they take any chance,
however desperate, to do any deed, however
wicked, in the moment of their dire necessity
and the hour of their extreme emergency
Joe Howard in New York Graphic.