Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-03-03
SOMETHING FOR NOTHING.
That Seems to be the Great Effort, tn.
 Great Desideratum


 Great Desideratum
 The other morning I found upon my desk an elegantly addressed letter. 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, ill case had to go out, to inclose whatever I was willing to give, in an accompanying envelope ad- 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 hme 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 we'll dressed, entered the room. 'Is there any answer to Mr. Blanks letter?' he asked
 ''Yes; the reply is that there is nothing for you. You are altogether too systematic. am surprised that you succeed in so thinly disguised fraud as this"
 Without word he turned and left the room.
 There are more than hundred tenants in the building where I have my office, and it would be strange indeed if from some of them this fellow didn't get s or S1O 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 a very hand some income.
 But, see the point?
 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 a chosen business results, ninety-eight times in a 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 a fair return for honest labor, return for honest labor not only, but return to the people from whom he gets his rewards
 Something for nothing.1
 That seems to be the great effort, the great ambition, the great desideratum. It is a 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 where else tomorrow, with the balance in favor, however, of the Wall street operator, because there is chance for a 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.