The Dickinson press. (Dickinson, Stark County, D.T. [i.e. N.D.]) 1883-1927, 1888-03-31
SOMETHING FOR NOTHING.
That Seems to be tho Great Effort, the
Great Desideratum

That Seems to be the Great Effort, the
Great Desideratum
The other morning found upon my desk
an elegantly addressed letter. l opened it,
Tho penmanship was noticeably fine, the
phrasing correct, the purpose clear. The
writer introduced himself as man of mis-
fortune, who ventured to ask some aid, how
over small and begging, in case had to go
out, to inclose whatever was willing to
give, in an accompanying envelope ad-
dressed to himself. The letter was signed by
stencil plate with o fac-simile of the
writer's signature, and the accompanying
envelope WIS addressed to himself, in the
same way, Familiarity with that sort of
thing enabled mo to decide ut once to have
nothing to do with the man, and to give him
nothing. Later in the day the door opened,
and person with u patch over his eye, very
well dressed, entered tho room ..'Is there
any answer to Mr.. Blanks lettcr2n he asked.
Yes; the reply is that there is nothing for
you. You arc altogether too systematic I
am surprised that you succeed in so thinly
disguised u fraud as this"
Without word he turned and left the
room.
There arc more than a hundred tenants in
tho building where l have my office, and it
would he strange indeed il from some of them
this fellow didn't get S. or $40 bill, and
there are several hundred similar buildings
i'll the city, and it would be stranger yet if
from them all he didn't derive 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 i'll
genuity to frame and write his begging ap-
1c Nl,,,, 1,,, Il
and then to call, all of which means indus
trious pursuit of chosen business, and, as
we all know, tho industrious following Of q
chosen business results, ninety eight 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
honest labor q return for honest labor not
only, but u return to the people from whom
he gets his rewards
Something for nothing.
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 streeo operator,
because there is q chance for q man there to
lose, and that chance be 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