Morning journal and courier., 1894-02-17
TALES OFTEN TRAY FRS
Dorothy Hardy's Mascot.
BY EDGAR L. wAKEMAN.

| Copyright, 1894. All rights reserved.l
 Hard timesl
 Hard times enough at any time for the great world of toilers, fighting the cease less battle for love and life aud home
 Hard timesl
 Hard, fierce times now, when the pulses of trade are stilled y the wrspgles of leaders Of men: when the rich fly from the presence of poverty to the makeshift of travel In foreign lands; when the mi serly hoard more closely and savsgely; when tine charitable are broken by the great wave Of appalling want beating them down; when the crafty fstten upon dolor and misfortune; when the lswgivers. tenn porarily safe behind their fortress of plsn- ty and power, drowsily theorizs, speculate, quibble and delay; and even when the apostemic heads of great governments dawdle through weeks, months, almost years, among the delusious of diplomacy, the turpitudes of pl ce-giving, or the se- nilities of wrangling with senstes, while millions are starving beside the rusting | wheels of trade.
 l Hard timesl
 Bitter, dark, rsyless hard times to the wretched poor, with no outlook bsyon6; with bowling blasts searching them out to hurt and sting and scourge; with hunger pinchipg and with winter freezing; with disease lurking to bounce upon them when manly hope is done; with lonely agony to rack them when reason is almost gone; and with gsunt death to claim them, and at last release them from their pitiless struggle just to live-kinder, ieaderer and more compassionate far than the bland, fInt-hesrted inquisitors above them, who maundsr still of the wrong of this party or that, of wonderful theories. of political advantage, of tariffs, of reforms. of free trade, trade fair and trade foul. while inn potent letharRy is uactuously filling count less thousands of psuper graves.
 Hard timesl
 Humblers of the proud. victors over the strong, Jewellers of the many. How their remorseless hand strikes where least ex- | peoted, smites in remote and unforeseen places the half attained fruitions, and shifts and changes the relations of men! In all that measureless land between the wretched poor and the wretched rich, the land which zones the world with blessed aspiration and with building and builded homes. how their blight psl.ies the arm of effort and of lovel How their threaten ing wrsiths walk beside the father in his toll, the mother in her endless helpings and hopings, the student In his delvipgs, the professional man In his all but reached success, the inventor in his vig.ls, aye, even the lover in the most blissful hopes he ever may know, changing the cherished | dreams of years to black pictures of de- spairl Liquidation, the great economists may call them; but pesrefsction Is the truer word. And whoever shirks, with holds, or plays vulture with his fellow man when such dark days are come, puts back the hands of universal human good and progress on the dial face of time and shall be known as an enemy of his race and kind.
 Something like this was rumbllpg through Richard Hsrdy's tired head and discouraged heart as he walked the streets of the great city of New York, for he had not the wherewithal to ride, and saw the pitiful scenes of want and suffering on every hand in that hard times winter of 1894, finally coming, by e circuitous route to hts own home In the sky piercing Spuy- ten Duyvel Flats.
 From a safe distance his near sighted eyes furtively and with difficulty through ] his spectscles for @ long time regarded the 3 carved entrance to the Flats with its gau. , dy glass, its gay chandelier, and its row of 3 polished speaking tubes and electric bells, l hoping to escape the at that moment most 3 distressing ogre of his distressful poverty . their alert and wstchful janitress. Al ' last he valiantly plunged Into the entrance,