The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1894-02-28

n new principle. but the Woriu IL an
exceedingly busy planet inclined
somewhat to believe only what 1t sees,
and what il sees affects its Judgment
more strongly than what il is told about.
While for two months relief funds have
been pouring in from those who were
able to give-and from many who
were far from able 10 give
and giving out TO those whose
necessities were urgent that life
might be saved, many ugly incidents
have presented themselves that the pub
lie with its great heart preferred to be
blind TO. What mattered 1t If some OF
the relief funds went astray; if some OF
the funds relieved incompetency rather
than necessity; laziness rather than mis-
fortune; greed, even, rather than
want? Undoubtedly, great good
was being done in the aggregate the
relief was being administered unselishly
and economically. and it were better
that dollar should be dissipated than
that it should by any possibility be with
held from need and fail to succor dire
distress.
1t was an out-of-town newspaper that
reported the demand of beneficiary,
armed with a 81 order on a grocer, for
four packages of canned lobster at 90
cents can. In vain the grocer urged
that in other food products
than canned lobster the money might
be more advantageously expended. The
beneficiary hung to canned lobster. She
had. not in years had so much money to
spend all at once and she had never
been able to indulge i'll canned lobster.
Now she proposed to-and to have her
| fill.
The young fellow who disposed of his
relief money by taking his best girl to
| the show may be pardoned, for all the
world loves lover, and perhaps
| both his best girl and himself
| got more pleasure from the
entertainment that the money could
have afforded them in any other way.
1t was, however, a discouraging expert
ence, that of prominent Providence
woman who sought out family in dis
tress, found them destitute of the
necessities of life and filed the larder
and the coal bin. The family COM
prised the man, the wife
and several children. The man
was a moulder by trade, and had been
out of employment for weeks and weeks.
| The next step Of the helpfuf
woman was to find him employment,
and she managed to get a
big manufacturing concern to give that
| employment to him. Imagine her con-
sternation and dismay when the moulder
refused to work for "any dollar-and-a
half-a-day' which the manufacturing
| concern offered him!
1t is an incident vouched for on high
authority, that OF family saved from
the verge of starvation by charitable
woman who was doing her own investi-
eating that none of her funds should be
expended except under her personal and
| careful investigation and super
vision. She left eight dollars
with the household and later learned
that the man of that household devoted
| five dollers of the sum to the purchase
of bull pup! And experts will tell
you that you can't get much OF a bull
pup for five dollars, either.
What bearing have such pathetically
| humorous instances on the situation?
Perhaps they should have no bear
ing at all but the human
mind, as it happens to be constituted.
will insist on taking cognizance of them,
especially as they may be representa-
tive of a large number OF similar cases,
and so indicate grievous wrong. 1t is
| certainly glaring fact that men given
| employment on Smiths Hill, against
the better judgment of many fair
minded and helpfully disposed
citizens, went on strike, preferring to
become totally dependent on the COM
munity rather than to perform honest
toll for less than they thought their
services ought to be worth. 1t is a
| fact also that over in New
York, while the theatres We're
reaping thousands of dollars to be given
in aid OF the unemployed--the Metro
politan Opera House alone contributing
over $50, 900, put into its box Office by
| the weather citizens--while money
was pouring from every quarter into
all sorts of funds" strike
of silk weavers was begun in
the same city by which some
5000 men and women ceased TO
earn even the compensation which they
claimed was insufficient for their needs.
Similar strikes followed at Patterson
another is in progress in shoe factory
in New York and still another in the
Metropolitan building trades, while the