The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-12-10
PROBLEMS OF POVERTY
SOME SGRIKfyG MORAL IND SOCIAL
 QUESTIONS CONSIDERED.

gn.emperanee as Cause of Poverty and Pauperism-IlIo Poor in the Great Cities
 The Tenement House system and Laws The Electric Roads and Rapid Iransit-- The Now York Fro,h Air Tund-Starva- ton Wages.-Sooial and Political Econo- my-An Address by Kov. Mn. Mutch.
 Some Problems of Poverty" was a subject discussed in a very interesting and striking way by Rev, MT Mutch at the Howard avenue Congregational church last Sunday,
 After drawing the distinctions be- tween honest poverty and paupersm and then referring 10 the just claims the honest and worthy poor have upon public charities, the speaker referred to the numberlcss charitable institutions that the humane and phllanthropic public have provided. Proceeding he said
 But the problems of poverty are 70 be studied not 90 much among these classes as among that much larger
 
 normal members of society, but are lowering on the edge of the abyss and are ready upon the slightest shock of misfortune to tumble off into one or other Of the special classes of depend ents, 1t is here that the causes which produce poverty are in active opera tion. It is here that the criminal, the drunkard the diseased the weak mind ed, the inefficient are propagating their species in swarms, so that 1t is a fore gone conclusion with thousands of children from their birth that they shall help to replenish the ranks of the de- pendent classes if they ever grow to adult life. If this prolific supply of the dependent population is to be cut off, one of two things must be done; prob ably both will be done more or less in time. Restraints will be provided by law which will seclude those who are morally certain if left at liberty to propa gate a race of defective children; but this involves a loss in the sacrifice of personal liberty, which is a danger ous experiment that is liable to react with worse effects than those it is in tended to remove. Or if this is not done the guns of the army of reform will have to be trained on this multi tude so effectively that they or at least their children after them shall not re- quire the paternal care of the state.
 In this reform effort there are thous- ands of people and institutions hard at work. The network of forces in the mass is so intricate that it is not al ways possible to tell which is cause and which is effect. There is a stand ing dispute as to whether intemperance produces poverty more than poverty produces intemperance. The drink bill of Chicago is said to be a million a week, three-fourths of which comes from the pockets of the poor. And in two blocks of one street in the very lowest quarter there are sixty saloons estimated to take in a quarter of a mil lion a year
 Apparently the people there do not heed the proverb Be not among wine bibbers, for the drunkard shall come to poverty" It is confidently claimed that there is no abject poverty and misery in that city except in connection with drunkenness and vice. But there is at least the hard pinch of want, which sees no relief from the excessive labor, no fare but the coarsest and cheapest, no ambition to rise out of the miserable surroundings into which the people have been driven. This may not be called poverty so long as it is self-sup- porting, but it is poverty. It is in fact the recruiting ground for all the other classes of dependents.
 It is therefore in this ground that most of the problems of poverty must find their solution. It is here that the pressure must be relieved upon that still lower class who are tottering on the edge of the abyss. It is here that the hand-to-hand work of reform must be done.
 Of course the poor in the great cities of this country are mostly foreigners. This of itself is encoura ging, and points to the time when foreigners shall be few, and the poor from that source shall therefore disappear Though the foreigners are many of them poor, even the poorest Of them have those clements of thrift and industry which assures one that they shall not always remain 0. IS sure to decline more and more. But unless some of the difficulties are re- moved by artificial means this natural tendency will take a long time to work itself out.
 One of the difficulties is the tenement house system which prevails i'll the con- gested sections cf a few of the great cities, and to some extent even in our own city. The poor herd together for the sake of economy Of rent so closely that health, cleanliness and privacy arc Impossible. There are single houses in New York in which one thousand peo- ple live.
 Tenement house laws and rigid in spection are beginning to tell for good in this direction; model tenements are beginning to be both popular and profit able; but these thousands cannot pay
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