Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1896-08-20

tauce i'll an economic point of view.
England is alarmed every few years by
the announcement that, before many
centuries are over, her own home sup
plies of canned sunshine will be ex-
hausted. England is told that the coal
measures run so far under the water
and go so deep that i'll the course of a
few hundred years men will refuse to
go into the shafts and pits where coal is
mined, and that England Will be left
out i'll the cold. But no man cares much
for what is going to happen to his chill
dren or his grandchildren and so Eng
land goes on and mines coal sends il
from Newcastle to London, and-as the
French king said that the deluge would
not come till after his time-so England
says cheerily that posterity may take
care of itself, and that she will not bor-
row trouble nor anything else on ac-
count of posterity.
In our own country we are not so
fortunate as our English cousins are At
the present moment the state of Massa-
chusetts, i'll l 3 or 20 public institutions,
is burning tens of thousands of tons of
coal every winter for the comfortable
care of the insane, the idiots, the blind,
the deaf, the dumb, the prisoners and
the diseased of whatever name. These
tons of coal represent so many cans of
sunshine of hundreds of thousands of
years ago. The board of commissioners
for charity and lunacy are grateful that
i'll Pennsylvania, i'll Nova Scotia and
some other parts of tho world these
supplies are ready for their mining; and
they and the legislature of Massachu-
setts are ready to pay good money that
these tons of coal may be hauled to
their doors. The locomotives which
haul them burn some Of the coal the
stockholders who own the locomotives
receive dividends as part of the process.
Nobody complains. Why should they
complain? The idiots and the insane
people are kept warm, the taxpayers use
little more activity in the discharge
of their Gajly duties, and the credit of
Massachusetts is unimpaired.
One step farther is still needed. There
is a certain passion among people who
carry forward what are called "institu-
llOllS W lnOSC
and to enlarge them. Now an "institu-
tion," so called, is of itself of no good,
any more than an old coffeepot with a
hole or two ut the bottom and one or
two at the top is of any use. Nothing
can be done with that cotfoepot but to
fill up Il dumping lot, and even there ii
is nuisance. The "institution" is of
use only 50 far as it carries out the pur-
pose for which it was instituted. This
is to be said constantly, because the
boards of managers are apt to believe in
the institution more than in the object
of the institution. But the impression
must now be urged upon the governing
boards of the great charities of the north
that there are many opportunities open
to them to take care of the inmates of
their institutions at some distance from
the places where at present they are us
ing canned sunshine for that purpose
1t is quite just and right that prisoners
and criminals should be maintained in
the places whore they have committed
crime. 1t will be necessary in many
places that people who are suffering
from disease shall be i'll the ncighbor-
hood of their personal friends. But
there are many persons who are dying
at the north who could get well at the
south. The experience of every physi-
clan shows than the change of climate
is frequently the only stimulus OF tonic
which is needed for one Of the long suf-
fering patients. And the more intelli-
gent boards of administration in the
northern states must begin, now that
travel is so simple and easy, to inquire
under what conditions and with what
advantages they could remove to the
southern latitudes the invalids who are
now pining under northern winters. IL
is simply to inquire how they can ex-
change canned sunshine of 800 600
years ago for the fresher tonic and food
of today. EDWARD L. HALE.