Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1897-08-07
U AND E
The Process of Making PaupeSs n
Then Feeding Them.

hhN
Athens had no ~poorhouses. The rea-
son why she had one was that she did
not supply the material with which
| poorhouses are filled. Rome had as
many prisons, pro rata Of her popula-
ton. as Boston. The reason why she
had us many was that she supplied the
material with which TO fill them. Rome
thought she was doing well when she
spprehended her criminals and put
them into the Mamertine caves; Bos-
ton thinks so also. Rome and Boston
have both iattered themselves with
The notion that they protect society"
by first producing and then caging
their criminals. Paris has as many
almshouses as New York, and both
Paris and New York have made the
wretches who cry at the doors or drift
in shoals along the streets, The reason
why Paris and New York have invented
the almshouse is because they first in
vented the beggars. 1t is no doubt a fine
thing to make paupers and then to feed
them!
Observe how it works: The magnif-
cent ladies of Fifth avenue hold a char
ity fair; they put thousands of dollars
into the Golfer, TO be used in feeding
the squalid wretches in their husbands
tenement houses. They sleep that night
on their husbands breasts, thinking
how good they are! The great mcr-
chants and greater gamblers organize
a mont-de-piete, in which the poor and
half-staryed bankrupts may pawn their
goods in order to get the money to pay
rent TO the very men who invented the
big shop. l know of nothing more
beautiful; it is positively romantic!
What does all this signify? 1t sig
niies that certain influences dominant
over man life and certain organized
powers in society have come down to
us from the middle ages, and that these
influences and powers are so depraved
that they must in self-defense do some
thing to remedy the results Of their
own abuses. They must trammel up
the consequences a little, to the end
that they may continue to despoil man
kind. They must make a practical
apology to the human race by furnish
ing doubtful antidotes for the very dis
eases with which they have innoculated
the sons Of men. They must save their
forfeited regulations by taking up and
fondling the poor wretches whom they
themselves have first begotten and then
disowned! .
Monarchy is a brute Of this kind. II
is a monster that brushes down some
millions or billions of human beings,
enslaves them, robs them of their lib
critics, take away the fruits of their
toll, the residue in war and
lust-and then goes to work to make
the condition of the slaves so tolerable
that they may still live and have chill.
dren!
A medieval church with its gothic
towers and marble palaces, with its
swarm Of on-hangers and its fat men In
fashionable raiment, is another crea-
ture now busily engaged throughout
the world in trammeling up the con.
sequences of its own work. From fill |
ing the world with paupers and slaves
this splendid Renaissance of darkness
and despair nov turns in self-defense
to take care of its W progeny. The
great Renaissance ought to do as
much, for il has never been regarded
as particularly meritorious to feed
ones own. How fine it is for the fruit
full mother of outcasts and beggars to
give them a little counsel and coffee!
Piutocracy that snatches the wealth
OF the world from the hands of them
that produce it is another such mon
ster-plutocracy that sponges up the
ocean in order to water Siberia with
six drops! One drop is a library; one
is a college; one is a hospital. The Ii
brary is TO perpetuate the memory of
the sponge; the college is to teach the
system of political economy by which
the sponge sucked up the ocean; the
hospital is to receive the broken bodies
Of those whose families the sponge
might otherwise have had to pay dam
ages.-John Clark Ridpath, in Arena.