The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-01-16

became acquainted during months
 stay in 1t last summer. It Is an histor-
 lc place, and as well appearing as al- most any of the quaint and picturesque 1 little faring villages which dot England
 With innumerable beauty spots. It is in
 the Mldlands. It's stone cottages look
 as solidly comfortable. It's dooryards
 bloom as gayly, it's parish church, ris-
 Ing out of a bowery Gods acre, is as
 appetizing to the American love of old ! world calm and rest as any in the
 kingdom. To look a it you would not believe it the seat of dread disease
 But alas! a good man in centuries
 gone by planted the germ of a cancer
 ous growth which is eating into the root
 and stock of the neighborhood vitality.
 This Weelmeaning citizen of one of the
 earlier Georgian reigns left to the vil-
 lage small tract of ground for the pasturing of ten cows, whose milk was
 to be given, a pint at a time, to the de-
 serving poor of the place. In time the COWS died, and the vicar of that day,
 who had the charity in his control, rent ed the land as pasture for the cows of
 ms neighbors, who paid him ten shil-
 llnss, or two dollars and a half, each year for each COW that grazed there.
 Thus it came about that money in stead of milk began to be dispensed to
 the so-called poor. Why there should have been poverty to any considerable extent in village of twenty or twenty four houses in England's days of prof. ltable agriculture, or whether there would have been any but for this pre- mum that was put upon it there-Who shall say? But time went on, and not very long ago the rich men of some busy manufacturing towns near by turned coVet0us eyes upon the beautiful vil- lage and began to buy land on which to put up villas there. They bought the pasture land, piece by piece, until at last it was all bought up, and in it's place the poor of the village looked to a sum of something like two hundred thousand dollars well and safely invest ed.
 The reader may be sure that the poor multiplied oportionately to the growth of this charity. Sadder tales than those of the wrecks of manhood who flung themselves upon or we e sucked in by this charity could scarcely be conceived, Farming ceased to pay, ~ farms the earth began to yield a rich mineral store, and work was made for people threefold as numerous as the population of the original farming yi'- laee. Cottages sprung up in rows even to the forming of a new street or two, and earnest, honest men came there to labor To-day many of these families lave succumbed to the temptation of the local charity.
 To-day there is in that little village squalCr to match the wcrSt in London. Honest households have been trans formed into families of parasites, loaf CTS and drunkards, ho will not work becarse aims money comcs more easily than wages The charity ust be dis tr,butcd. If it is withheld to-day it will te bigger and more harmful later on. The kindly man who is in charge of it at present has no alternative except to dole 1t out to whosoever asks for it. Unfortunately, he is too credulous, too kindly, too much absorbed in other work, too honest to comprehend the Wi2kedness of tte people who cringe to him for aims and laugh in their sleeves as they take them. To day these para sites go to him With any story they can invent when they merely want the !. means for a debauch. A tale of a sick wife a lie about foreclosed mortgage or about police court fine. or fiction | about an accident to a limb-lies out of whole cloth seven times in ten-suffice to get them an order for any sum ba- | tween ten shillings and five pounds.
 And what then. thinks the reader? They sell the orders to the shopkeeper- the largest beneficiary of the charity, because he operates as broker, cash | ing the orders for as little as he thinks | the holders will accept. Two shillngs on a hVe-shilling CT der or one pound | Tor live pounds. I am told. is how he | discounts these tenders. With what he l gives they get drunk. This awful tale ] or the poisoning of community may | partly explain how it was possible that | d modern king of finance" found seve- ! ral communities willing to let him dole | out weekly sums in aims, right and left, in the country which he aspired to rep | resent in parliament. Hundreds took | his gifts as regularly as if they were wages, and to many who read of this | the story seemed worse than the sub | sequent revelation of the same opera tors alleged relation with the titled men whose valuable influence he also sought.
 The tale of the poisoning of the vil- lage by the gift of pasture land is well vouched for.It was told to me by a man of the highest standing in the village, who declares it to be one form of an evil which assumes as many shapea all over England as endowed charity foun- datons can branch out into. Sooner CT later England will put an end to these pestilential endowments It will not prove to difficult a task to people who reformed their pension system as they did, and who put the crown lands into the public charge when the time for iolng so was rlpe.-Julian Ralph in the Providence Journal.
 
 w WRECKED BY THE SNOW HABIT.