The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1902-11-30
Charity and Business.


Recently, a layman made complaint
to Bishop LAWRENCE Of Massachusetts,
that churches and parishes were raising
money by gambling, matchmaking and
unbusnesslike methods for which he
held the women parishioners re-
sponsfble.
He told Of his good wife's winning
twenty-five dollar lamp in rattle at an
Episcopal church fair. on an investment
of 80 centsfsf share; how also she called
on firms with whom we deal and obtained
goods for church fair by blackmail, as
one afLhem expressed it, by q species Of
compIsion,' as it was put by another
how for every strawberry sale or show
my wife sells tickets, which her friends
feel compelled TO buy, and retaliation
of some sort follows He also quoted
the words Of neighbor who growled
because his wife would buy the best of
eggs, &c, and make cake and carry it
up and give il to the fair, and then feel
obliged to buy it herself
Ladies al the helm!' cries the crusty
fellow in his contempt for such feminine
defiance Of business proprie,y and the
doubtediv, the criticism is reasonable.
The methods and the transactions of
these good church women are wholly
unbusfnessllke They would bring ruin
and disgrace to any regular trader who
initiated them. OF course. too. the COM
petition of women's charitable fairs
with the merchant who has to buy his
goods and does not have them given to
him, pay rent and taxes, clerk hire, and
all the other expenses incident TO his
business is not fair.
like criticism. however, NAV be made
Of the charitable institutions and en-
terprises which make garments and
other articles TO be given away. or sold at
trining prices. They compete unfairly
with regular traders and their workmen.
so far as the charitable output goes, it
lessons the market for the regular manu-
facturer, The most poorly paid Of en-
Payments is sewing because of the COM
petition of the great multitude OF women
who do their own sewing, oftentimes
merely for the sake of making the time
pass, oftentimes, too, in order that they
may give the products of their hand
work to charities, which likewise give
it away or sell il for fraction of the
price charged in the market.
This charitable competition must he
very great in the aggregate In the
production for parishes. fairs and in
situations thousands Of good women
are engaged, more particularly at this
season when the holidays are approach
ing, and to it are to be added the MANY
contributions they solicit from mer-
chants and manufacturers. Unques-
tionably, it il a system which defies the
laws OF political economy, which outrages
logic; and il may be called strictly femi-
nine, though il is pursued by many men
also perhaps by clergymen, more particu-
larly, whose temperaments are Of the
feminine cast, But the whole scheme
Of charity, IA HERBERT SPENCER has
pointed out, may be said TO be open to
the same general objection, and the
contemptuous explanation ladies at
the helm might be made with refer
ence 10 il.
Bishop LAWRENCE replies to the COM
plant of this Massachusetts, iayman that
If the ladies', as you suggest, are driven
TO extreme methods in the raising Of
money, it is due largely to the fact that
thamenof the parish do not do their full
duty in giving for the Church work..
that's no nan has right to complain Of
doubtful financial management on the
part Of the ladies until he himself has
given one 1.-THE of his income to the
Church" To this the layman might
retort that two wrongs do not make
right; yet beautiful charity, rejecting
on the giver a richer blessing than she
confers on the receiver can never be
made to harmonic with the cruel, the
memorable law Of economies. 1t is the
human heart against the human head
essentially feminine and therefore ir-
resistible by logic and irrefutable by
argument.