The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1903-06-03
LIFE'S DARKER SIDE.
Washington Has Its Poor Just Like
Every Other City.
ProhiEacy's Next Door Neighbor
Sometimes Is Most Degraded
Poverty Shrewd Manipu-
lators of Sympathy.
Especial Washington letter.


TT is not prophecy nor oracular ipse
diNit, but simple statement of
fact, that "the poor ye have with
you always"
There will be no poor people in the
world when all men become commun-
lists after the manner of the ~ apostles
and the disciples who had all thingsin
common. I" Uutil the coming of that
millennium of communism the poor we
will have with us always.
But when that condition shall have
been developed, in the moral evolution
of which we are part, what will be-
come of our talents for benevolence?
Where no poverty exists there can be
no benevolence, and ultimely no need
of the benevolent faculty. To Danish
poverty will be to cause brain upheav-
al; the benevolent faculty dying and
some other faculty, may be nobler
one, taking its place.
Men, women and children who learn
to live by their wits impose upon the
benevolent; so that on this account
in all towns and cities charities are
organized and intelligently managed.
Not long ago poor boy with only one
arm rang door bell in this city and
appealed for charity. He wanted
money to help him get back to his
home in Boston. In reply to an in
quiry he said that his left hand had
been caught in some machinery and
his entire arm destroyed.
Before giving him aid the citizen I'M
dertook to examine the stump of his
arm. The poor boy shrank from the
examination. He stepped backward
and soon began running away. He
was caught by the citizen who dis
played the badge of precinct detec-
tive. The poor one-armed boy was
taken to the station and his left arm,
which was strapped to his side, was
released. He had been making more
than good living by imposing upon
the sympathies of the benevolent.
This is only one sample out of hun
dreds of thousands of devices in real
life to profit by the credulity and SYM
pathy of the charitable. And here is
another, fresh from the memory of
the narrator, who has had more i'm
pulse than reason or common sense,
from adolescence to maturity.
Out of the darkness of an alley in
fashionable Washington two stalwart
young men emerged, one of them say
ing in an audible undertone: sit is
humiliation or starvation; and l pre-
fer the humiliation" Then he came
to the narrator and said: II beg your
pardon, sir, but my brother and 1 are
hungry; and James is on the verge of
suicide. We are scions of an old
Maryland family; but our good clothes
and II pennies are all we have left; .
He showed the pennies; also two
beautiful rows of teeth; also two hon
est dark brown eyes. His story was so
interesting and so modestly told that
he and his silent, moody brother were
taken to restaurant where they a tie
two big suppers; just as very hungry
men would eat-ravenously. Then
they were given as much ready money
as their benefactor could spare, and
they departed with their stomachs full
of good food, and their eyes filled with
grateful tears.
Thirty-five dollars were in the pock-
etbooll of their friend when he met the
poor fellows; but there was no pocket
book at all when he reached in his
pocket for it an hour later. The poor