BoletiÌn mercantil de Puerto Rico. (San Juan, P.R.) 18??-1918, 1904-10-25
EDITORIAL

i, most unfortunate. 1t is said that
the allotment set aside for the cen
struction of home for the INDECENT, is
to be used to finish the paving OF
certain streets. according to a resolu-
ton which our municipal council
saw fit to adopt.
In the matter of high-handed
resolutions our municipal council
seems to be very much akin to the
Executive Council, before whom the
question must eventually come for
decision before the proposed transfer,
which has been so widely discussed by
the press and which we feel in duty
bound to comment upon, can become
effective.
It is no doubt true that proper
paving on some of our streets is a
crying need; the streets in their
present condition require it and surely
would look much better without those
sinkholes those dangerous grades and
unsightly cutters, in word, if they
were clean.
The streets asSuredly should not
become a me- ace to life and limb, or
dangerous to those who are compelled
to use them, but still less should the
spectacle of the miserable poor wan
derins, forsaken, along our streets,
without home or place of refuge,
be pelmitted; for the most beautiful,
the cleanest and most well-ordered
street, becomes ugly and unsghtly
when it is filled with beggar< and
cripples exhibiting their 1nfrmities.
Oar beautiful valleys, SO picturesque
and SO lovely, seem to scowl wh IN
their beauty is ruined by the sight Of
these unfortu1. ates in their m grationS
from one town to another IN search
of aims
We are we'll aware Of the reply with
which our modern pretors will meet
Our criticisms. They will say that
they have authority of law to assign
the sum of Twenty FIVE thousand
dollars, allotted for the construction OF
an asylum for the poor, for the pur-
pose of augmenting any one OF the
other purposes of The municipal loan.
Legal authority, they may have; but
right and reason, or just cause for
making use OF the privileges con-
ferred on corpc ratlons with as little
responsibility as our municipal council,
by bill which was passed with more
lobbying than pension claim, they
have not and can never have. Why
should not the asylum be built? Is it
because it is not needed? Is it because
we have no poor in Puerto Rlco7
This would be the only explanation
sufficient to justify the action of our
municial fathers; but instead, every
thing seems to be the contrary, For
the number of poor is as the sands of
the sea, and the lame, the halt and
the blind that fill the streets of Our
city form a countless tribe whose
common bond is that of hunger and
want.
Without home, without refuge, beg
ging from door to door, where often
there is none too nluch for the
inmates themselves, the sorrowfal
legion grows in numbers from day to
day, recruited from those who have
had to make profession of asking
aims, as the onl y means lett them to
stave off actual starvation.
When in obedience to the order
which makes the evacuation of The
Polo Norte necessary, the poor unfor-
tunateS who now make the tumble
down huts their home are compelled
to leave them. the number of beggars
who found refuge in that miserable
settlement will be seen, and many of
these will go to swell the army which
nightly makes it's assault upon the
door ways and hal S of our houses, or
less fortunate, are compelled to pass
the hours in weary vigI1s through the
streets.
We surely are not in any lack OF
poor to put in the proposed sylum.
On the other hand, the consistent
obstinacy with which our municipal
council opposes every project for the
alieviation of the misery of the poor is
most censurable.
The building now used for the jail
should be con verted into home for
the poor. But it is not used for this
purpose because the municipality
rents it to the InSular Government for
a iail. This was the first blow against
the poor. Later the municipal loan
was foated.
IT was advertised and specified thas