Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1904-01-28
THE BUSINESS MAN's.INDEBTEDNEs TO
THE NEW JERSEY CHILDREN's
HOME SOCIETY.

from the slums, or taken from the Aims
House and placed in good Christian home
"a home of culture and refinement -and
trained as their own child, what interest,
lif any, have business men in general in
such transaction
1.-The condition of the customer deter
mines how much he will buy Poor and
A Ignorant people buy little, and that of the
poorest kind, while Intelligent, we l-tn-do
people buy in far greater variety. because
they seek to crafty not merely physical
wants, hut also mental wants-bny for the
satisfaction OF sentiments and taste as we'll
as Of sense " Henry Ward Beecner
This is plain, practical common sense.
A man in the slums lives with his family
in one room, and that room hovel; bis
meals are cooked unon an old abandoned
stove sold for old iron; il be has a bed to
sleep on, it is of the same class; the entire
furniture OF his house cost him less than
$40; his whole family live upon from 80 to
so cents per day. They have to, for his
wages are only ST. per day, and he is out Of
employment half the time. His fuel is
picked up by his children; his clothing the
cast-off garments Of more fortunate neigh
bors He prod uces nothing, adds to no
ones wea TIL The railroad companies get
nothing from him during the year. The
4 wholesale manufacturers have no interest
in him. neither do the clothing stores, the
harness merchants, or the lumberman, or
the dry goods merchants. The grocerypel
and the doctors are about the only parties
directly interested, and the failure to pay
so often leaves them indoubt as to whether
bis transportation to another community
would not be a relief. No branch Of busi-
ness is helped, nohobody enriched by the
existence Of such family in the commu-
nifty.
4 But suppose this man, when child, had
been placed in fami y Of culture and re-.
finement, given an education and fitted to
take his position among the better classes,
if he becomes mechanic, he is a skilled
mechanic and earns $3.50 to 81, 900 per year:
and whatever he earns goes largely into the
pockets Of business men. II he becomes a
} clerk or salesman, or a travelling man, or
a conductor, or engineer, or enters one Of
the learned professions, it is the same; his
earnings add to the public veal. II he is
proyident and builds him house, every
penny the house aud lot costs is handled
by the real estate man, and the lumber
man and the hard ware man and the various
mechanics employed II he is improvident
and spends all he earns upon his family, il
is all the same, for the furniture man, the
dry goods man, the tailor, the dressmaker
and grocer and almost every industry in
the country receive the benefit Of his earn
ings.
And after he has raised his family, the
next generation will only increase the vol
ume Of outgoes and incomes and increase
the Indebtedness of every form of human
industry to this man rescued in childhood
from the slums and transplanted from a
useless paraeite into the ranks Of contribu-
tors to the public veal
and you do not have to wait until this
rescued one has grown into manhood or
womanhood; immediatefs the business men
of the State begin to haye pecuniary
interest in this child
During the past nine years we have plac-
I'd nearly nine hundred homeless children
in good Christian homes, chiefly in this
State The large majority OF these chill
dren were poor and poarly clad, so that in
almost every instance the old clothing was
discarded and new outfit from top to
toe procured.
"Fhey showed me the nice clothing and
bed they had bought should think the
spent for the comfort Of the childu (This
child had been in the family only ten days,
and is only sample of what is constantly
occnrrine)
Aud this is only the beginning The
addition Of boy or a girl six or eight years
Of age TO a family in comfortable circum-
stances means in most cases not only anoth-
er bed and bed clothes, another room
furnished; it means another mouth to iced
every day in the year, another body to be
clothed md warmed for years to come, it
means carpets all over the house worn out
faster, and furniture used up sooner than
before. Il means school books and toys,
dolls and bob sleds, skates and frequently
it means bicycles, gold rings, watches,
organs and even pianos t means rides on
the troleys, long trips on the steam cars,
weeks Of lavish expenditure at some sum
mer resort in some cases. In short, is means
all the thousand and one things that love
is ready TO procure in the support and care
Of child, and that thesu children could
never have enjoyed had they Femained
where our Society found them.