New Britain herald. [microfilm reel] (New Britain, Conn.) 1890-1976, 1916-11-09

us for confidential comparison will
show a falling off this year, and II
they do. it will be a matter of salts
faction to ALTO those who provide
the charitable gifts, those who must
usually spend hours comparing lists,
and most of all those families who
will be able to provide their own hol-
iday cheer with sturdy independence
Of charity.
We take advantage of the times
whenever we can by securing better
paid work for any member of our
families who is capable of doing more
skilled labor than he has had In
this way we can shift many families
up a peg in the working scale. We
can find all the days work that any
of the women on our long list can
manage to do and this also tends
toward more comfortable living. We
can find ten we'll paid positions for
every girl who wants homework, and
we can place anyone at work who
has the least particle of strength or
aptitude. 1t has amused us to see
some of our unambitious and entirely
unskilled charity organization ac-
uuaintances, through the present pres
sure of industrial conditions actually
forced in dis1nay to join the ranks of
the toilers; tho clamor for labor plus
the good wages plus the hitherto
fruitless urging of their home folks
has finally proved too much for them.
But there are still plenty of va
grants who have not been thus re-
cruited and these must conccct more
and more ingenious tales to save
themselves from toll. Most of them
us. And those who do present them
selves for aims we confess, receive
short shrift these days. We name
all the kinds of outdoor and indoor
labor from which they can make a
choice of work, and If this does not
appeal to them we part without fur
Their CEREMONY There are so many
places waiting even for such as these
that 1t has been impossible for us to
find men to beat rugs etc, for house
wives this fall. Indeed one man who
came to us recently obviously after a,
spree, had such a tempting array of
offers set before him that we began
to think as we named the places that
the day Of the common laborer had
surely arrived.
We have been in the habit of CIV
ing some good advice to the young
sters in our Charity Organization fam
lilies who have obtained work certi-
fcates, and are about to take a place.
other things we have i'm
pressed it upon them that the more
you learn the more you earn, that
schooldays should last throughout
ones life and that every man is
worth $3.50 to 5000 day from his
neck down, and as much more as his
head will permit him to earn. But
we are forced to admit that temper
arly at least, laborers are in such de-
nand on account of the times that
many a perfectly empty head is car
Red along at a higher price than this
cor the sake of the pair of strong
arms under it. This of course is a
condition of affairs that cannot pos
sibly continue for long.
This is the time if ever to test the
ZEAL truth Of the statement that the
poor are with us always. Poverty will
exist to a greater or lesser extent &C
cording to the prosperity of the times
until some unfailingly successful way
IS found to combat the Ignorance
illness, intemperance
and immortality which are the causes
of poverty, and to substitute some
other means than charity to support
the aged, the widowed and the father
less.
Our churches wage war constantly
on drunkenness and immortality. Our
schools combat ignorance by fine
facilities and teaching
of trades and in our experience the
man or woman with a trade is prac- |
tically insured from any need of |
charity unless some wretched habit |
the training. Our board |
Of health fights the causes Of illness |
down to the last ditch in making New |