New Britain herald., 1917-03-15

used to sit at . desk and divide the poor into worthy and unworthy, giving the former small tdoles and sending the latter about their busi- ness. There is no such thing as Q worthy and an unworthy person anyhow. There are reaSons why we | can help this one, and can't help that. 1 those reasons depending as much on 1 the pollcy of our officers ard the | Judgement of ,A.our committees as on ourselves. But every applicant is worthy of courteous hearing and any service we can in wisdom render. Ut seems to us that we ares esplaced in a charity organization office under salary to do faithfully whEA other people have not the time to do. If we don't like our job we can leave 1t, but if we stay we owe courtesy and cheerfulness and willingness to help. to all who come to us. Fortunately it Is not for us to sit in judgment on those who apply, but simply to lend
 helping hand if we honestly can. We try too, to cultivate an appre- citation of our applicants point of view. Of course little girls should not
 ring doorbells of fine houses, and
 walk in and tell awful tales of woe just out of desire to look around. but such is feminine curiosity. and wiser
 folk than they have done likewise.
 Others argue that people who wouldn't
 listen to you at all, will give to you
 generously if you embroider your
 story of need a bit, so they act on
 that discovery. Sob stories' always
 bring attention. And when 1t comes to beggars! We'll, begging is really an art,-an excfting pastime full of
 thrills. It requires greater histrionic ability than an actor's. The, actor has the advantage of stage setting, and
 remoteness from his audience, while the begger must act within arms
 length of you and make you believe
 he is not acting at all! Even while
 doing all in our power to put sucn
 people out of business we can do It
 better by getting their viewpoint.
 2 Even with that lowest type or
 yaerant. the common hobo, we can
 sometime see the same trait that turns a millionaire into an elegant
 Slobe-trotter. But while we see their viewpoint, we are decidedly stingy
 with these. Everyone in the city ii
 welcome to send any. applicant for aims direct to us to do what we can for them, but the hobo problem Is the
 drone problem. We have a beautiful
 theory that like the Housewives League boycotts, if an embargo could
 be placed on all tramps for a week. if all timid or soft-hearted women
 would withhold food from them in spite of the curses and blessings that
 usually flow readily as result. very soon the physically weak would be adequately cared for in hospitals and aims houses and the able-bodies ones
 would shuttle rapidly towards a job.
 As it is, we just scrape along on the
 surface.
 Receive SAP Applications.
 During the month of February.
 1917, there have been 342 applications
 for our services, 20 from public off.
 cials, 10 from private societies, from churches 112 from interested individuals, 9 from schools. from other cities and the remainder from applicants themselves asking for aid, advice. work, clothing or friendly service of some sort. We have come in close contact with 10S families of whom 34 were new during the month. There have been S10 calls at the 0hlce, l80 from applicants and 130 from people interested in familiess 466 telephone calls important euouxh