Year: 1874

The problem of pauperism and its remedy,
which faces us just now, is too real and terri
BILE to be disposed of by a few hackneyed
rules of political economy, or yet by wash
of sentiment repudiating all rule and economy.
The facts are few and easily understood.
There will be in New-YOrk this Winter
large number of unemployed men and women;
men and women who never begged will be
forced to beg or starve; while the structure in
every trade and business will necessarily re.
duce and delay even the ordinary amount OF
charity. Two ways have been proposed OF
bringing this need and this charity together.


There is line of argument and practice
popular with the majority of impulsive. be-
nevOlent people which consists in unstinted
amssiving without reason or question; eager
help offered in the highest of all names to
any one who claims it. This blind benevo-
lence had charge of the heaviest weight of
city pauperism last Winter. Soup-hOuses were
kept open, visitors appointed who distributed
money freely, publishing accounts from
day to day of individual cases that
required help, giving their names dwellings,
and every detail of their rags and hunger.
The policy and humanity of such exposure
were equally doubtful. There may have been
found many impostors who were ready to bla-
zon forth their woes but mechanics out of
"workp and "consumptve widows" are usu-
ally Just as unwilling as their benefactors would
be to exhibit their sores or starvation to
whole city. Notwithstanding these errors OF
Judgment, however there can be no doubt
that an incalculable amount of good was
accomplished by the generous efforts OF
the Guilds sOup-houses, and the more
private Associations which last Winter
went out into the highways and by
WAYS seeking objects for their bounty. Many
were saved from perishing of cold and hunger,
and the donors were aided by their own
Jealous enthusiasm as we'll as those whom
thew warmed and fed. Still it cannot be
denied that this reckless system or no system
of almsgiving called into existence body of
paupers, who, finding poverty trade that
paid better than any work, adopted it perma-
nently. Bodies of sturdy tramps, stalwart
men and idle women, who formerly
made pretense at least of work, have
been wandering through New Jersey
and Delaware all Summer, living by
begging pilfering, and sometimes open
robbery. AS cold weather returns they are
coming back to New-York in gangs ready for
the Winters aims. Crime and imposture
having been thus bred and nourished by the
system of last Winter, many kindly disposed
people shut up their hearts and pockets to all
cases of need, and the deserving poor run the
risk of being confounded with these vagrants
and left to starve. The evils of reckless
charity thus react, not only on the cheated
rich, but on that very misery which
it has been in such haste to help.


What is to be dOnei Better to relieve nine
impostOrs, say these good people whose emo
tions outrun their reason. than to leave the
tenth worthy poor man to suffer. There is
another plan, however, and its advocates
maintain that it is possible to effectually
remove all real want, and by the same means
check idleness and vice. The system is that
of Capitalization of all charities. a modified
form of which was tried in this city last
Winter, but whose workings may be seen
in perfection in Boston, where it has
been in operation for years. 1t consists simply
in a large central building, in which all char-
table associations, both municipal and private.
have their agencies. The business of some of
these is to furnish food, clothes. and fuel
others support hospitals, asylums. etc. WAsEo