Year: 1877

Says James Parton, in The Illustrated


Weekly Those Yankees, down East,


are strange people. A Sunday or two


ago, in the ancient town of Newbury,


Mass. Ca town which is no town Mt all,


but n piece of fertile country, where


onions are raised and apples abound),


the time had come round for the first


church to take up the annual collection


for the poor. The times were hard, the


winter was very severe, and the papers


"a great number of papers are taken in


this town teemed with accounts Of mo-


chanics out of employment and con-


tinued stagnation in business. If ever


there was a good time for taking Up n
collection for the poor, surely it was'dur-.


ing the zero days of the latter half of


December, 1876.


But n difficulty arose; objection was
made. The committee, having in charge
the relief of the poor, reported that
there were no poor in their part of the
town. All the widows had their winters
wood laid in, chopped and piled up; their
pork barrels were full; their flour bar
rels also; and there was absolutely no
human creature, in this parish of farms
and orchards with population of sew
oral hundreds, who was not sufficiently
provided with the necessaries of life.


In these distressing circumstances,
what was charitably disposed parish to
do! Man is a creature of habit, and no
man more so than the Yankee. This
church had long been in the habit of
taking up n collection for the poor on
that particular Sunday in December.
Ought this blessed continuity, going
back almost to the century when the
white man first trod that shore, to be
broken for the irrelevant and trivial rea-
son that no one in the town stood in need
of assistance Kind hearted people need
the opportunity of bestowing benefits al
most as much as destitute people need to
receive The church was not to be
robbed of it's annual privilege; and n
happy pretext was found for going on
with the collection. A member suggest
ed that, perhaps, before this winter was
over, there might be some poor people
in the town, and that, therefore, the
regular collection should be taken up,
and the proceeds left in the hands of the
committee as fund for the relief of fr-
tllre poor This was done and the fund



The circumstance is the more remark
able from the depressed condition of the
farming interest during the last three
years. There is hardly farmer in that
region who does not feel poorer, and
rate his property Mt a lower sum total
than he did four years ago. The fragrant
onion has not of late yielded n remllnera-
tive price; and what avail thousand
barrels of apples if the farmer who raises
them gets only thirty or forty cents per
barrel above the cost of the Barrel, the
gathering and the wagoning? Poor
They are all poor, judged by city
Most New York mechanics
of ability and skill get more money per
annllm than the richest of those farmers.
And yet, in these times of scarcity and
distress, the fact stands out clear and
significant that, i'll this parish of small
onion fields and large apple orchards,
not solitary human being is in want of
shelter, food and protection. Nor is there
one child of suitable age who has not ac-
,ess daily to school.


The people of these Yankee farmer
owns have another custom which is
worth mentioning. They try to prevent
want as we'll as relieve it. If a widow is
eft with brood of young children to
ear, her case is attentively considered,
md serious attempt is made to place
Ter affairs on such footing that she will
lot be likely to need charitable assistance,
which, however necessary, is generally
lurtful to the recipient. A farmer,
truck down by disease or accident just
,efore harvest, is sure to find, on getting
'ut again, that his crop has been gathered
or him and nicely slowed away in his
)arn.


The European Question.