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Worth Womans While
Our Unfortunates.
HE .action last week of those in author
ity in this city anent the growing nui
sance of the beggar element, sets us all
thinking. We had thought before; but
seeing never any solution to the prob
lem, put away our disquietude and
soothed our perplexity always with the
reflection that this is a charitable peo
ple, and the burden, if it could not
T
be relieved would just be borne. We refer to the
unfortunate mendicants —the crippled, the blind,
the physically or mentally disabled from whatever
cause—who solicit alms upon our streets, and who,
we fear, are in danger of being confused with the
common vagrant. Holding that there is as distinct
a line between the two as between the millionaire
controller of public interests and the day laborer,
we venture to raise a voice in behalf of those whom
we cannot regard other than with sympathy and
compassion, as victims of misfortune or circum
stance, or—as we are constrained to believe—-
creatures, most of them, of heredity, suffering from
the accumulated weaknesses of generations, the de
crepit and enfeebled exponent body and mind of
other peoples’ shortcomings and wrong-doing.
Even for the vagrant who, as such, has been leg
islated against and maligned and pursued, and just
ly, perhaps, we have a genuine and deep pity. Dis
inclination is as much a mental and moral disguise
as the unconquerable desire to thieve—kleptoma
nia being an outbreaking offense is restrained
through laws of the land and of respectability; dis
inclination, in too many cases the birthmark of de
generacy, is allowed to grow upon the individual
born with its ineradicable seeds, a moral pervert
in the eyes of society, in reality the unresisting
victim of congenital weakness. How far culpable,
how far responsible, may be a subject for the psy
chologists—that he is not a normal being he is in
himself sufficient and unassailable proof.
If so much can be said for the individual who,
peripathetic, uses only his le2s in the endeavor he
makes to get a living out of the world, or, worse
even, fastens himself a very sloth to that branch
of the family tree nearest to him, strangling its
life as a leech would suck its blood, what must we
not feel for those who have lost eyes or limbs or
the power of speech, or who never had the modicum
of talent they were born with trained to even the
meanest money value? Creatures who, having no
choice must take what life offers and when their
claims are forgotten or slighted, have nothing left
but to sink themselves and their misfortunes down
and deeper down into the very abyss of humilia
tion—the level of beggar.
A clergyman to whom many of us owe the debt
of instruction is wont to say that none are beggars
from choice, that they are such is hard lot enogh;
and never does one appeal to him in vain, never
is his eye turned coldly away or his pocket closed
to the need of a fellow creature. In Arabia they
have a saying: i 1 Begging is an easy trade only the
standing at the door is tiresome.” Tiresome I Aye,
what weariness of mind and soul as well as body
it must be—can we even conjecture it? In the daily
path of some of us in this city is a figure so famil
iar, so quiet and unobtruding, we pass it by uncon
scious half the time. It is that of a man sightless,
patient, unasking, mutely holding his tin cup for
the coin charity may drop into it—listening and
waiting for one out of the hurryying throng to
pause and turn his way. And as the hundreds and
hundreds come by, some with step eager and
buoyant, some thoughtful and burdened, some lag
ging with age or infirmity, how his heart must bound
with expectancy, and then sink down with disap
pointment as all pass on, suceeded by others as un-
The Golden Age for April 12, 1906
By FLORENCE TUCKER
thinking, as unseeing. It appears to us not the cold
and wet of winter nor the heat of summer, not dis
comfort of the hard curbstone nor the dust and
grime of the street, were to be compared with the
hardness of this other, the carelessness and indiffer
ence of the whole world of health and unimpaired
faculty. To hear the feet coming, to know that re
lief for hunger and necessities of life is within
a hand’s reach, to hold out the mute, appealing cup
and hear no friendly chink of metal, only the sound
of footsteps that have passed on—this, and the
consciousness borne in a hundred times a day that
the world is too busy with its own concerns to mind
the poor beggar. What marvel that his face wears
that look of unutterable patience! And what uncon
scious rebuke it is to us whose unkindness has
wrought it there I
But if the blind man is sad, how infinitely sadder
must be the reflections of those who see, the poor
crippled or deaf and dumb, who offer us their pen
cils or shoestrings or soap—anything to turn an
honest penny and raise them above the level of
mendicant—and receive hardly so much as a mo
tion of the head in refusal. The indifference which,
with the blind, is only felt, with them is accentu
ated—they see as well as feel.
It is past comprehension how indifferent we be
come, how callous, how unobservant; absorbed, per
haps, even in plans for charities here and yonder,
giving to this, working for that, talking, soliciting,
appealing—and walking right past, brushing up
against the neediest objects of all, closing our eyes
to the opportunities that have been put in our way.
We have away, some of us, of wanting to go out
and find opportunities for doing good, not seeing
those that have been made ready for us, placed at
our very door. Not that any charity, any dollar,
or generous thought, even, is ever misplaced; it is
only that we go over the heads of those nearest to
us to do for others instead of beginning at home—
beginning in the center of the circle and working
outward.
We doubt if ever there was a beggar from choice
—one who left free in the beginning to choose, de
liberately ostracized himself, cut himself off from
the privileges dear even to the meanest citizen, to
become a reproach to his kind. Did we take the trou
ble to go back we would find in, we believe it is safe
to say, every instance, circumstances which, if not
from our view-point, extenuating, would be found
at least explanatory, going to show how from one
cause or other these unfortunates were driven to
the level the very lowest man can know. In most
eases, of course, there is physical infirmity, de
formity, loss by accident or other misfortune. And
those suffering from what we have termed disincli
nation are, while showing limbs and senses appar
ently intact, as surely the victims of fate. They have
not in individual cases the benefit of science as
have the sufferers from the “lazy sickness” in the
West Indies, or the “sleeping sickness” in Africa,
to prove the genuineness of their affliction, but their
ailment is none the less real.
Purblind is a word we none of us like; but char
ity is that. We have the desire to do good, but the
short vision; we do not look far beyond what of
fends us. For it does offend to be confronted on
every thoroughfare by a man with only stumps for
legs, or one who has been horribly burned, or has
an incurable disease of the face. We turn sick and
look away, hurrying on to put the sight behind us.
Beggars, we say, are a nuisance; the authorities
should not permit it.
Well, what has made them beggars? And what
keeps them such? And just how far can we give
ourselves credit that no railway accident has maim
ed us, no heredity entailed upon us disease? That
we have soundness of body and mind we owe to
the goodness of heaven; that the fortune of our en-
vironment has resulted in faculties trained to inde
pendence and domination is but in part our doing,
if not all. On what grounds do we hold ourselves so
far aloof from our fellow creature that we would
call the officer of the law to bid him move on out
of our sight and our way? How far have we look
ed in this matter? What is the meaning of charity,
anyway?
To our thinking the law should be invoked, and
afflicted mendicants of all people kept off the
streets, but in another way than any we have known
practiced. That they must live on charity ought to
be enough; to be forced to publicly beg were hu
miliation too utter and too cruel. If charity is
plainly their only means of support, why
not make it organized and compulsory—the state
or municipality taxed for the keeping of these peo
ple, and they required to occupy the home provided
for them? Such a home could be largely self-sus
taining, and its establishment would be the most
humane way possible out of a trouble that seems
to be growing. The first consideration is our own
obligation, the provision of the home, which should
afford means of employment suited to the capabili
ties of the inmates—to be rescued from idleness
were a salvation comparable only with that which
delivers the soul. We do not believe the most help
less would be found averse to doing something,
the thing they could best do. And what a boon,
what a panacea, what a making over of their days,
their lives.
No order of home that charity has yet founded,
no almshouse, meets the need of this particular
people, the peculiar charge of the whole world.
Misfortune has its own claims; weakness appeals to
strength, and the divine plan seems to have been
that the strong must carry the weak. Though who
would complain at that?—for who would not rather
carry than be carried, and bless Heaven for his
fate? The trouble with us is, we do not think. A
little suffices for a poor man, a very little if he live
in a company, a home—the expense per capita of
any of the “homes” is amazingly small—and the
rich are not often unwilling to divide in a reasonable
amount. All they need is to have matter properly
presented to them. All that any of us need along
this line is just to think right and see far enough.
One who is no more, who lives only in the ex
ample and influence which are as live as when she
was here, taught us in youth a lesson which can
never be unlearned or forgotten. Never was a human
creature asking alms turned away from her door -
rather would she' give to an hundred unworthy than
turn one away unfed and worthy. It was little
she gave—took little from her own store food,
drink and kindness; l—t there went with it from
her to her unfortunate neighbor the feeling of
brotherhood, of helpfulness and pity, and if he went
not on his way relieved of his necessities, at least
he went not hungry that day, and the world seemed
to him kinder and pleasanter.
The “littles” go a long way—the indulgence of
a little charitable thought, the unrestrained im
pulse to give just a little. If all could be directed
together how different life would be to how many
sad and unhappy and suffering souls! This city in
which we live has the name of the most charitable
of any we know, so much so that it is a common
thing for the poor and needy to be sent here from
other cities in the neighboring states, the authori
ties furnishing them with transportation and in
structing them that here they will find kindness and
help. It is a beautiful reputation for a place to have
and we could wish that instead of taking steps to
clear the town of beggars, as they are harshly call
ed, the movement were in another direction along
the line we have suggestd. That they should be
pushed off veie unworthy of us as a community
and as a thinking people.