An old couple who had once seen better days and whose only son died of
caisson disease after working two months on the laying of the pillars
which support the Williamsburg Bridge between New York City and
Brooklyn, was supported by organised charity. Rent, coal and three
dollars a week for food. For two years they lived on this scant pension,
when all at once they were told to give up the flat; two rooms in a
basement.
"You will be placed in Homes," was the explanation given. For fifty
years these two old people lived together, shared joys and sorrows. They
protested, cried, explained--all in vain. Their fate was decided in the
office and after the usual test to recalcitrant paupers the two victims
submitted. Bed, chairs and table were sold to the secondhand dealer for
a few cents, then each of the two took a bundle in one hand, the picture
of the dead son in another; one took the car for the north and the other
for the east side of the city. The fifty years old bond was broken.
The cause of this act was the desire on the part of the charities to
economise. The difference between keeping the old people in their own
home and placing them in different Homes was eighty-five cents a
month--twenty-one and one-quarter of a cent a week.
It did not take very long before the old man went on that journey whence
no man has yet returned, and a few weeks after his wife followed him.
There is no doubt that the separation had hastened their deaths. They
had been together for fifty years, each growing accustomed to the
other's habits and ways. Then, of a sudden, they were torn apart.
Speaking to an official of organised charity I drew his attention to the
ridiculous economy realised through separating the old couple. The man
looked at me for awhile and as an answer he said: "You are a baby."
A few months later he announced to me: "You know the old
fellow--Sig--died, and his wife also."
I wanted to tell him that death was hastened by the criminal stupidity
of organised charity, but he went on exulting in his own wisdom.
"Now I hope you will understand that the economy was greater than
eighty-five cents a month."
What did he mean? Was it purposely done to hasten their death and save
the pension? I can see no other meaning in his words. But have you ever
seen in the papers an advertisement displayed in a prominent place,
reading somewhat as follows:
"You are giving to charity; a hundred, a thousand or ten thousand
dollars a year. Why not give it to organised charity and then send all
the deserving to us? Not a cent is given before a thorough investigation
is made by people trained to do the work and who know how. Contribute a
regular sum yearly to organised charity. It will save you the annoyance
of the outstretched hand and at the same time you will feel that you
have done your duty towards the poor of the land."
All the homes I visited, more than twenty, here and abroad, impressed me
with the terrible gloom that pervades their walls. It is the misery of a
city housed under one roof. It is the pay of a life of toil, wearisome
and ill-paid. The inhabitants know that the only issue is to the grave.
They are not prisoners. They are free. But in their very freedom is the
utter hopelessness of their existence.
"I forgot my name since I am here," an old woman told me. "You see
nobody is _himself_ here. You are to be just like the other one. Not one
of us to be different. I was an actress once. This here was the
audience. Each of us had his place, his work. Now it's all alike."
Another man told me that he did not think the sun ever rose since he
was in the institution. By the thousands and thousands, these, our
fathers and grandfathers, mothers and grandmothers, whose blood flows in
our veins, whose toil we still enjoy, the makers of houses and bridges
and machines--they all rot in some prison--a Home--under the pretence of
humanity and pity. We don't want them to beg on the street, is the
general excuse. Why? At least they would be free. They would not depend
on a man or a set of men. They would not be referred to by number and
catalogued as cases and treated like dogs. In his "Decay of Beggars,"
Charles Lamb says:
"Above all, those old blind Tobits that used to line the wall of
Lincoln's Inn Garden, before modern fastidiousness had expelled
them, casting up their ruined orbs to catch a ray of pity, and (if
possible) of light, with their faithful dog guide at their
feet--whither are they fled? or into what corners, blind as
themselves, have they been driven, out of the wholesome air and
sun-warmth? immersed between four walls, in what withering
poor-house do they endure the penalty of double darkness, where the
chink of the dropped halfpenny no more consoles their forlorn
bereavement, far from the sound of the cheerful and hope-stirring
tread of the passenger? Where hang their useless staves? and who
will farm their dogs? Have the overseers of St. L---- caused them
to be shot? or were they tied up in sacks and dropped into the
Thames, at the suggestion of B----, the mild rector of ----?
"These dim eyes have in vain explored for some months past a
well-known figure, or part of the figure, of a man, who used to
glide his comely upper half over the pavements of London, wheeling
along with most ingenious celerity upon a machine of wood, a
spectacle to natives, to foreigners and to children. He was of a
robust make, with a florid sailor-like complexion, and his head was
bare to the storm and sunshine. He was a natural curiosity, a
speculation to the scientific, a prodigy to the simple. The infant
would stare at the mighty man brought down to his own level. The
common cripple would despise his own pusillanimity, viewing the
hale stoutness and hearty heart of this half-limbed giant. Few but
must have noticed him, for the accident which brought him low took
place during the riots of 1780, and he has been a groundling so
long. He seemed earth-born, an Antaeus, and to suck in fresh vigour
from the soil which he neighboured. He was a grand fragment; as
good as an Elgin marble. The nature, which should have recruited
his left legs and thighs, was not lost, but only retired into his
upper parts, and he was half a Hercules. I heard a tremendous voice
thundering and growling, as before an earthquake, and casting down
my eyes, it was this mandrake reviling a steed that had started at
his portentous appearance. He seemed to want but his just stature
to have rent the offending quadruped in shivers. He was as the
man-part of a centaur, from which the horse-half had been cloven in
some dire Lapithan controversy. He moved on, as if he could have
made shift with yet half of the body portion which was left him.
The _os sublime_ was not wanting, and he threw out yet a jolly
countenance upon the heavens. Forty-and-two years had he driven
this out-of-door trade, and now that his hair is grizzled in the
service, but his good spirits no way impaired, because he is not
content to exchange free air and exercise for the restraints of a
poor-house, he is expiating his contumacy in one of those houses
(ironically christened) of correction.
"Was a daily spectacle like this to be deemed a nuisance, which
called for legal interference to remove? or not rather a salutary
and a touching object to the passers-by in a great city? Among her
shoes, her museums, and supplies for ever-gaping curiosity (and
what else but an accumulation of sights--endless sights--is a great
city? or for what else is it desirable?) was there not room for one
_Lusus_ (not _Naturae_, indeed, but _Accidentium_?) What if in
forty-and-two-years' going about the man had scraped together
enough to give a portion to his child (as the rumour ran) of a few
hundreds--whom had he injured?--whom had he imposed upon? The
contributors had enjoyed their sight for their pennies. What if
after being exposed all day to the heats, the rains, and the frosts
of heaven--shuffling his ungainly trunk along in an elaborate and
painful motion--he was enabled to retire at night to enjoy himself
at a club of his fellow cripples over a dish of hot meat and
vegetables, as the charge was gravely brought against him by a
clergyman deposing before a House of Commons' Committee--was this,
or was his truly paternal consideration, which (if a fact) deserved
a statue rather than a whipping-post, and is inconsistent, at
least, with the exaggeration of nocturnal orgies which he has been
slandered with--a reason that he should be deprived of his chosen,
harmless, nay, edifying way of life, and be committed in hoary age
for a sturdy vagabond?
"There was a Yorick once whom it would not have shamed to have sat
down at the cripples' feast, and to have thrown in his benediction,
ay, and his mite too, for a companionable symbol. 'Age, thou hast
lost thy breed.'
"Half of these stories about the prodigious fortunes made by
begging are (I verily believe) misers' calumnies. One was much
talked of in the public papers some time since, and the usual
charitable inferences deduced. A clerk in the bank was surprised
with the announcement of a five-hundred-pound legacy left him by a
person whose name he was a stranger to. It seems that in his daily
morning walks from Peckham (or some village thereabouts) where he
lived, to his office, it had been his practice for the last twenty
years to drop his halfpenny duly into the hat of some blind
Bartimeus that sat begging alms by the wayside in the borough. The
good old beggar recognised his daily benefactor by the voice only,
and when he died left all the amassings of his alms (that had been
half a century, perhaps, in the accumulating) to his old bank
friend. Was this a story to purse up people's hearts and pennies
against giving an alms to the blind? or not rather a beautiful
moral of well-directed charity on one part, and noble gratitude
upon the other?
"I sometimes wish I had been that bank clerk.
"I seem to remember a poor old grateful kind of creature, blinking
and looking up with his no eyes in the sun.
"Is it possible that I could have steeled my purse against him?
"Perhaps I had no small change.
"Reader, do not be frightened at the hard word imposition,
imposture--give, and ask no questions. Cast thy bread upon the
waters. Some have unawares (like this bank clerk) entertained
angels.
"Shut not thy purse-strings against painted distress. Act a charity
sometimes. When a poor creature (outwardly and visibly such) comes
before thee, do not stay to inquire whether the 'seven small
children' in whose name he implores thy assistance, have a
veritable existence. Rake not into the bowels of unwelcome truth to
save a halfpenny. It is good to believe him. If he be not all that
he pretendeth, give, and under a personate father of a family,
think (if thou pleasest) that thou hast relieved an indigent
bachelor. When they come with their counterfeit looks, and mumping
tones, think them players. You pay your money to see a comedian
feign these things, which, concerning these poor people, thou canst
not certainly tell whether they are feigned or not."
The Superintendent, a man of about forty, of good appearance and strong
physique, had just assumed his duties. Previously he had been manager of
a department store. What recommended him to his new position was his
reputation as a stern disciplinarian and strict economist. The first
thing he did was to take an exact inventory of the property of the
institution, then an approximation of what was necessary for the
subsistence of each individual--so much flour, so much salt, so much
meat--everything measured and weighed exactly. Instead of saying "so
many people" the Superintendent would say "so many mouths." This done he
proceeded to deliver to the cook the exact quantity necessary every
day--the washerwoman received every week an exact quantity of
soap--everything in order, strictly, soldierlike. The old people were
compelled to get out and into bed at certain hours, compelled to report
on certain days. Everything was very orderly, only the mortality of the
inmates increased that year. The auditing committee saw no connection
between the regularity and orderly keeping of accounts and the death of
the old people. There was another item that did not interest them,
namely, what was saved on food was spent on additional help. Not to
attend the old people, oh, no! but to keep the lawn and garden in order.
The Superintendent was praised. His keeping the things in such fine
condition augmented the list of donors. The fund grew. It was invested
in real estate, of course! To what other purpose could it be invested!
Still another expense was not considered. But it was really a very small
one. A few boards of white pine--a grave in Potter's field. A mouth is
closed--a name is erased. The cook receives less flour, less sugar.
Ah, the poor, the poor! When they are young they are called "Hands."
When they get old they are labelled "Mouths."