Able-Bodied paupers.
--If the matter were properly ascertained, it would be found that at least a third of the male paupers enjoying the hospitality of the tax-payers, in the alms-house, have not been brought by necessity or bodily disability to their present unenviable situation.
They have been reduced to ask and accept public charity from sheer laziness.
It is some consolation to think that the new city alms-house will be so fixed that such characters can be forced to flee from it by the
Superintendent, by being made to earn a portion of their support.
Yesterday a burly looking young ruffian, calling himself
Charles Cook, was arraigned at the instance of one
John Freeman, who charged him with making an extensive excavation in his frontispiece, over the left eye, with a paving-stone.
The complainant, also an able-bodied young fellow, deposed positively to the injury having been inflicted by a rock; but two others, with
Cook, testified as to the blow having been dealt "from the shoulder," for very slight cause. --Bail was required of
Cook, and not given.
The
Mayor remarked that he was the greatest pest in the city, having passed all his life in fighting and stealing.
In the above case, all the parties — complainant, defendant and witnesses — were paupers; but, nevertheless, judging from their physical development, were well calculated to earn their own support, it made to do so. It was evident that incentive to independence would never move them to any extra exertion, save in the way of mischief.
Were a tread-mill or work-house in operation, such characters would become extinct.
