The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, February 5, 1899, Page 19

ped @ | [ = J =l | j U 18 =] s Nals = B T s _T\:PCJL_I:L_J THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1899. it i i e of them trudged to the West End and surrounded the doors of gentlemen's houses, holding out suppliant hands, whining prayers for help, otten, when there were only ladies, resorting to Joud threats and curses. The squares were systematically ‘‘begged” by young girls, trained for the purpose, looking plaintive, and dexterous in provoking ez iy e i3 i v 1, T D P e NEW departure has been com- menced by the begging letter writer. So much unpleasant- - ess has been caused of late by the meddling and interfering action of the Char’.y Organiza- | tion Society, so manwv really beautiful | busincsses have been quite broken up, that the profession seem resolved upon trying, instead of letters, a round of begging vi'its from house to house. They seem to get first some clue to the name and perhaps the character of the‘ tenant; they ring the bell; they want| to sc. the master; if is out. they ish to see the mistress on important | If they succeed, the tale of woe is poured ¢ with volubilit never, surely. I there been an un- fortunate man more griev usly afflicted than this poor victim of fate. He has| been scourged with scorpions; he has been pursued by a more than common malignity of fortune. I have received. and conversed - y of these vis- itors. My answer is to take down their | addresses and to refer the case to the Charity Organization Society. One| suct, cas te a 1 ~ek ago. The | man brou~ht a letter in which he stated that he was homeless and o~ the streets; tha. he had walked all the way from Camberwell; that he had| been‘*walking about all night long, with to the same effect. He did not he came to me all the way instead of trving some local Samaritan. In fact. he ex- plained nothing. 1 made him write down his address. He forgot that in his letter he said he was homeless. and gave an address at Peckham. some six miles awa. The following letter from | the society shows the kind of person he | {s—namely, a professional beggar: it| also shows that the profession is not lucrative. So far the report 1Is sati: factory. It says: “We have written and asked him to | more explain from Camberwell R e R R R P S S 2 SR ST PSP PP PP YOOGS PP PGNP + &% WHY I DON'T GO TO CHURCH : : s Un Walter : Peggars P and - PBesant: Gher | days they bribed the beadle to let them | | lle about on the church steps; come here and see us, but he has not answered. His address, 22 Hight street, Peckham, is a common lodging house, | and we learn from the deputy there| that this man has been lodging there on and off for the past year. Some- | times he does not turn up for a week, | and at such times he has told the dep- | uty that he has walked the streets all | night. My informant knows nothing | wrong about the man, and has never seen him the worse for drink.” The man is young. What is his his- tory? Nobody knows. He is unwilling to allow the C. O. S. people to learn it. At all events here he is trying to live by bringing begging letters to the doors | of people who know nothing about him. If the man was worth anything at all he would find friends to help him in his own neighborhood. That he brings | his letters all the way from Peckham | to Hampstead stamps him at once as| a man of no character. Now. I dare| say that this poor wretch is often as miserable as a man can be. Still. we | ought not to give him the smallest help, There are places provided in which he can find shelter—with work. Remem- | ber always that such a man devours | the labors of others. If it costs £50 a year to keep him, that money has got| fo be found by the people who work. Heavens! what a relief it would be to| the world if everybody wouid do his | own share of work! { It has been said over and over again | that if people refused the penny to the | casual beggar the trade of begging | would come to an end in a fortnight. | We have reduced the nuisance lower than it has ever been before in history. The beggar was a far greater burden upon us formerly than he is now. In| the Tudor times the danger and the | nuisance of the sturdy beggar, always | ready to be a robber and a murderer, were intolerable; after every war di banded soldiers filled the streets beg- | ging, threatening, robbing. During the whole of the last century London was | literally infested with beggars; on Sun- | after morning service bands and companies pity by means of their artful tale. Thieving was carried on just as sys- tematically by the same persons. We call out upon the eighteenth century| | for its savage code of punishments, but we ought to remember the terri- ble provocations which they endured. The thieves ventured everywhere; into the shops; into the private houses; they haunted the inn yards where the stage coaches arrived, and carried off the portmanteaus and trunks; they haunt- ed the quays where the hoys and coast- ers were moored, and carried off the luggage. “Hang them!” cried the ex- asperated shopkeeper. “They robbed my till last week, The week before they carried off a bale of my finest silk. Let them be hanged! Hanging is not good enough for them.” Some improvement we have effected, but the man still sings along the road—he calls it, poetically, “gridling on the main drag,” and the woman still crawls along with her two children and her white apron; and the professional still calls upon me and invites me, with a tale of unmerited suffering, to keep him in laziness and perjury. The Scotch have a provision—I be- lieve in all their’ towns—by means of which a law agent or adviser in legal matters is appointed in every district for the poor. That is to say, the poor are enabled by law to seek legal advice upon any matter upon which they are in doubt for nothing at all. I have only recently become acquainted with the regulation; it reminds one that Scot- land and England are still different kingdoms, with laws that differ in many respects. How does this statute work? I have a paper before me de- scribing what happened during (he writer’s term of office as lJaw agent in one of the larger, not the largest, towns in Scotland, with a population of about 70,000. The person, to begin with, who desires to employ the serv- ices of the “town’s writer,” or adviser | for the poor goes first to the Sheriff's clerks’ office and gets a letter, which is merely a formal matter und is given to every applicant. He thea ecairies his letter to the agent and states his difficulty. The agent, who holds office for a twelvemonth, hears him, advises him, and, if necessary, take the case into court. The office is by no means a sinecure. During the writer's term he was consulted by 221 persons, of whom only twenty-four were men, and the rest were women, varying in age from 17 tq 90. The cases involved the writing of 715 letters and seeing over 1000 persons. Most of the cases were those of maintenance, chiefly brought by parents against their sons. Some were for slander, cruelty, libel, per- sonal injury and other matters. Seventy per cent of the cases were those of parents against their sons for aliment. In other cases drink was at the bottom of all the trouble. How- ever, what the cases were matters nothing; the point is that in Scotland justice can be had by the poorest for nothing; not out of the rates; nobody pays for it; the lawyers actually work for nothing and apparently with will- ingness. It might be difficult to make our lawyers work for nothing, but perhaps it would not be impossible. Each man’s turn would come seldom. It would be, for the term of office, a heavy tax, but it would be the tax that they would pay, as in Scotland, for the privilege of working at all. There are thousands of cases of ill-usage, neglect, desertion, oppression and injustice oc- curring daily among the poor of our cities and towns for which they have no redress because they cannot pay the lawyer. The Scotch practice is en- forced by an ancient statute that a “lawyer shall so give of his time and money and ability for the love of God and the cause of justice between man and man.” In one or two of our Lon- don “settlements” there is the *‘poor man’s lawyer,” but the “settiements"” are few and far between; they are oases of verdure and refreshment In a broad desert of weary and thitsty sand. The Agent for the Poor. There is a fine ring about the words. It looks like a title of honor. But I fear it will have to remain Scottish. + + + + + + + + + + WOMAN newly translated into the splendors of a great estab- lishment within the radius of fashion east of Central Park was in the act of conducting around her dwelling a friend. of early years. “These are my own rooms,” she said, pointing out a superb suite situated upon the principal floor. “Beyond are the quarters of my girls, who have also their own sitting-rooms and bathrooms. My luxurious sons oc- cupy the third floor, and my husband, poor dear, has had to fit up a habita- tion for himself in the third story in order to get rid of his family. Oh! you may smile, but it is quite true. “You know, as I do, that he is the best, most affectionate of men. But of late years he is restless, nervous in a roomful of people talking, and the hon- est fact is he cannot stand our pace. When he comes in at 5 o’'clock after a busy day downtown, if my daughters and I are not out driving or visiting, we are apt to be receiving people at tea. The rattle and dash of the conversa- tion, all about young people and their pleasures, wearies him, but of course I can’t leave the girls to see their com- pany alone, much as I should like to be rid of it. “During the season we dine out or have people to dinner five nights out of |. seven. My husband is bored by the opera as we hear it from our box. He goes generally of an evening tc his club and-comes in to find us all away, or else too tired and sleepy to be agree- able. I used always to be down with him to breakfast. But nowadays I must sleep in the morning or die, after sitting up all night to watch my daugh- ters caper at their balls. “Every spring we go abroad to do our shopping for Newport. In the last two or three years my good man has firmly declared he will not accompany us on these wearing expeditions, and who can blame him? He is so generous, so gentle with the women of his fam- ily, that we would like nothing better than to make ourselves charming to him in return. “But the truth is we can’t. “We have to acknowledge, sorrow- fully enough, that we are not in touch with him. He hardly listens to our chatter and is forever ‘vanishing from among us to seek that haunt upstairs By J. A. Filcher, Dr. Lee O. Rodgers, William Greer Harrison, Mark Thall, Dr. Benjamin Marshall. R R e R R e AR R R R L S R S S S A AR e A AR Hre Warried Comrades Out of Date? By Mrs. Burton Harrison. which I have taken pains, by the way, to make as complete as anything we have, and to fill with the things he likes to find around him. “Always, when I can get away from the young people, I step into my pri- vate lift and am carried up to sit with | him. When I enter his library he puts down his book or newspaper, greets me affectionately and—resigns himself to | be disturbed! That is the word—re- signs himself. I can see it in every line of his face and figure. He knows and I know that the conversation is going to be a forced one, without spontaneity on either side. If I try to enter into his daily life on its business side he rebuffs .me. “It is enough that we, his children and I, are enjoying the fruits of his loag career of industry and ability. We | have no concern with the ways and | means that bring about such results. Once in' a long time—the intervals are rarer since we moved into this house—I have with him a quiet, old-fashioned talk about our children, their accom- plishments and prospects. He warms almost to enthusiasm over the beauty of his girls, the pluck and cleverness of his lads, But the fit passes and he seems to drift back into indifference. only I know it is not indifference. It is just that life has pressed us apart in the race; that' soclety, without which we cannot hold the place he has given us, supplies nothing to satisfy him. and we are not equipped to talk of what he does liked” “I remember once,” sail her visitor, “going to see you when he was a voung, clever, hard-working man, and you the mother of two little ones.” You had a flat in a respectable but unfashionable quarter, and, having outgrown it, were about to move into a house of your ow t poor, dear shabby little house,” interrupted the lady, with brightening eyes. “How grand I thought it was going to be to live in.” “You told me about the carpets you had selected, the wall papers, the ‘nice, big’ rooms, a certain mahogany dining table and your hope of a piano. You were- excited by the prospect of your widening arena. But after you had fin- ished the proud enumeration of the new possessions your face clouded. You told me you had one regret; that if you dared risk my laughing at you, you would confide in me.” “I know. I remember. It was that in the evenings we should 'now have to sit downstairs and not next to the chil- | dren sleeping in their cribs. It was just like me. I was full of those ideas. I wanted to be alone with him and them. | shut out from all the world beside. And I thought it was going to last forever. “I can’t think when it was I began | to learn to be independent of his com- panionship. Perhaps, as our means in- | creased and he grew mere and more absorbed in business, and would not tell me a thing about his cares and stresses and hopes! - I am quite sure I should have responded to any such con- fidence with all the energy of my na- ture. I should have-loved to be his partner, literally, It would ve made us a hundred times more intimate.” “The ‘chivalry’ of American hus- bands in excluding their wives from the sordid side of life! I have no patience with it!” answered her friend. - “How can two lives really blend into one where there is no community of inter- est? Isn't it false and unreal of him to make a doll of her, forcing her to find her daily interest in either the housekeeping and nursery or the petty pleasures of the world? If she were his comrade—his real comrade—would there be so much talk as we hear now + + + + + + + + + AR R R R e R S e R L R R R RS e et et ths |of divided married lives? Would not | she have a higher appreciation of his | success if she understood what it had | cost him? “Yes, and more respect for his money, more desire to spend it intelli- gently or to save it to lessen the strain of future effort. If it were only in your rich, successful classes that this evil were telling I should not feel such a sense of righteous indignation. But | in how many minor homes of America is the same thing going on? The hus- band, driven and anxious, lavishing his earnings upon a wife whom he Kkeeps in ignorance of his ways and means and struggles. The wife, erring through ignorance—but this is too large a subject to discuss in_ passing from floor to floor of your beautiful new home.” “I think you are right,” said the lady of the mansion, “but”’—and she ended with a sigh ew York World. —_——— The statement that Rudyard Kipling had received a shilling a word for a story in an linglish magazine induced a wag to write to him and inclose a shilling postal order. “Hearing that wisdom was being re- tailed at a shilling a word,” wrote the joker, “I inclose a shillmg for a | sample.” Kipling kept the order and sent back the word “Thanks.” + + R R R R R R R e e T T T is a subject for frequently expressed regret in ministers’ meet- T ings and ministerial circles in general that so comparatively few of our S8an Franciscan people attend church regularly. The lack 1 of Sabbath laws and the ubiquitous eirculation of Sunday news- papers have been variously blamed for the shortcomings of the many who do not help to fill the comfortable pews of our numerous places of worship. Although nearly every religion under the sun has its representative here in our city only the distinctly fashionable churches upon which society has set the seal of its approval can boast of an attendance which is at all satisfactory to their spiritual directors, with the exception of the Catholic congregations, about which little if any complaint is heard. 3 Here are reasons from several prominent men why they do not attend church: J. A. FILCHER, Secretary Board of Trade. HE first and principal rcason why I do not attend church is that I rarely find a minister that interests me. Sometimes they actually offend me; especially when they devote the time that should be given to religion alone to panegyrics upon their own particular dencmination, tirades against all who do not think just as they do, scientific lectures, or political speeches. The ¥alvation Army seems to me to have more real religion than most of the churches. They teach more as Christ did, with the exception of thelr noise, and the men and women who get down on their knees in the muddy streets before jeering crowds to confess and pray to their Savior are either real Christians or arrant hypocrites. I believe in God and Jesus Christ, and in all things good and holy, but I do not think that it is necessary for me to go to church in order to prove this to the world. If I saw a plainly marked distinction be- tween the professors and non-professors of religion in their daily walk I might feel more drawn to what is known as “Christian com- panionship,” but unfortunately charity, honesty and brotherly love are not always the characteristics of our most prominent church members. 1 People attend church for many reasons besides religion; many go 10 see others and be seen of them; young people often endure the, to them, tedious service for the sake of the compensating walk home with a congenial spirit; some go to hear the music, others assume the garb of religion for business or personally selfish reasons. The gpirit of the early Christian, to whom religion was something real and vital, to be lived in and dled for, seems to abide in very few. I believe in a religion of righteousness—the doing right in all things as far as is possible to humanity. All the days should be the Lord’s days, as far as doing good and being good is concerned. I believe in churches as a moralizing influence, provided they are not allowed to degenerate into mere places of entertainment where the music or sensational sermons are the chief attractions. When I find my ideal church, where religion pure and simple is simply and purely taught, I shall be a regular and devout attendant. sfidaioy WM. GREER HARRISON. GO to church when the funeral service is read over the body of some dear friend. I find that these services make me so melan- choly for the rest of the year that I haven’t the hardihood to take my long face into kirk on more jubilant occasions. 1 believe the church to be an excellent institution and am thoroughly represented therein, vicariously, by sending brothers, uncles and cousins, and were I good enough I should go regularly to church, but I have so large a sende of natural depravity I don’t like the offense offered in reminding me that I am a frightful sinner. But all my family attend church, and if such men as the late Edwin Booth would read the lessons and dispense with the sermon I should also go to church. LEE O. RODGERS, M.D. USED to go to church regularly in early life, for I then lived in the country and there church is practically a social club which every one of standing is supposed ‘to attend. To the country man or woman whose work on week days is for the most part solitary, the Sunday gathering, where every one goes in his or her best clothes and takes his or her S8unday manners, is, outside its spiritual import, of great value both physically and mentally. It is a time of rest for the body and pleasant and inspiring exercise for the mind. Change is what they need and what they get, For persons who live in the city, working six days in the week in offices, stores, factories or kitchens, I think, as a physician, that it is infinitely better for them to get out in the fresh air on the seventh day than it is to dress in uncomfortable “good clothes” and sit in four walls for the ostensible purpose of worshiping God, I can worship my God far better out in the air under the blue sky than I can in edifices made by mortal hands. True religion is a matter entirely between a man and Theology and religion are often confounded, but the ntru‘(‘}.s s’:a(kh(:’é while I believe every man has a religion of some kind—though he may not confess it even to himself—many of the most truly religious men do not subscribe to any theological creed. It is impossible for any rational being not to believe in the existence of a higher power, but further than that some of us cannot go. The modern increase of knowledge has done much toward divest- ing clergymen of the power they once possessed. Where ‘we once blindly accepted statements as facts we now question and study for ourselves. We judge the minister now by his own manhood, not by what he professes, and we realize that he is working for dollars and cents like the rest of us. The church of to-day inculcates morality more than spirituality, and so specially appeals to mothers, who be- lieve in its good influence over their children. I believe, however, that a man does not have to go to church in order to be either moral or spl.rnugl ln.the best sense of those words. BENJAMIN MARSHALL. AM not what is known as a “church-going man’; that is, I am not a regular attendant at any special place of worship, nor am I in any way identified with church work or church affairs. There is no special reason to be given for my position, or, rather, lack of position, in this matter. The simple fact seems to be that re- ligion as preached by the average clergyman does not seem ‘to appeal to me or to be necessary to my spiritual well-being. By this I do not mean to criticize any of them; I merely make the plain state- ment. . I am of the opinion, however, that a good deal of my disin- clination to attend church services is due to the fact that I took an overdose of them under compulsion in my youthful days. I was born into a strict Methodist household, and, from the very early time when I was adjudged old enough to “behave in meeting,” my Sundays were utterly spoiled for me. I was sent to Sunday-school at 9 o’clock and Kept over for church, which never let out until past noon. Then came a hurried lunch at home and a return to church at 1 o'clock, and imprisonment—for so it seemed to me—there until 4 o’clock at least. 1t is needless to say that I dreaded Sundays with all my childish heart, and finally made up my mind that when I grew: large enough to settle such matters for myself I would go to church only when I chose. That youthful resolution I have cherished and lived up to all the days of my manhood to the present time. To my mind much of the apparent irreligion which is found among the descendants of very strict chuirch people is due to just this kind of a rebound. My family have always been free to go to church or not as they choose, and the result is that they like to go, and I like to have them go, for I believe that religion in some form or other is far better than no religion at all. For myself I go to church occasionally when the minister or his subject, or both, particularly interest me. 1 think, however, that & man. can be good and live a thoroughly | .ll" \ ::{Ei" !.Il» i A\ . \1\3\3 l|.| vl o \ \“ T h \‘\ Iy o : f\\\\\\ A i L. ! good life even if he never listened to a sermon. Professed Christians are rated no_ higher from a business point of view than atheists, and the non-church-going man who orders his life as nearly as possible by the Golden Rule seems to me to be doing God's will far more than the man who listens devoutly to sermon and chapter and prayer and praise every Sunday and is unkind, unjust and unscrupulous in his dealings with his fellows during the other six days of the week. It seems to me a pleasant and encouraging thing to note the ten- dency of the world to drift away from the narrow creeds and blind faith of earlier days toward a gospel of which philanthropy in its best and truest and widest sense is the strong foundation. P MARK THALL, Theater Manager. LTHOUGH 1 go to church very rarely I have the greatest respect for genuine religion wherever it is to be found. The clergyman of any denomination who honestly believes what he preaches and lives a life in accord with the sentiments which he expresses in his pulpit has my sincere admiration even if I do not believe in his doctrine. I believe in religious toleration, not only in the matter of creeds, but in regard to individuals. The man who does not attend church is not necessarily a bad or wicked man, and the man who makes the greatest outward show of religion may be very unworthy at heart; to judge a man by the number of times he listens to a sermon during the year is both foolish and wrong in the extreme. I am religiously inclined myself, but my religion is not of a kind that seems to need regularly recurring reinforcements. My business is such that I have very little time to spend away from it, and that time I do not always care to pass in church. I am persuaded that constant church-going would not make me lead any better life nor impel me to treat my fellow-creatures any better than I do when I am living my religion for the most part outside church walls. The intolerance which is shown by some church people in regard to the bellefs of others is not calculated to favorably impress those who are outside the fold. Take the case of the Mormon, Roberts, for instance, good, pious people everywhere are up in arms about him, never seeming to realize that his religion—strange and wrong as it seems to us—is as much to him, and its forms as binding, as is thelr own to them. The Chinese who prays to his joss, if he prays from his heart and believing, is entitled to worship in peace, secure from curious intrusion and impertinent comment. The trouble seems to be that each denomination so strongly thinks itself the best that a kind of tug-of-war is in progress, with varying results according to the strength of the different teams engaged in the struggle. ‘ A [}