Meddling Saints.

Cromwell Argus, Volume V, Issue 220, 27 January 1874, Page 7

Meddling Saints.

(Liberal Review.) The/Meddling Saint has a fondness for visiting the houses of the working classes. Children fly as she approaches, for she is one of the great terrors of their young lives ; and mothers .put on .their..worst air when they see her, for they know that they are " in for a right-down good talking-too." She enters a house with a firm and resolute bearing and an expression of countenance which, indicates that nothing short of personal violence, or fear thereof, shall make her depAi'fc with her lflissiou unfulfilled. Unheeding the coldness of her reception, she at once sets to work upon the task which she has come to perforin. She ;discovers that the floor wants washing, that the room is untidy,-and that the housewife herself is decidedly slatternly in appearance. Upon these facts comments are freely made, and if she to whom they are addressed displays irritation, she is reminded of certain dire consequences which must ensue if she persists in her wicked ways. Having had her say in hard, metallic, unsympathising voice, about that which meets her eye, the Meddling Saint institutes a severe cross-examination of her unhappy victim. What are the .wages of her husband, independent'of over-time, and how much extra pay is he in the habit of getting'? Does he drink 1 If so, how much does he spend in liquor ? How many times a week are the family enabled to have meat ? Bow is it that they do not come to-church ? These are some of the many queries which are invariably pot, and from the answers given one conclusion is invariably drawn, viz., that whatever trouble the family visited may be in, it is entirely owing to their misconduct. At the same time the Meddling Saint,' hr+be true spirit of-Christian-Charity, does something for them. She-supplies them- : with a tract; or, if she be in a more than ordij narilv generous mood, with a couple, of a sort I which she is able to buy at a few coppers per ! hundred. Not only will she act hi this astoundingly generous manner, but she will talk to the children, holding them spellbound i by her graphic account of the lake of liquid I fire into which they will surely be plunged !if they do not reform. A community may i be in the last throes of poverty, and she will contemplate them unmoved. She has a conscientious objection—which is all the stronger because it is conscientious—to put. her hand into lif>r purse and help those whom she sees are in distress. It is her opinion that the lower classes should be taught to be independent arid self-reliant, and while professing herself ready to go through, fire and water to assist them to i emerge from their spiritual degradation, she seems to imagine that they should be left to scramble out of. their condition of Social misei'y as best they can. If their.tales of emptv fire-places, and of mouths which aro crying in vain for food, are more than usually startling, in rare and excentional cases she may cause something practical to be done. But the charity is doled out in a hard, unfeeling manner, and the recipients have to go through, so many degrading forms in obtaining i t, that a feeling of bitterness instead of thankfulness towards the donors is engendered in their hearts. Her peculiar mission, as understood by herself, is to advise and extort, rather than act. It is her business to go to people when they are up to the hilt i in misery, begat by ppverty and imprudent 1 habits, and, after dragging from them, bit by j bit, the story of their woes, to tell them that • thev ought to thank God that things are no | worse, and that they are not chastised as j they deserve to be, and to return praise for i the many mercies which have been vouchI safed them. It is not surprising that she is ! sometimcrrudely treated, and it is difficult to i participate in her frequently expressed surprise and horror at the fact that husbands do not alway display the same capacity for listening, with some degree of patience, to her as. do wives—that, indeed, .on. the. contrary, occasionally, when fired by drink or exaspc- ; rated hv what she has said, they rudely order her out of their -homes. Not even the prej «cnee of death can awe the Meddling Saint. | She has a passion for tearing open partially | healed wounds, and for touching upon tender I chords of the weeping hearts of those who live and are sad because they whom they love have gone to their last account. She will | probe the .soul of those whom she fastens j upon until each harrowing detail she seeks after lies revealed before her unfeeling gaze, ; all the time being oblivious of the keen an- ] guish of those upon whom she is operating. j Indeed, she revels in the midst of deep (trouble with an unctuous, if subdued, satisfaction, which is more than sufficient evi- | deuce of the grossness of her nature. Of | course she essays the task of comforter. j When she has rolled people to a pitch of I frenzy by the manner in which she has gloated over each detail of their misery, she talks j trite platitudes about " submission," " trials ; being for our good," "that, it is a sin to mourn [over them," and that "thanks ought to lie ; returned to Him who sent, them"— sentiments very proper and vcrv true, no doubt, but which, enunciated by her and under the circumstances indicated, are calculated to raise a demon, rather than an angel, in the 1 breasts of those to whom they are addressed.

At the last Waste Lauds Boaid meotins;, a letter was read from the Town Clerk of Cromwell reri'iesting that certain seel ions in hloolcs 1.X.. LXVri., LIT.. I,TFL, LVI, LXXIX, VTTT., LXTII., XXXTX., L.. XII., Lxxvn., XXXV., of that township, he withdrawn from sale, with *he wew of granting them to the Corporation.—lt wns recommended that the sections referred to should he withdrawn temporarily, pending a resolution : to he "transmitted to the Provincial Council by the, Government, if the Government think Tit. ' ■ '