THE USE OF USELESS PEOPLE.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1648, 2 June 1879, Page 4

THE USE OF USELESS PEOPLE.

The Melbourne correspondent of the “Sydney Morning Herald” writes as follows :—“ A curious question has arisen as to whether it is the duty of the State, or, for the matter of that, of anybody else, to keep loafers alive. Mr Beauchamp, a very useful public man in all matters relating to practical philanthropy, has openly declared that it is a waste of money to prevent them dying. And a great many people agree with him that to house them, and feed them on what are known as medical comforts, is an error in social economy, more especially as their misfortunes are, in this part of the world, the result of their own bad conduct. The question reopens a discussion commenced some years ago by a paper read before the Eclectic Association, entitled ‘ The Use of Useless People,’ in which the author advocated the putting to death of confirmed vagrants and habitual criminals, by using them for physiological experiments. There was a great cry raised at the inhumanity of the proposal. Mr Beauchamp is, just now, by no means solitary in his opinion; for Melbourne swarms with vagrants, nearly all of whom have deliberately adopted that mode of life, and who refuse to follow any calling which involves the necessity of work. Indeed, it is to me quite unaccountable how the reputable portion of society so patiently endures the infliction of their presence and the cost of their maintenance. Every now and then the police chase them out of their retreats, and they lurk in doorways and blind alleys for awhile, but it is their delight to sleep all day in the sun-warmed gardens, of which wo have so many about this city, and to prowl about at nightfall, seeking what they can convert to their uses. They are beggars or thieves as occasion serves, and decent people live in terror and disgust at them. When they have drunk themselves into a condition of disease, they go into one of the hospitals, the Benevolent Asylum, or the Immigrants’ Home, where they are ministered to as if they were valuable members of society and supplied with the luxuries which hard-working people purchase for them.

*Postax Loan Societies in Gbbmant,— At the end of last year the members of the laving and loan societies connected with the German postal service and founded in 1872, numbered 30,400 —that is, 3440 more than at the end of the year 1877. The funds of the societies amounted in 1878 to 4,624,900 marks, or £231,245 sterling, that is, 757,900 mark*, or £37,845, more than in 1877. The profits paid to members amounted to 91,280 milks, or £4564, and the reserves were raised from 44,600 marks to 64,450 marks, or