STATE OF NEW YORK.

Tuapeka Times, Volume II, Issue 65, 8 May 1869, Page 3

STATE OF NEW YORK.

"We presume that not less than 200,000 persons are now withiu sight of our city steeples who have no work, no real homes, and no means which insure them a livelihood. Some of them beg or steal outright ; but a Larger number eke out a miserable existence by running into debt for lodging, for board, or at groceries, or by borrowing from week to week of whorasuver will lend them, or by quartering themselves on reluctant relatives or friends. When ice begins to form on the rivers, the business of our city suddenly and seriously contracts, throwing tens of thousands out of work ; and just at this time ten's of thousands more are discharged from forms, or country residency closed for the winter, and drift down to our lavements in quest of that employment which it is morally impossible that they should find. f /he net result is an aggregate of want, squalor, misery, and degradation fearful to contemplate. Thousands take their first lessons in crime at this season, under the pressure oi needs which explain, though they do not excuse, their +'all. The saddest .feature of this sad business is its hopelessness. Benevolence may somewhat mitigate the sufferings of its victims, butouly it the cost of increasing their .number. Men and women will rush to the great cities — most of all to this city—^in ever-increasing numbers. If there were rich philanthropists ready and willing to lodge and feed them all without charge, . they would be -as numerous as the leaves of the- forest. Benevolence is the noblest of virtues ■ we would dissuade no one from giving ■ but the more you trive, the more you may in a city so vast and attractive as i this is.— " New York Tribune," January, 1869.