WHO HELPS A MAN WHEN HE'S DOWN?

Waikato Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 2385, 22 October 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

WHO HELPS A MAN WHEN HE'S DOWN?

St ranch how the retrain ut an old song will sing itself into mind and memory, and, like the words just quoted, if it ask a question, will become more and more insistent in its interrogation -in this case, “ Who helps a man when he’s down?" The only answer is, “No one.” Once let a man get down, and down he stays until Death cornea along and drops a stone upon him—men call it a monument —to keep him down forever. To one with any kindliness of feeling, there is no sight more melancholy than a man reduced from atlluence to poverty, and deserted by those who passed as his friends. “ Friend after friend departs ; who hath not lost a friend ? ” is a query that needs no reply, but only those who, in their own experience, have verified the proverb, “ Prosperity makes friends, but adversity tries them,” can know how exceedingly hitter—yea, even more bitter than the waters of Marah, is the defection of fair-weather friends. A man, of good standing in the mercantile world, fails, or the incumbent of a Government position, by a spin of the political tee-to-turn, is deprived of his only means of support, and is turned out into the world to add one more to the great army of the unemployed. What are they to do? What is any one of them to do? How is he to get work? Let him try to find it for himself. If he be a young man, those to whom he applies arc sure to require a man of long experience. If he be that, then he is too old, and must step aside for a younger, livelier man. Who, then, will help him to get work ? What kind of employment he does not specify ; som -thing to do is all that he asks. Capital invests its surplus in new schemes for multiplying its wealth, cuts olf the coupons from its Government bonds, locks up its safe, and goes out to its club to smoke, to girs/.’e otto gimble. while that army of respectable tramp-," willing and anxious to work, a-c w dk :i g the streets in search of someth! ig ti 1 a O.ie who has never been in this p i.if. i-i Knows nothing about it; be cinni: c.--i imagine its sensations, its alternate illusions of hope and its clouds of despair. Hit let him, too, lose his money, and join the ranks. What a revelation I The fawning sycophants—call them not by the sacred name of friend will drop olf like engorged leeches as soon as they discover that they have smoked his last cigar and spent his last cent, Thu places which welcomed him once will then know him no more. He may go seeking an hnmhlc position in the employ of those who, hat in hand, once entered his own large establishment, ami besought his patronage and influence. 'Twas worth something then. He may even have indorsed their piper, and lent the stability of his own honoured, well-estab-lished name to ensure the foundation of their business credit. But whatever may have been their indebtedness to him when he was prosperous, and in a position to bestow favours, the fact that he now needs a helping hand cancels all their obligations, for a good many men adopt as an active business principle, “ The man who hath served me wrongs me I" A gruli' “Can do nothing for yon I” dismisses the man, whose income once was in the thousands, and who now stands penniless. He is not asking for pecuniary assistance -only (or a chance to help himself. If he venture to ask one whom he had form nay la-friended to use his inlluencj an 1 get him something to do, he is met by a refusal, brutal in its abruptness, or is put olf by false promises. Hopes, like false beacon-lights, are set to allure him into another channel; anything, anything to get rid of him 1 Advantage is taken of his mi fortunes, and those to wham he may apply will presume upon the unwarrantable liberty of catechizing him in regard to his personal alfairs, as to his expenses, his prospects, his past opportunities for saving part of his salary, prying, if possible into his family matters, and the poor man, writhing under the humiliation, yet enduring it, in the hope that it might lead to something, is rewarded only by words of impracticable advice, which, like offered services, are mal odorous. What man is there, under such circumstances, who would not lose heart in the will-o'-the-wisp pursuit for employment, which only leads him deeper into the bog of nothing to do ? To one who stands as a spectator, and watches the procession of discouraged men, of empty lives and disappointed hopes file past, there is an unspeakable pitifulness in it all. What it the man to do who has outlived all his old friends, who finds himself alone? Those on whom he had some claim repudiate it; others say to each other, 11 Why dosen't somebody give him a lift?” But some one is no one. Were he but a rich man, those who will not bother themselves with him in his necessity would travel from Dan to Becrsheba to run errands—from ordering his shoes to hiring a servant for him. But why find fault with that ? It is according to Scripture, for when the Pharisees, from whom those of our own day are lineally' descended, made a feast, they were very particular to invite their rich neighbours that the latter might bid them again, and so make them a recompense.

Then there is one other phase to this question, which is the hardest of ail for an honourable man to bear. Said such a one recently: “There is absolutely nothing for me. Perhaps, had I been a rogue, a double-dyed scoundrel like who betrayed the trust of years, and had I, like him, escaped State's Prison, people might have exerted themselves to give me a chance to show how sorry 1 was, and how thoroughly I’d repented; but as I’ve never defrauded a wau uf a cent, and

am not a -cwini'i Jwhy, 1 nni-l the vil'a n helped to hi* feet while 1 am b- mg thru*', oil mine." After all, the hardworking elder brother iu the parable nould not have been exported to welcome back the prodigal with anv amount of rapture. Perhaps he had 10-t hi* motivv himself, hut in the way of legitim ite business, and it was rather irritating to see the spendthrift brother, who had “ wa-ted his substance with riotous living," so well received. So who can marvel that one man cannot see another preferred before him without a pang of —call it what you will—envy or wounded pride, or simply disappointment 1 It is only the great heart of the father that can love both alike, while their loves are cast apart. M t'tK WksT.