The cost of the Missouri “Model Prison” is set down at $250,000, and as a sort of guaranty against any new expense for improvement in after times, the commissioner has the assurance of one gentleman, (which another promptly endorses,) that “the principles of the main building are such as will last for one hundred years!” This gives a chance for a long nap to our Boston friends.
We are not without hope that some of the good citizens of Missouri will get a glimpse of this report of the Rev. Alexander L. Hamilton, and will insist upon a more intelligent and impartial inquiry, before they commit themselves, or suffer the Legislature to commit itself to so large an expenditure, for an institution so permanent, and involving so many interests of humanity and public economy.
Art. VIII.—A PHILANTHROPIC PERPLEXITY.
Will the publishers of the Prison Journal, or some one who has access to its columns enlighten an honest inquirer after the path of duty? It is presumed that the combined wisdom and philanthropy of the Prison Society can furnish all needed direction in the case I have at heart and in hand.
Of the grave and multiplied evils that spring from street begging, I have no doubt. Indeed I have done all I could in a private way to discountenance it. I have never encouraged a second call by a liberal donation, and perhaps have sometimes seemed harsh and unfeeling. But I am so well satisfied that it is the most inhuman thing we can do for the honest poor, and that it favors the arts and schemes of the dishonest, that I feel constrained to avoid every thing that should look like countenancing it. My neighbor’s gate and door are daily besieged by women and children with boys and baskets, and they seldom leave without some token of approval.
But I must hasten to a statement of my case. I was going to my place of business on Saturday afternoon, after dining heartily and happily upon a rare sirloin of beef, and saw a man on the door-steps of a house in Washington Square. He was perhaps forty years old, (more or less) rather shabbily dressed, with a dirty bundle under his arm, and some indications of hard drinking about his face. I noticed that he tried the handle of the door before he rang the bell, and was thus led to no very favorable impression of his design. Stepping behind a flight of steps, I noticed his movements as he went from door to door under successive rebuffs. As soon as he came up to my standing place, I said to him,
“Friend, do you know you are liable to be taken up for begging in the street?”
“I war’nt begging. I only asked for a bit of bread and cold meat.”
“Well, you will have a constable after you in a few minutes if you don’t stop that business.”