[CHAPTER VII.]
THE SORROWS OF A PHILANTHROPIST.
My benevolence was of a two-fold character, being both theoretic and practical. In the latter sense, is to be regarded the relief which I granted with my own hands to such suffering persons as I could lay them on; and there was no way in which I did not personally relieve some one wretch or other. By the former, I understand a thousand schemes which I devised and framed, to enlist the sympathies of communities, and so relieve the afflicted in a mass; besides a thousand others which were designed to bestow upon the poor and vicious that virtuous knowledge and those virtuous principles, which are better than alms of gold and silver. I instituted some half a dozen charitable societies, to supply fuel, clothing, food, and employment to the suffering poor; as well as others to exhort them to economy, industry, prudence, fortitude, and so forth. I formed societies even among themselves, classing divers isolated creatures into bands, who wrought in common, and disposed of their wares, either in a shop kept for the purpose, or at fairs. I established schools to keep the children of the poor out of mischief, and one in particular I supported solely from my own, that is to say, Zachariah Longstraw's pocket.
I bestowed much of my regards upon the poor wretches in prison, doing all that I was permitted to effect a reformation in their habits and feelings; and I took uncommon pains to scatter light and sentiments of a civilized character among the worthy representatives of the Green Island, who make up so large a portion of our suffering population.
And let it not be supposed that I neglected that other class of poor creatures, called negroes, whom, although allowed the name, and most of the privileges of freemen, their white brethren refuse to take to their bosoms, merely because they have black faces, woolly heads, and an ill savour of body. For myself, verily, if they were not comely in my sight, nor agreeable to my nostrils, I said, "Heaven hath made them so;" and although my nephew Jonathan insisted that Heaven had done the same thing with other animals, and that, upon my principles, men should be as affectionate with pigs and badgers as they were with cats and lap-dogs, I perceived that they were my brethern, and that it became me to conquer the prejudices lying only in my eyes and nostrils. I girded my loins to the work, and verily, I prevailed over the weakness of the old Adam. Of a verity, I was the African's friend.
But, oh! the wickedness of the world, and the ingratitude thereof! The heart of man is even as the soil of the earth, which, the more it is stirred up by cultivation, the more barren and worthless it becomes. It is as the fields of the Ancient Dominion, where, if a man soweth barley and corn, he shall reap a harvest of Jamestown weed, poke-berries, and scrub pines. It is as the bulldog that one feedeth with beef and other wholesome viands, who, the moment he has done his dinner, snaps, for his dessert, at the feeder's heel. It is as the tender flowers, which, in the winter-time, a man taketh from the cold, to warm, by night, in his chamber, and which smother him with foul air before morning. Verily, it was my lot to find, even as my nephew Jonathan had once foolishly contended, that even philanthropy is not secure from the sting of unthankfulness—that benevolence is, in one sense, the great parent of ingratitude—since it begets it. For a period of full seven months (for so long did I remain in Zachariah's body, after recoving my health), I laboured to do good to my fellows, and, verily, I laboured with might and main. Yet, had I toiled with the same energy to injure and oppress, I almost doubt whether I should have been rewarded with more manifold outpourings of wrath and fury. Verily, as I said before, the world is a wicked world, and I begin to doubt whether man can make it better.
One of the first mishaps that befell me was of the following nature. Stepping one morning into the mayor's office, which was a favourite haunt with me, seeing that misery doth there greatly abound, I fell upon a man whom the magistrate was about to commit to jail, for being drunk and beating his wife and children, he being unable to pay the fine imposed upon him, and to find surety for his future good behaviour.
The spirit stirred within me as I beheld the contrite looks of the culprit, and I said to myself—"While he lies in jail, his poor wife and his infants may perish with hunger." I paid the fine, and, though the mayor did very broadly hint to me that a little punishment would do the man good, and his wife too, seeing that he was a barbarous fellow, I offered myself for his security, and thus sent him back to his rejoicing family. I said to myself—"This very night will I witness the happiness I have created." I went accordingly to the man's house, where I found the wicked fellow raving with drink, and beating his wife as before, his children screaming with terror, and the neighbours crying out for a constable. I did but say a word of reprehension to him, when the brutish ingrate, leaving his rib, fell foul of myself, mauling me cruelly; and I believe he would have beaten me to death, had I not been rescued by the timely appearance of a constable. "Thee sees the end of thy humanity!" said the mayor, when I entered his office the next morning, that my black eye and bruised visage might testify against the ungrateful man; "thee will not object to my committing the fellow now?"
"Nay," said I; "it is drunkenness that has made the poor man mad. Therefore lock him up in prison until his madness hath departed."