It has been a mooted question in Canada whether we ought to erect county poor-houses for the care and provision of the poor and infirm, or leave such matters to the ordinary township councils to deal with. In a land of plenty like ours, where there is abundance of food and constant demand for work-people, there should be no need for such persons to become a charge upon the bounty of the public; and it is absolutely certain that if we erect poor-houses there will always be poor to fill them. Such a class of population will come to us, if not already here, and having provided a place for them in the erection of poor-houses, we shall never get rid of them.

There are, of course, objects of charity scattered throughout the country, but they bear an infinitesimal proportion to the whole population, and can be provided for at small cost to the local community. In a country where everyone who will can provide for an inclement season or against the needs of age and infirmity, it becomes a very serious question whether the hard-working and thrifty ought to be taxed to provide for the lazy and thriftless. Or again, is it wise to foster the growth of a class of persons whose filth and foul diseases are the result of laziness and their own vices? Charity rightly bestowed is the very essence of man’s best nature, but I do not think it charity to give indiscriminately to those asking alms.

The genus tramp has developed only lately among us. Prior to the American war no such stamp of man existed in Canada. To-day he is here, and apparently here to stay; but as there is no possible excuse for these fellows begging through the country, it is not charity to give them money or clothes, or even food. The following is a case in point:

An old fellow residing in Scarboro’, who owns a comfortable house and lot, leaves home in the spring, clothed in rags, for an all summer’s begging tour. He goes from house to house, and says he can make more by it than he can by working. From the result of his summer’s begging he can and does live in comfort during the winter at home. And those who give to that man do a positive harm to our country by encouraging vagrancy.

Last winter a clergyman wrote me from the neighborhood of Peterboro’, saying that a colored man who was begging about the country from door to door had exhibited a paper declaring him to be a worthy object of charity, and purporting to have my name attached as a guarantee of good faith. This generous and gentlemanly clergyman wrote me that he had his doubts about the genuineness of the man’s need, for he found he had been drunk. By telegram I repudiated the man and his paper, and asked for his arrest. Persons who gave to that man committed an injury to our country, and not an act of charity. I am only mentioning this case as an illustration. Perhaps a good many of us may not yet know or realize the fact that many tramps in our Province are using the names of prominent or well-known citizens to help them to defraud the public. It is just as well for gentlemen to know, if their names have been brought considerably before the public, that in many instances these are used without their knowledge by tramps to further their impostures. Tramps have indeed called upon me, exhibiting what purported to be “a recommend” signed by one or more of Toronto’s prominent citizens, when I knew at a glance that such signatures were forgeries. The proper plan would be to have them arrested, but no one individual wants to fight the battles for the general public, and usually these fellows get off.

From the last tramp who honored me with a call I wormed out his story. He was a strong, hearty, broad-shouldered young man of twenty-eight or so, born in Ontario, the son of assisted immigrants. During the past summer he had worked for a couple of months in a brickyard near Toronto. His wages were $1.50 per day, but the proprietor, according to his rules, kept back one-third until the end of the season, when this, too, would be paid in a lump sum along with the last week’s pay. “But I could not stand that, you know,” the tramp said. He must have his money, all of it weekly, or quit. And quit he did, for he could not subsist on the single dollar a day and buy his whiskey! Until the following winter he simply “bummed” around the city, spending the balance of his brickyard money. As winter came on he made his way to Ottawa and Pembroke—just how did not appear quite clear. He worked about Pembroke in the lumber woods for a couple of months; was discharged because he would not be driven by the gang boss nor be ordered to keep up; bought a C.P.R. ticket for Toronto, but before setting out must have a few drinks. Took a few glasses, and then a few more, and fell into oblivion. Next morning he awoke in a hotel stable, minus his railway ticket and $25 which he had in his pocket, and then he had no resource but to tramp it back to Toronto. He had no difficulty, for any of the farmers would feed him and keep him overnight, so that it was just a question of slow marching with him from house to house, with a full stomach and a stop whenever cold. But as he got nearer Toronto he found the farmers not so hospitable; they refused generally to feed him, and invariably declined to lodge him. He said those near Toronto had been called upon by so many tramps that they had become wise, and no longer considered it charity to give to tramps. In a small village near Toronto, overtaken by night, he could find no refuge, and had to apply to the village constable to be confined in the ordinary lock-up. In this he was accommodated. But the constable did not relish the idea of sitting up all night for any such specimen of humanity, and so left him alone in the lock-up, where there was a stove and supply of wood. The night was cold, and the tramp fired up himself. On leaving him the constable had cautioned him to be careful of fire, and the tramp said that he was only careful for fear that he might get burnt himself. The lock-up stood beside other buildings, and had he set it on fire a good part of the village must have been consumed. Thus was this village placed in great jeopardy on account of this worthless fellow who became a charge upon them for the night, and the whole community thereabout was in great danger of losing many thousands of dollars worth of property, and possibly precious human life, by this wretched scamp, who was too lazy to work in summer and too fond of whiskey to keep him off the road in winter. Now if there be any charity in giving to such persons, I fail to see it. If we construct county poor-houses just such fellows will want to get into them. There is no excuse for any such persons. In the summer they can easily earn sufficient money to keep them during the winter if they will. In this tramp’s case he could have earned good money in the winter if he chose. He said he would get on to Toronto, and if nothing turned up he would go on west towards Woodstock and about Berlin, for the tramping fraternity told him that the German farmers thereabout have big barns and cellars and great abundance, and feed all tramps. In case they would not feed or lodge him readily, he said most of those about Berlin possessed stone base stables, which were always warm, and that he could sleep as warm in them as he could in the house.

Here is a great danger—greater in fact than the risk which the people ran when the tramp was in the village lock-up all by himself with a red-hot stove. During the summer these idle vagabonds go about the country in twos and threes, and camp at night in barns and stacks. No one ever saw a tramp yet who did not smoke. Lodging in a barn or stack is to him no valid reason why he should not indulge in his pipe. Consequently, many barns are burned throughout our country, and the only explanation ever given for such fires is simply “tramps.” This tramp nuisance is one of the growing evils in our Province, and it is just as well to stamp it out now, before it gets greater, by absolutely refusing to give aid. If we build county poor-houses, our poor-rates will go up, and no one ever heard of such rates coming down if once put on. The British farmer to-day is ground down with poor-rates, but perhaps in densely populated England there may be an excuse for such rates. With us there is not, then let us not have them. Giving to tramps is fostering a lazy, whiskey-drinking, shiftless class, who beg because it is easier than to work. Indiscriminate giving is worse than not giving at all. Let us generally, throughout rural Ontario, take warning and look closely to our charities, and see that they are rightly bestowed. Let us stamp out this tramp nuisance before it becomes fixed. If there be worthy objects of charity in our midst, I know I am safe in asserting that the big hearts of Canadians will relieve them, and there is always the township council to fall back upon in any event.

There is another class of persons in Canada who are always in search of “the loaves and fishes” in the shape of public offices. At first sight these persons would not appear to be numerous, but there are a very great many of them in various capacities—many offices, no doubt, created for the men, and many of them, too, of no adequate good to the community. As a class these persons will bear well a comparison with the turtle—opening their eyes and sitting in the sun, Micawber-like, “waiting for something to turn up.” Our labors to bring our young country to the fore they do not share in. They “toil not, neither do they spin,” notwithstanding they are always well arrayed. Manifestly a certain number of public servants are necessary, but the general feeling is that there are two where one would be enough. More, when these public servants once get foisted upon us we can never get rid of them. “Superannuated” is the political term; but they get pay until the grave opens for them.

AFTER THE OFFICES.

Whatever other faults Canadians may have, they are certainly willing, with all possible alacrity, to serve their countrymen in the way of filling offices, small or more important, throughout the country. At the time of the municipal elections the aspirants for municipal honors come to the front in shoals. This particular feature of our people is, in a way, highly commendable. And yet one cannot cease to wonder at the immense number of persons in any community in Canada who are willing to sacrifice (?) themselves for the public good (?).