Many have asked, as we did, and many more will ask, “How do these people live?” Ask Him who feeds the ravens, for no one else can answer. That they do not work, is certain; that they neither beg nor steal, is to be inferred from the fact that their fellow Staten-landers have never accused them, and that they have never undergone the rebuke of the law. They are as harmless and inoffensive as they are useless. They are proverbially good-natured and honest; they do not get drunk, or abuse tobacco; for although some of them have a relish for these luxuries, it would cost too much trouble to earn the price of them. Otherwise, they are the very Yahoos of Gulliver.
Some philosophers have taught that content is the grand desideratum, the greatest good of earthly felicity. The contentment of savages and of negro slaves is brought to support their position. It is true that these are happy under their painful and degrading yoke; but what of that? Simon Stylites was no doubt happy on his pillow of torment: an ox, on the same principle, and for the same reason, is happier still, and the life of an oyster is bliss superlative. “The royal family of Staten-Island” are an example before our eyes to show how closely contentment may be allied with the extremes of degradation.—From the Knickerbocker.
THE BLIND BOY.
Oh, mother, is it spring once more—
The same bright laughing spring
That used to come in days of yore
With glad and welcome wing?
And is the infant primrose born,
And peerless daisy child
Beneath the bowed and budding thorn,