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Sociology

Poverty - by James Platt

The writer stated " that in the small town in which he lived there were no opticians, but many poor women who earned a bare livelihood by making lace. Twenty years ago he heard that some of these poor lace-workers were in great distress, owing to the failure of their sight. He got a lot of spectacles; they were most thankfully received. When the lace - workers were supplied, fathers and mothers, husbands and brothers, made their appearance; then came cousins from the neighbourhood, and friends from a greater distance; the circle gradually enlarged, so that at the present moment I believe there is hardly a village within a radius of ten miles which does not contain some of my spectacles, and many have travelled to a much greater distance. With the exception of the regular tramp, I have never refused any applicant .... I have the satisfaction of knowing that in some thousand cases I have helped my poorer neighbours to earn an honest livelihood. and, by giving back to them the power of reading, have added materially to the few pleasures they enjoy."

Poverty! The word embraces a wider area than is generally embraced by the term poor, which it is understood to apply to. those who lack the means necessary for their subsistence. At no period in the whole history of the world, and amongst no people, can there be said to have existed no poor. So long as a man is liable to become dependent on others for the means of his subsistence, so long is he liable to poverty. Unfortunately, this possibility looms gloomily in the future over the mass of our working population, who do not act with that forethought and thrift without which it is impossible to provide for the time that comes to all men, when they will he unable to earn their daily bread. The history of pauperism presents us with