“PAUVRE ME-A!”

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXIV, Issue 9167, 29 July 1890, Page 6

“PAUVRE ME-A!”

■ TO THE EDITOR. "Siß,-rI know that I am not slow of speech, ahd that Nature has gifted me with • fair command of language to either exprela or conceal my thoughts; hut. Sir, I fail to find words to convey to others xay feelings on reading your sub-leader on Hospitals and Charitable Aid in last Friday’s ’issue. I • remember many years ago meeting in, the Strada Toledo at Naples a' beggar, about whose body hung a mass of ■’filthy’ - ' rags, insufficient even for decency, lie poor creature seemed the very embodiment of human degradation, add : 'as he shuffled along amidst all '' 'the surrounding evidences of luxury- :,, and v refinement, he uttered a'caoptant wail of misery, " Pauvre mea! Paavre meaMy throat swelled with sorrow and -indignation as I gazed upon that wreck-of a form which, priests tell u»,'-’was > created after God's own image. My embtiona were equally intense while perusing that article in the Times, and I 'sSenied again, to hear that wailing cry, *4piuvre mea ! Pauvre mea!” Our population, too, surrounded like that poor outcast, with all the appliances of luxury and the means of 1 wealth. What a blot upon all the legislation of the past does the civilisation of to-day present! Here is a land that produces more wheat to this acre than any other country in the world ; we export to other lands, oonfihnally increasing quantities of wheat, mutton, wool, tallow, hides, flax, timber and coals; on the surface of our ' liillav and: valleys millions of sheep and thousands of cattle and horses feed and ''flCuish; while the hands of the hardy and toiling miner bring forth from the bowels of tbo wtrth, iron, copper, antimony, silver aad geld. And yet we have thousands of individuals in our midst on the verge of destitution or seeking eleemosynary aid; a largo portion of the -public revenue is absorbed in • supporting hospitals and asylumt/ 'for the relief of the poor and D««dy,'and still the cry goes up—“ Pauyre moa,padvre mea." : ■ more, brother electors, I call upon a sense of ’duty to yourseivm'yind your posterity. Prepare for the apptoabhing elections; consult with each othiifrVin yOur; several TTnions as to the measures you -consider necessary to preeervo tfae few rights you still possess, and toWobver those you have lost; makeup ytour? minds, after careful study of the cfaai'acter of those who seek to represent ybiH itid then vote loyally and fearlessly f orths men yon have pledged each other to fbpport. Then the world shall see such ai jrafiiament returned for New Zealand as shall-be'-'a worthy example for the nations tbfbllow. —I am, &c.,< j|jy2B. ' - CHARLES J. RAE.