COMPENSATION.

Colonist, Volume III, Issue 225, 16 December 1859, Page 3

COMPENSATION.

(From Chamber's Journal.) In a certain city in the east, there was a poor beggar, who sat daily at the corner of a street, where his miserable appearance might excite the charity of the numerous passengers. One occasionally would give him a trifle, many gave him nothing. It happened that a rich man came to reside in that quarter, and, taking compassion on the poor man, he dropped an alms to him daily in passing. The regularity of this bounty cheered the beggar very much. A coin equal to a penny was the amount of the alms each day, and on this he began to reckon with as much certainty as on the rising of the sun, it became to him a sort of annuity. Well, this went on for a series of years, the beggar all the time improving in circumstances, and looking on his benefact or with profound respect. At length things took a turn with the merchant. Whether he had met with heavy losses or had found some other pauper more needful or more deserving, I eta not know, but it is certain that all at once he desisted from giving the beggar his usual alms. The first day that this took place, the beggar was a little surprised, but as it might be an accidental omission it did not give him very deep concern. The second day he was surprised in earnest; he was dreadfully chagrined. What have I done thought he, that I should merit this extraordinary treatment. The third day he was furious. It was a,n indignity not to be borne; it was a, positive robbery. Addressing the merchant on the fourth day, he requested to know what he had done to be treated thus; why was his allowance stopped? The merchant was now, in his turn, surprised, and replied that he could not thus be aues-r tioned in his dispensation of alma; he would do with his own as, he, liked. This answer, which you W;ould think quite reasonable, would npt do for the beggar. He said that he had no wish to injure any man, but It was his duty to defend his rights; and seeing the merchant would not pay him his daily salary, he must; $ei|er the case to a court of justice, AtCcordingly he had the merchant yp before the Cadi, to whom he explained; his wrongs. ".This merchant," said he, "has done me a serious injury. He gave me a. peany a.day for so' many years thaj | arranged my plans in reference to it. I married; on the faith of th,e. penny aqd nothing else. I have ii^njly to support, and rent to pay. Wtboiat the continuance of the penny, how wa I to do the. one or the. Qther? The

stoppage of this revenue is, in short, a very great calamity* and I, in the name of the Prophet, cry to your highness for justico. Far be it from me to insist on the defendant continuing his daily penny, if that be inconvenient. I am willing to accept a compensation, in a distinct sum." The Cadi now heard what the merchant had to sa"y in reply, and he did not seem at all pleased with it. He remarked that it was a case of very serious apprehension; a very bad one indeed, which could not be suffered to go unredressed. If the merchant did not intend continuing the penny for life, he had no business leading the beggar into the idea the he' would, by giving alms so regularly. The notion of now, out of mere caprice, withdrawing a bounty which was essential to the poor man's existence and happiness, and to which he was unquestionably entitled by prescriptive right, was on the face of it absurd. "Go sir," said he, " pay the man his dues. I ordain that you give him, a hundred piastres in liquidation of all demands." ,-..., ...