Page:Annual report of the superintendent of Negro Affairs in North Carolina, 1864.djvu/14

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To offset these more thrifty people, with whom I have had officially nothing to do but to rejoice in their prosperity, there exists another class, and it is at present and must be for some time to come much the larger one, who by dint of perseverance and industry earn a few dollars every month, and would be glad to support themselves in independence. They are not wanting in self-respect, and scorn to be beggars. But their few dollars will not feed and clothe them at sutlers' and Jews' prices. If they could purchase a comfortable garment for three dollars, they would wear it out in honest pride, and have a dime left for the daily loaf, and a trifle for bacon and corn meal. But if they must pay ten dollars for the garment, nothing remains for them but to suffer hunger, or to beg. Philanthropy can do no better thing for people in such a condition, than to furnish them the necessaries of life, and to some extent, its comforts, not as a gift, but by purchase, at low rates. Some persons, who know about as little of the principles of political economy as they do of the pure spirit of religion, are ready to charge with covetousness and extortion the persons who come out to do good to the oppressed, and bring them things to sell!