Page:The Ladies' Cabinet of Fashion, Music & Romance 1832.pdf/42

Rh a little distance, and feeling them treading upon his heels, he got upon a stump, and looking around him, asked if the place was a Sodom or Gomorrah, that a Christian man, dressed like themselves, could not come into it without being mobbed in that manner ? Upon which he marched on at a quicker step, some of the men shouting, and a few of the little boys following and throwing stones after him, till he remounted his horse ; and mingling with the clatter of the charger's retiring hoofs was heard the rider's hoarse and coarse malison upon the town, and all the people that lived in it ! " But with Mr. Tompkins Abidesthe minstrel tale." " Time rolled his ceaseless course," as he does now while I write ; and I shall record but one more anecdote, being an incident which happened several months after that last mentioned. A fondness for getting up charitable societies had always prevailed, to a greater or less extent, in this village. But at this particular time it became a rage, in consequence of the organization in larger towns of associations on a grand scale ; the notices of whose meetings, with the names of the several official dignitaries, as published in the newspapers, inflamed the ambition of the country folks. A society for the Suppression of Pauperism was immediately formed. Under its auspices, at the same time, was organized a society for the reliefof the poor and destitute ; and, subsidiary to the latter, an auxiliary branch was instituted, for the purpose of seeking out and examining the condition of such poor and destitute people, with a view of reporting their cases to the parent society. The executive committee of the auxiliary branch consisted of four ladies and three gentlemen ; who met twice a week regularly, with the power of calling extra meetings, for the purpose of reporting and consulting. It was certainly most unfortunate that a system so complicated and so admirable should be framed, without any subjects being found to try it upon. It was like a fine new mill, with a double run of stones, without any grist to be ground in it. The executive committee were not inactive ; but, strange to relate, unless they patronised some of the members of one or all of the three societies, thus compacted like Chinese boxes, there was never a soul in the place upon the causes and actual extent of whose poverty and destitution they could report, without going to the gentiles whom I have mentioned before,