DISCOURAGEMENTS IN GIVING.
A WOMAN, says the New York Times, whose right hand does a large amount of good in the course of every twelve-month, and whose left hand seldom hears of it, on the last holiday had a friend, a widow whose slender income barely kept the wolf from the door of her numerous family, whose needs stirred her generous impulses. In a note to her of Christmas greeting she inclosed a gold coin of considerable value, and as she did so, visions of several winter comforts for her friend or her children gave her a glow of satisfaction. This glow was not increased when she shortly received a note of cordial thanks and the information that the money had filled a long-felt want in the purchase of lace curtains for the parlor windows. “I rushed right off the day after Christmas,” wrote the friend, “to get the curtains, lest, among so many pressing needs of more practical nature, I might be tempted to forego them,” which the sender of the money thought was the most delicious bit of irony she had ever met. The climax of the situation was reached, however, when a fortnight later the friend wrote asking for the loan of about the amount of the Christmas gift “to meet an urgent obligation which has existed for some time, and which can no longer be deferred.” A second experience she had in the course of Patti’s last visit to New York. She had never heard the celebrated diva, and much wanted to, but the price of the seats seemed to her a selfish outlay for one evening’s entertainment, when she knew of many to whom the sum would mean some permanent and needed good. So, after some deliberation, she took the amount which the purchase of two of the best single seats would require, and sent it to another whose home necessities were largely in excess of the home income. “Only a day or two ago,” she said, “I had met her in a storm quite insufficiently clad. She is a charming woman, of whom I am very fond, and every time I thought of the Patti seats, a picture of Mrs.— in thin boots, a worn coat of little warmth, and an umbrella whose best days were not, came before me. The price of the tickets, I thought, will remedy all this, and it was sent. In due time came a most felicitous reply; Mrs.— writes delightful notes. The money was very opportune, and was as gratefully accepted as it had been, etc. ‘With it,’ she went on, ‘Tom and I have had the treat of our lives. We have heard Patti.’” The secret of such people’s poverty is not very difficult to divine. Our old friend, E. A. Egleston, who kept a meat-market, was once importuned to go to see the circus. He declined the invitation, as he was not interested in such performances. Being urged to go, and asked what his objection was, he said, “If I should go, I should see so many people there who are owing me for meat that I should not take any comfort seeing the performance.” Waste and want are not far apart, and those who squander money for luxuries may need to borrow it for necessaries.