The Literature of Philanthropy
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CRIMINAL REFORM. BY MRS. C. R. LOWELL (Josephine Shaw Lowell). The topic for my paper, excluding the wide field of private cbarity and the duty of individual to individual, is the duty of the community, as a corporate body, to that part of itself which has been well called " the perishing and dangerous classes." As the first step in the cousideration of the subject, some conclusion must be established iu regard to the end which any system of public charities and correction, as distinguished from private charity, is intended to serve, and the meaning of a good or bad system must be defined. My owu opinion is that the only justification for the expenditure of public money is the public good?that is, the good of the whole mass of the people. No government is authorized to levy taxes on one part of the communi
...ty for the benefit of another part; the honest working portion of the people should not be deprived against their will of their hard-earned moneyfor the caro of that portion which is shiftless, incompetent, and vicious, unless, in the end, the result is to be for the advantage of the tax-payers themselves. To me the word " charity," as used to designate public money paid out for the support of paupers, is a misnomer, and does much harm by causing confusion in the minds of officials and tax-payers. Charity is an act of kindness from one individual to another; there is no charity in the payment of taxes, nor is the official who expends the money raised by taxation performing an act of charity, " He is simply administering a public trust." Thus any system of caring for criminals which does not seek to lessen the burdens of the people by diminishing crime is deficient in the first requisite of a good system; and any system which encourages crime and pauperism is far worse th... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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