Original Caption: Description: Event Date: Publication: Author: Owner: Source: How the Poor Have Profited

How the Poor Have Profited

A Blessing in the Blizzard-- Plenty of Work at a Premium

The many people upon whose sympathetic hearts the miseries of the poor are a constant burden were filled with apprehensions of widespread suffering among them during and since the blizzard. Scarcity of food and fuel was a reasonable expectation, and it was upon the poor, always meagerly provided with these necessaries of life, that it was feared the scarcity would press with dangerous force. But investigations made by the visitors of the Association for the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor, he Charity Organization Society, the Society St. Vincent de Paul, and the Commissioners of Charities and Correction have allayed all these fears and proved, upon the contrary, that the blizzard afforded the best illustration ever known of the old familiar proverb, "It's an ill wind that blows nobody good."

"It has been a blessing in disguise to the poor," said John Brown, Secretary of the Association for the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor yesterday. "We were afraid that the suffering from the lack of food and fuel must have been great among them, and early as possible we sent out our visitors especially to find out what cases were most pressing. We found that very many were for the first two days, Monday and Tuesday, short of coal. This was among the extremely poor, who buy their coal from the pail when they can pay for it, and come to us or similar societies for it when they are unable to buy. We did our very best to supply their immediate wants. Delivery by wagon was out of the question, and we soon exhausted the grocery supply. But fortunately there was no suffering beyond endurance, as there probably would have been had the storm lasted a day longer. There was no lack of food, although everybody, the poor in common with the rich. Had to go short on milk for a day or so. The grocers all over our field of labor assured us that there had been no increase whatever in the prices of the actual staple articles of food. Only on coal was the price raised, and for that commodity the price went up from 10 to 20 cents a pail.

"But the benefits that have accrued to the poor in general have far outweighed the sufferings they have been compelled to endure. An immense amount of money has been paid to them for work incidental to the great storm. Every man and boy who could handle a shovel has been able to make double ordinary laborer's pay for all he could do. The New-York, New-Haven and Hartford Railroad engages all the men it could get on Tuesday to shovel snow from its tracks at $5 a day; the Pennsylvania Railroad engaged everybody who offered his services at 50 cents an hour. All the street car companies, the Department of Street Cleaning, the Park Department, and other large corporations have been giving work to all who wanted it at $2 or more a day. But by far the largest amount of work has been given to men who would shovel snow by private householders and proprietors of stores, wholesale and retail. During Tuesday and Wednesday, every man made as high as $10 and every man was paid far beyond the usual wages. Boys who were too small to shovel snow turned many an honest penny by selling newspapers. The boy, I understand, paid only the usual prices for their papers, and sol them at all the way from 5 to 25 cents apiece. All this class of work is still going on and will continue until the streets are cleared of the great burden of snow that now seriously obstructs travel. Furthermore, the presence of this snow in the streets compels the use of double the ordinary force of teamsters, messengers, delivery clerks, porters, stevedores, and all persons engaged in the transportation business, for the hard wheeling requires both a division of the ordinary burden of the wagon, and the doubling of the motive power. I think it will take fully a month to catch up with delivery of goods and the execution of work retarded by the blizzard."

Charles D. Kellogg, Secretary of the Charity Organization Society, said that the blizzard would prove of great benefit to the poor. "Of course we still have calls for help from able-bodied mendicants who mourn their inability to find work," he said. "But for once, we were able to get the better of them. The demand for snow shovelers at good wages has been much greater than the supply. And when one of these gentry has presented himself during the last three days we have handed him a shovel and asked him to earn what he wanted. They were true to their nature, however, and went elsewhere in search of alms."

"Were these men not of the sensitive class, ordinarily above the use of the pickaxe and shovel!"

"Not at all. The only man who applied to us for assistance whose appearance indicated abilities above the pickaxe and shovel quite readily took up a shovel and cleared our sidewalk in about three hours and was paid $1.50 for it. He went away feeling much more a man than he would if he had been the recipient of a gift of money. There is another phase of this question you ask. All the ordinary avenues by which the city's daily food requirements are brought in to market have been sealed for three full days. At the sources of production all these supplies have been accumulating. The hens have continued to lay, the cows to give milk, the creameries to produce their butter and cheese, the mills to grind their grain, and the trains with loads of flour and pork and beef and mutton and potatoes and all other kinds of food to struggle for entrance into the city. All this has produced a congestion of inward commerce located just outside the city or within a limited radius. Now the embargo is lifted in almost an instant, and all these stores come crowding into the markets at once, causing a glut and oversupply, which is certainly to result in a great decrease for a short time in he prices of several of the staple necessaries of life. The poor will be the principal gainers by this. Thus, it will be seen that, while their sufferings for a couple of days may have been a little unusual, the steady work t good pay and prospect of abundance of provisions at low prices far outweigh the evils of the storm and prove the blizzard to have been blown good to the poor while it blew ill to the large corporate and moneyed interests."

 

 

 

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