at his creed or country, from you unrelieved; as the very
necessity that induces the application is sufficient reason for
relief, should even the applicant be thought unworthy: but the
mischief STOPS not here; it is only the _commencement_--it encourages,
instead of checking, mendicity--it produces beggars where it should
make artizans--it encourages consumers instead of helping
producers--it assists idlers when its object is and should be to
support the industrious.[A]

All indiscriminate charity must therefore be an evil to the body, an
injury to the community: it begets a class of persons that spend the
easily obtained funds as improperly as they were procured--it degrades
the minds of the recipients, while the wealthy donors look more
frequently with disgust than compassion on the receiver; in short, no
persons can become more debased in mind and body than habitual beggars,
of which a very large number exists among the Jews--uncontrolled,
unchecked, and unprovided for--in spite of all the efforts of the
"charities" and Synagogue funds, nearly all of which are casual. The
sums thus distributed should, and would, suffice to maintain all the
paupers of the Jews; but the inefficiency of the administration permits
them to devote their entire time in successfully preventing one
charitable institution from arriving at the knowledge of what they
receive from another, and to extort from private sources as much as
possible.

These are facts known to us all: but, in the charitableness of our
hearts, we fear to come boldly forward and provide at once entirely
for all these mendicants, who should be properly taken care of,
clothed, fed, and housed; and the expenditures of the present day
would be sufficient, if carefully arranged.

By the withdrawal from the public eye of all these unfortunate beings,
a great improvement would appear, and certainly be very soon effected.
The pernicious example would be unknown to the young; and the idly
disposed would find the fee simple of their present estates devoted to
the purchase of useful, industrious, and honest means of procuring
them their subsistence.

Through the want of a well-regulated system of relief, under check and
control, every beggar is an independent member of the Jewish
commonwealth, employed in seeking, the entire day, whom to devour,
considering himself entirely at liberty, morally and physically, to
devote his entire time to the readiest way of getting money--hones