velops varied,
powerful and maybe dangerous characteristics.

At present it is nobody's business to see that the maimed, the halt,
the blind are taught and trained to be of some service, and made able
in some way to earn a subsistence. Philanthropy, it is true, does
something, and also those blessed institutions, the schools for
the blind, and training homes for the crippled. I never see such
institutions without experiencing great gladness, for I know how much
evil they avert. But the great body of the physically afflicted are
without the walls and scope of these institutions, consequently tens of
thousands of men and women, because of their afflictions, are enabled to
prey upon the community with a cunning that other people cannot emulate.

We hear daily of accidents. We learn of men and women losing arms, legs
and hands; our hearts are touched for a brief moment, then we remember
the particulars no more. The ultimate consequences are unseen, but they
are not to be avoided, for every cripple left uncared for may become a
criminal of dangerous type.

Their elemental needs and passions still exist, notwithstanding their
physical deprivations. They claim the right to eat and drink, they claim
the right of perpetuating their kind.

Some day perhaps the community will realise what the exercise of the
latter right means. Some day, and Heaven send that day soon, we shall be
horrified at the thought that a vast number of unfortunates exist among
us who, demanding our pity and our care, are going down to the grave
without that care to which their physical disabilities entitle them.

As we look at these unfortunates, feelings of pity, disgust or amusement
may be aroused, but one moment's reflection would convince us that these
afflicted homeless creatures manage to exist and extort an expensive
living from the community.

I have said that every disabled man is a potential criminal, and that
unless he receives some compensation giving him the means of earning
honestly his living, he is certain to be a danger or a parasite. This is
but natural, for in the first place his physical nature has received a
shock, has sustained an outrage, Nature strikes back, and some one has
to suffer. The loss of a limb means severed muscles, bones and nerves.
Nature never forgets that they ought to be there, but as they are
not there she does without them; but none the less she feels for them
instinctively, and becomes disappointed and bitter