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A majority of the people of Crampton thought the poor were well enough cared for. They viewed them as the off-shoots of society -- as worn-out, intemperate, profane, blasted old hags and stragglers -- suffering no one undeserved disability, social, civil, religious, or moral, and were really unaffected by the story of their sufferings and neglect. Such reports, if any reached them, they invariably attributed to fanaticism, or charged them to weak and credulous persons, who were never wanting in a community of even sensible men and women!

It was self-evident to another class, that the paupers never could be elevated. This was the strong argument of the Smiths, the Newcombes, the Shires. They said, with Squire Ben Stout, that they had got through with their usefulness, and hopes, and pleasures, as well as their sensitiveness to neglect and ill-fortune. Of course such a statement of the case, if defended, i.e., if capable of being maintained, would go far towards pacifying the voice of conscience, and fatally hinder all appeals to the benevolent.

They argued this from observation and nature.

This was so regarded, they said, by sensible people in all the States of the North. Every town acted on some such principle -- and the facts in their own community, in the course of any ten years, went absolutely to show this.

So was it they argued in nature. Things would wear out. Brute creatures grow feeble, and sicken and die. Farms would run out, and the best of lands become worthless. Beautiful trees would wax old and die. Ships on the ocean rot and moulder away. Elegant houses and princely castles perish. "Even the rocks," said they, "decompose in the atmosphere and crumble to powder. The heavens and the earth themselves, the Scriptures assert, will wax c Id as doth a garment, and pass away!"

Having established the proposition, it was then easy to see the Christian charity or benevolence of the poor-house regulations. In fact, two-thirds of the people of Crampton regarded it as a fixed truth, that the paupers of that town were under heaven-high obligations to them for paying the expenses of their pauper condition. It is so yet in many a good New England town -- alas! that we must say it.

One good fact in the case sweeps away this cobweb argument, and one such even Crampton had -- viz., in the case of poor Alanson Boyce. He was one of those inestimably indebted paupers that this argument would cover. But under the treatment of the poor-house he was at the point of death, half crazed and suffering. It was when the kind hand of true mercy was stretched out towards him, that he revived and sat up, clothed and in his right mind.

We shall yet see another instance, and may learn from it the feebleness and injustice of those views which men often bring forward to cover up their hypocrisy and selfishness, calling evil good, and good evil.

CHAPTER XXII.
HAS Mr. Warren lost that box? He may fancy so. He may even search in vain for it. He may give the case into the hands of the Police, who are sure to find stolen property. But after all, is the box lost?

Old Mr. Warren has outlived his wife some years, and a nephew of the aged man, with his wife, lives in the house and takes care of him. His property will fall to them on his demise. He is very old, very feeble, and cannot long hold body and soul together. The young may, the aged must die! But old Mr. Warren is a good man, and has long been preparing himself for the hour of his departure. It will not come on him with the surprise it does on many, though as in the case of all living men he trembles as he thinks how certain is that hour to arrive!

But there is one cause of anxiety on his mind, that as yet he has not revealed to any one! It frequently disturbs his quiet days and nights, and he sits now in a brown study over it, and anon walks the room and looks from the window. He is evidently recalling some past event of life, but is unwilling to communicate his reflections to those who are around him.

George Herring and his wife Eliza, are plain, simple folks, and while they notice the old man's disturbed feeling, they have no philosophy to account for it, only Mrs. Herring takes to grieving herself in the firm belief that she does not cook his food to his liking, nor furnish him with any degree of attention he needs for his comfort. She even goes alone into her room and weeps over it, and studies how she may do better, and give the old man some relief from his disquietude. She and George both study over the matter, but George thinks Eliza has not failed in her duty, and that the old gentleman is displeased or pained at his management of the farm. So they both counsel each other, and resolve to leave undone nothing which will tend to old Mr. Warren's happiness.

Mr. Warren is annoyed at one circumstance. He has two or three times noticed Polly Tucker stealing round the house, and even detected her in peering into his room through the window, when she thought him out of it. Her wicked face, her gleaming eyes troubled him. What can she want? Both John and Polly now often come to the house and sit down; and they talk, and they offer to do little chores, and they are free to get round the house; and especially helpful to the old gentleman, offering him any assistance by night or day. What can they want? What are they after?