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with it. I was wont to pity the clumsy Irish laborers 
who cut ice on the pond, in such mean and ragged 
clothes, while I shivered in my more tidy and somewhat 
more fashionable garments, till, one bitter cold day, one 
who had slipped into the water came to my house to 
warm him, and I saw him strip off three pairs of pants 
and two pairs of stockings ere he got down to the skin, 
though they were dirty and ragged enough, it is true, 
and that he could afford to refuse the extra garments 
which I offered him, he had so many intra ones. 
This ducking was the very thing he needed. Then I 
began to pity myself, and I saw that it would be a greater 
charity to bestow on me a flannel shirt than a whole 
slop-shop on him. There are a thousand hacking at the 
branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and 
it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of 
time and money on the needy is doing the most by his 
mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in 
vain to relieve. It is the pious slave-breeder devoting 
the proceeds of every tenth slave to buy a Sunday’s lib¬ 
erty for the rest. Some show their kindness to the 
poor by employing them in their kitchens. Would they 
not be kinder if they employed themselves there ? You 
boast of spending a tenth part of your income in char¬ 
ity ; may be you should spend the nine tenths so, and 
done with it. Society recovers only a tenth part of the 
property then. Is this owing to the generosity of him 
in whose possession it is found, or to the remissness of 
the officers of justice ? 
Philanthropy is almost the only virtue which is suf¬ 
ficiently appreciated by mankind. Nay, it is greatly 
overrated; and it is our selfishness which overrates it. 
A robust poor man, one sunny day here in Concord, 
