[reprinted from the Natchez Weekly Courier which had reprinted it from the New York Commercial Advertiser. The Boston Courier commented:
. . . if the affluent classes cease all at once to spend money on what are called luxuries, the consequences will be very disastrous to large numbers of persons whose daily living depends upon the employment which the furnishing of these luxuries provides. . . . Every dismissed servant adds one to the countless host of unemployed persons, who must in some way be provided for during the inclemency of the approaching winter.]
A PLEA FOR FLORA
My dear Mr. Butler, or you Mistress Peck,
Or whoever it is who has done it,
Supposing your comical efforts should check
The fancy for buying the fine things that deck
Our flowery creatures who brighten Broadway,
With their rainbow-like hues on every fair day;
Just supposing, I say,
You suppress the expense on a dress or a bonnet,
What good have you done? Shall Gunnybag's pelf,
Like the sumptuous plates on his étègere shelf,
Be kept for the use of no one but himself?
What his daughter now spends be locked up at home,
His soul garnered up with the growth of his income,
And never a dollar let loose to do good,
'Mid that army of martyrs who toil for their food?
Why! What the rich waste is not sunk in the earth,
It does not return to the ore of its birth;
A wisdom above us has ever ordained
That thus shall the laboring poor be sustained.
The honest poor, too, are they -- not that scum of society
Who, in squalor and vice and want of propriety,
Hide in the dark corners of every great city;
Enough of them, truly-- so much more the pity --
The pity for us -- not for them -- for they never
Are making the slightest attempt or endeavor
To lighten their lot. They won't work for pay,
But hug to their bosoms the seeds of decay;
More filthy within their deplorable souls
Than even their raiment "so full of holes."
It is taking -- this making a juxtaposition
Of money and merit -- but for this there's "the mission."
I'd be sorry to learn that any young maiden,
With nightingale breathings of charity laden,
Had followed your counsel, and ventured to see
This festering mass of iniquity.
I admit it looks well upon paper
This sending a merciful taper,
With a white robed young angel to go
('Round her brow a celestial halo)
To lighten this darkness and woe.
But a word ere she thinks to begin it,
Lest she find herself stripped in a minute.
Those who have been in this Satan's dominion
Have proclaimed to the world their opinion
That whatever the raiment one enters with there,
He or she may come back with "nothing to wear" --
That the star which best shines in these dark realms of vice,
Is the star on the breast of the city police.
To return to your Misses M'Flimseys,
Who have money to feed all their whimsies,
I think that full oft, without knowing
One-half of the good they are doing,
Such ladies are a special committee
To distribute amongst the deserving
The alms of this world -- never swerving
From this their vocation -- not from pity
For that may get weary. Continued compassion
Would shatter the nerves of the ladies of fashion.
Flora's moved by a love that is lasting -- that knoweth no rest,
That spares not a fibre of the feminine breast,
A love that the poor may rely on,
"Perennius aere" or iron --
A love that doth good to another by stealth --
The love that I mean is the love of herself,
Q. E. D. then, I claim the solution
That Miss Flora is a good institution,
A "ship for the Irish," with breeze full abeam,
From the favoring gales of her own self-esteem;
Not to mention the fabric her dresses are made of,
Whose price has relieved the distresses we read of,
In Lyons, or Paris, or such foreign parts
As are famed for their skill in manufacturing arts.
Just think of the making -- the poor girls who sew,
Whose Saturday nights are relieved of much woe;
The pittance they get for making a dress
Is at once a case of relieving distress.
-- Every flounce is a dinner -- the ribbons that meet
Just under the chin, are something to eat;
The curious embroidery you see on her collar,
I can trace till I see the identical dollar
That came just in time to save from sad fate
A lovely young girl in a terrible strait --
Silks, satins, and laces, all are forgiven,
Transmuted, dispersed, like the pure air of heaven
They enter the hovel, they steal to the attic,
Consoling, sustaining -- I declare it's dramatic, --
Until I conclude that the charming Miss Flora,
Though little she knows it, is very much more a
Sister of Mercy, with unlimited bounty,
Than all the prim Dorcases who sew for a county.
H. S. E.