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PREFACE.

I HAVE here written a few things concerning the paupers of New England, the land of civilization and religion, but not a THOUSANDTH part of those TRUE stories that may yet be told of them, their sufferings, their neglect, their vice, nor have I told the worst -- JUDGE YE!

I have not dealt in personalities. My actors, such as Squire. Stout, Mr. Haddock, Captain Bunce, etc., represent character merely. Nor have I given in caricature a real locality to the scenes. Unhappily these lie broadcast all over New England.

THE AUTHOR.

NEW ENGLAND'S CHATTELS; OR, LIFE IN THE NORTHERN POOR-HOUSE.

CHAPTER I.
The Story begins with RELICS, where many a one ends.

Among the ragged and miserable creatures in the Crampton poor-house, some of them old and others young, put in and there kept by the town authorities, was a widow of seventy years, a pious old soul, whose name was Charity Prescott. They called her sometimes Mrs. Prescott, or Miss Prescott, the widow Prescott, and the pious old Mrs., Miss, or the widow Prescott. She was poor, but good. Almost everybody loved her, and there were a good many individual Christians and moral people in Crampton who had much preferred she had not gone to the poor-house for her support. However, there she went, and Captain Bunce, the proprietor, held her in some sort of regard. He told Mrs. Bunce that she was probably honest, and well meaning, though broken down in mind, and very simple and childish, and he should grant her "every indulgence."

"Don't be too generous now, Captain Bunce," said his wife, "for you know these are hard times, and we may work ourselves to death for the creatures, without the first red cent or thank'e ma'am from the town, or any soul in it. And as for the lazy, idle coots themselves, the more you do for them, the more you may do; don't you know it, Captain Bunce?"

Captain Bunce knew all about it, he said, as well as she did; knew the whole thing by heart -- knew it perfectly -- but his mind was made up about the widow Prescott, that she should have "every possible indulgence."

Now to hear this honeyed phraseology as it dropped from the mouth of the Captain, one would be sure that Mrs. Prescott would be well taken care of at all events; that she could not feel the want of any thing that lay in Captain Bunce's power to provide for her; that he would not hesitate the fractional part of a minute to do her any service. One would suppose that "every," as he used it, covered a great field of indulgences -- a very great many comforts represented -- almost too many.

Mrs. Prescott was indulged with a single room. Once there had been a large closet to the bed-room on the north side of the kitchen, under the kitchen stairs. This had now been enlarged by building on a small wing -- so called -- about four feet being added, and this enlargement -- nay, the whole affair, closet and appendage -- was assigned to Mrs. Prescott as her room. It had a door that might be fastened; a little window, a narrow, old cot-bed, a piece of a looking-glass, a comb, and a paper curtain. It was a room, some eight by nine feet, quite a commodious little affair. Here in an old ruined bowl she cultivated a geranium. No vicissitudes of her fortunes had robbed her of her Bible. This apartment, with its furniture, and two chairs also, one of them smuggled in by blind Hetty, was, to Mrs. Prescott, one of the Captain's indulgences.

Was she not, reader, a well cared for human being? Consider that she had outlived two or three generations; that her usefulness was gone; that she was hardly known on the church records as a living member; that she was very poor, very dependent -- say, was not the pious old widow Prescott well taken care of? The town taxed itself to support her at five cents a day, and sold her every year at auction, or "contracted," as we say at the North, for her support on these conditions, if others better failed. And here she is, in a ripe old age, cared for in this nice little jewel of a way, i.e., room. Could any thing be more appropriate? Was she not a happy, heaven-ripening saint under these peculiar indulgences and privileges? At any rate, here she is. So we go on and say that here the good old widow passed her days and nights whenever she wished to retire from the common sittings of her companions. Here she put on and off her spectacles, read her Bible, and prayed. Here she meditated on the ways of Providence. Here she occupied herself in the trifling sewings, knittings and darnings. Here she not unfrequently had a visitor of the "House," as they called their own quarters, and gave good counsel to the desponding and reproof to the wayward and vicious. And it was not a rare thing for somebody from, the "Captain's" to run in and chat with her, especially for "blind Hetty," who, in the summer, would stand for an hour at the open window, asking questions and telling stories, and hearing good things and many Bible truths, and comforts for a poor young blind creature such as she. Nor were they lost upon her. No, no. On the blind HETTY? No.