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Thus passed they into life beyond their three-score years and ten, feeling more and more the need of wealth, of what comforts it might procure them, of the good they might accomplish with it, but, under the ceaseless workings of a miserly fear of want, viewing themselves every new year poorer than in any previous one. What ceaseless activity did Mr. Pepper display in guarding his investments! How constantly he predicted the failure of banks and associations, the downfall of prices, the ruin of all capital, and the failure of all men to meet their engagements! He would frequently declare, when a payment was made him of interest on a note, or the principal itself, that he would never again loan a dollar! But the renewal of the temptation, when the security was undeniably good, as often led him to break his promise, in spite of his predictions and fears. Accordingly, his interest money was yearly of great amount, and as he expended literally almost nothing, of course his property was ever and largely on the increase.

But more begets its want, and Mr. and Mrs. Pepper were the poorest people in Crampton! They never had any thing for new clothes, new furniture, new food, new house, or barn, or vehicle. Never any thing for improving the town, or the country. Never a dollar for some heart-stirring benevolence, no money for the poor, none for education, none for morals and religion. No, nothing.

"We are too, too poor, and shall come to the poor-house."

Surely there must be something in the poor-house, as an institution in every town, contrary to human pride, comfort, desire, and happiness -- the very opposite of the life man ever seeks for himself, for which he toils, and risks life, and reputation, and present enjoyment; the dark picture this, undoubtedly, that man holds up before him to nerve his efforts, to fortify his weakness, to encourage his self-denials. Oh! if he can save his wife, and children, and himself, from the miserable fates of poverty -- from the tender mercies of pauperism, from the cold charity of the town, the compulsory help of men who have no souls, and from the self-tortures and degradation of such a state, what labor, to what effort and sacrifice will he not submit, and on how small and scanty portion of life's good nourishment, feed himself!

Yes! I have seen the poor-house, where the inmates huddled together with gleaming eyes, in ragged and patched garments, in cold, and hunger, and wretchedness, men, and women, and children, vice and virtue, innocence and sin, making one fire warm as they gathered round it, and at night making common lodgings on the same creaking, scantily provided bed. Opened doors, and opened halls, and broken windows, in winter let pierce them, blasts which their enfeebled frames could ill endure. And at all seasons of the year the uncleanly, unventilated apartments, gave off a revolting effluvia, from which all the good and wholesome of earth would shrink back in blank and terrible amazement.

And every one of these miserable objects, though a human being, was a pauper, one who could not help himself, who had got through his chances of good fortune, (if we except the young,) and was here to look back on life and shudder over it; to look forward to a gift-grave, without a head-stone, or a handsome coffin or funeral, the very prayer over his grave a donation, and lamentably patronizing -- the mourners, NONE.

I know not why it is so, fully, but the fact cannot and will not be denied, that men at the North have not only fearful apprehensions of the poor-house, but they despise and hate it. No man respects it; no man esteems it a desirable refuge -- not even the poor; no men or women pray over it as a Christian institution. It is not once named in the catalogue of church charities. No contribution for the poor-house, as such, is ever made in the sanctuary; be it, however, true that individual charity may sometimes flow that way through undiscovered channels. Of late, on days of public thanksgiving, and at Christmas and New Years, the great hotels in our cities have liberally bestowed, for distribution among the suffering and reclaimed ones at the Five Points and elsewhere, the good things of their own princely tables. But it is true, as we have said, that the poor-house is not a special charity of individuals, or of communities of even Christian men. It is the taxed provision of the town. Every man's property -- hard and selfish old bankers, young and enterprising farmers, men of all trades and professions -- their property is taxed to support those who have no property; to support those that belong to their town, because no other town will support them -- one of them. Unwillingly taxed, yet made to bear it; taxed too heavily, as hundreds reason; taxed unreasonably long, say they. The poor have been through this themselves; have often, it is likely, paid their tax to support the town paupers, and cursed them between their teeth as they did it. Now they are receiving the same unwillingly proffered soup and bread! The cursings of generations rest on this house of wailing. Not a being is there, it may be, who has not seen his day of pride, when he cursed the poor for their imbecility and thriftlessness. And so, the "curse causeless" coming not, they in their turn bear it: and it is a fell and bitter one. Every tax-payer is secretly glad, perhaps, when this and that INCUMBRANCE on the town gets through, and goes to his last cold pillow. How the tides of selfishness all set up against this last and unfortunate stopping-place of the poor livers, the poor, thriftless vagabonds, and houseless, homeless, dollarless, dimeless ones of the world! As every body hates and dreads and curses it, so the curse seems to rest upon it; and I do not know so undesirable a home as it, in what may be called a free condition or state of the human body. To be sent to the prison or goal is disgraceful, but not so hopeless and pitiless. A man goes to prison for three, five, or ten years; but he does not by that lose caste with the world. He may survive the ordeal, and with unbroken energies, achieve afterwards a name and secure a fortune. But the pauper is done with. Society hopes not nor expects from him any improvement, nor any available labor or remittances, save the last labor of his dying breathings, the remittances of his taxable support!