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There is another feature of this private enterprise in human stocks (!) that it may be well simply to mention. It is, that the poor generally fall into the hands of a class of persons, not over scrupulous on conscientious grounds as to the manner of fulfilling their contract with the town -- a class "hard up" for funds, familiar with profanity, with coarse and vulgar associates; an orderless mode of life, with crowds of talkers and idlers round them -- a class of the more desperate, hardened and intemperate, whose families, wives and children are scolds, rough and overbearing, with whom kind words and gentle demeanor are rare exceptions; or perchance a class of mere and much-loving money-getters -- getters of money "for the last days." The easy, quiet, well-off families -- the gay, the thriving, industrious, conscientious farmers and residents of the town -- have no or little rivalship with this class of speculators; they do not want, they will not bid on it: -- they care not to take "the risk."

Accordingly, it is pretty much all one way with the poor -- a poor way. Speculators have it all pretty much after their own way -- a grinding, way.

Every town in New England has (or a modification of it) one of these pauper institutions; for all New England has its town paupers. In many hundreds of instances at this very day, the town poor are held in the most abject and wretched condition, equaling in every respect all that we say of the Crampton paupers. But we are happy that it is not so in every town. There has been introduced a very great improvement of the system in many localities. Town and country forms, with appropriate dwellings and shops, and a permanent agency to look after the welfare of the poor, have made their state far more comfortable than it once was, and have more nearly allied the institution itself to a benevolent and Christian one, or house of mercy.

Still, there we find the half-clad pauper, the orphan girl, the ignorant boy, the forgotten old member of society and the church. In her old poor-houses are yet found the representatives of hard fortune, and the Witnesses of Christian Neglect.

"What is to be done with the paupers this year?" inquired Captain Bunce of one of the old selectmen.

"This year?"

"Ai."

"Why this year in particular, hey?"

"Because there's a row among some of the folks about disposing them at a fair trade or auction."

"I don't care that for the stir-about that's made!" said the other, snapping his thumb and finger in the air. "We shall dispose of them to suit ourselves. Ain't we the town? Han't we got the majority five to one? A putty idea to knuckle to A., B., and C. to suit their consciences. No, sir! The town is poor, and must look out for itself. Sell the paupers, I say, to the lowest man; and that man, I see, Captain, is just yourself. Ha! Ha! Ai, Captain? Eh?"

CHAPTER IV.
CAPTAIN Isaac Bunce, Mrs. Bunce, all the Bunces, more especially the Captain, who has a moral and religious standard. His merciful convictions have a triumphal ascendency over his daily overt practice, and rule him uncommonly well disposed.

IN the old weather-beaten and comfortless edifice we have described standing plump up by the stage-road in the valley of the great Slip-Slop Creek, with a ridge of high hills close in the rear, and long, rolling mounds and some hills in front, and wide-spreading farms to the south and east, were gathered the paupers of the town of Crampton, numbering about fifteen persons. Besides these, there were a few other individuals in the town not yet absolutely needy, living at present with friends or relatives, receiving each a small allowance, say from two to five dollars a year, which was paid by the town to their friends who took care of them, and in consideration whereof they furnished them a little more kindlily an abode at their own homes, but usually "homes" that another death in the family, another paralysis, a foreclosure of a mortgage, or possibly the next twelve-month ebbings of compassion, would entirely break up -- happily for the town if it did not add two instead of one to the number of its actual paupers.

This poor-house, a sort of half-habitable looking edifice, overshadowed by the old apple trees of the orchard that had grown strong, great heavy trees, some of them fifty, sixty, or even seventy years old, an orchard of them in the rear where the swine rooted, the geese gabbled, the calves and lambs frolicked, the horses rolled, and bullocks pawed the earth and bellowed, large famous old trees with their roots wound among the rocks, and their arms stretching far out, here and there intertwining, and among them hens and turkies finding safe refuge from nightly prowling foxes. Sometimes, from its enormous, ruined chimney lazily rolled off the smoke indicating life within; at other times, in the warm summer, its windows were thrown open, and human faces thrust themselves out into human view; and again, its crazy front door, beneath the old untrimmed lilacs, (where was there ever an old country ruin that had no lilac bushes at its portals?) was swung wide on its rusty hinges; and perchance two or three human beings filled the entrance, or lounged lazily on its threshold. Near the east end of the house a babbling and rapid rivulet passed, that came off the hills and through the woods, a clear sparkling stream tumbling over the rocks and gurgling through the walls and meandering through the pastures and meadows to the Slip-Slop Creek. The water was pure, soft, abundant, one of the natural blessings of the poor. They sometimes washed their clothes in it, and occasionally their faces, hands, and feet.