I stand up only for the _aged_ poor, because,
be they good or wicked, they _cannot_ help themselves. If a man fell
down in the street, struck with some dire disease that shrunk his
muscles, unstrung his nerves, made his heart tremble, and his skin
shrivel up, would you look upon him and then pass him by _without
thinking?_"
"No," cried Fred in an emphatic tone, "I would not! I would stop and
help him."
"Then, let me ask you," resumed Tom earnestly, "is there any difference
between the weakness of muscle and the faintness of heart which is
produced by disease, and that which is produced by old age, except that
the latter is incurable? Have not these women feelings like other women?
Think you that there are not amongst them those who have 'known better
times'? They think of sons and daughters dead and gone, perhaps, just as
other old women in better circumstances do. But they must not indulge
such depressing thoughts; they must reserve all the energy, the stamina
they have, to drag round the city--barefoot, it may be, and in the
cold--to beg for food, and scratch up what they can find among the
cinder heaps. They groan over past comforts and past times, perhaps, and
think of the days when their limbs were strong and their cheeks were
smooth; for they were not always 'hags.' And remember that _once_ they
had friends who loved them and cared for them, although they are old,
unknown, and desolate now.
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