+It was very hot+ yesterday. I walked through my park, intending to betake myself to my favorite place for rest and reverie. Suddenly I stood still, arrested by the sight of a man lying under a tree. In my park? And how the fellow looked! In rags and dirty! I have been told I was kind-hearted, and I realized this myself at the moment. I walked over to the man and inquired interestedly: "Are you ill?" He grunted in reply. The wretch must have thought, in his sleep, that I was one of his kind. My generosity did not cease. "If you need money, do not feel shy about telling me. How much do you need. I am the rich X Y Z, who has a fabulous fortune, as you have undoubtedly heard." At this remark the scoundrel turned on the other side, with his back toward me, and said, while yawning: "What I want? I want to sleep. Will you be good enough to keep the mosquitoes away for two hours?" Within five minutes I had my servant kick this impertinent and ungrateful wretch out of my park. If all of the low class think as this fellow, I fear our charitable efforts in their behalf will accomplish little.
+Eleven million+, nine hundred and seventeen thousand, nine hundred and forty-six dollars and fifty-eight cents is what the gallant Gen. Bingham asks us for protecting us from each other for the ensuing year. With a population of four million and 4.50 members to a family, we pay a fraction less than $3 per head, and about $13.50 for a family, a year for police protection in this enlightened Christian (750,000 of us are Jews, but ours is a Christian city) city of ours. I'd give that silver watch of mine away and mind my own business if I thought it would come cheaper, but it won't do. H. H. Rogers is my brother and keeper, and he insists he needs protection, and I must pay for it, so what can I do? I've told him I'm a peaceful, propertyless man with no higher ambition than to love my fellow-man--and woman, and mind my own business; but his reply has invariably been, "I'm Dr. Tarr, and my system prevails in this lunatic asylum!" I recognize the logic of his argument all right and continue to pay for his protection and feel grateful for the privilege of grumbling a little now and again.
Be it understood that the shocking thing which we know as Comstockery, goes back into the centuries for its origin; being, indeed, the perfect flower of that asceticism, which was engrafted on the degraded Christianity which took its name from Christ without in the least comprehending the spirit of his lofty conception.