Daily Gazette & Comet [Baton Rouge, LA], June 12, 1860
Beggars.—So common is this class of people getting to be in this place, that it is time to think of a work-house for their benefit. There is another class that might be benefitted by such an institution—fellows who have no means, and no visible way of obtaining a living. In the olden time, it was fashionable to flog such, or place them on the streets to work; and it may be, that for self protection the old custom will have to be revived. It will be very humiliating to prevailing notions of freedom and do violence to the doctrine, that all men are free and equal; yet this liberty about which there is so much prating, is only secured by the union of sober and industrious people, to protect themselves, against the idle, vagabondish and intemperate. The doctrine is safe, that the man who is too lazy to work, and has no inheritance to live on, must obtain a living in a questionable way, or steal. Hence to a degree there is no such thing as liberty, in civilized society. Every one owes a duty to society, which must either be rendered willingly or forced by the law. This is the argument to use for the colonization of the African on the cotton farm, or sugar plantation. They have no right to exist in Africa or any where else in degradation as they do, and it is the special duty of those who have the advance in civilization and are concerned in working out the great problem of human existence, to see that they are made to work. Begging is as much a profession here as in the old world, and the idle vagabonds who follow it, are better posted about the location of work houses than others. They purposely avoid such places on the river, as require them to work, when found begging, and the only way to get rid of the nuisance here, is to establish a work-house. The roads leading out of the city are beset by these people and where they cannot get what they want by begging, and an opportunity offers—they steal.