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Felix O'flanagan; An Irish-American ; a Novel
Felix O'flanagan An IrishAmerican a Novel Author:James O'Shea General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1902 Original Publisher: Flynn and Co. Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can s... more »elect from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAFFER V THE BROOKVALE SCHOOL-CHILDREN'S BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION. FATHER MURPHY pondered a good deal on the Rector's proposal, with regard to the formation of a benevolent society, which should provide food and clothing for the children of the destitute poor in his parish. It had often occurred to himself, that some of the children attending school were poorly provided for in the way of those necessaries ; and he feared, too, that it was absolutely impossible that the children of some of the very poor parents could appear at school; because the old tattered garments they wore at home, and besides which they had no others, would render these children totally unpresentable for school. But yet, what could he do to remedy this sad state of things ? The better-off class among his parishioners almost grumbled when paying their dues ; and some of the poor families in the parish he could not help assisting now and again, whenever he saw them in actual want. An odd farmer, too, among those who were thought to be well-to-dc, was compelled to raise a loan in the bank, and could find no other surety but Father Tim ; and there were unfortunate occasions when the benevolent surety was, through the collapse, death, or disappearance of the borrower, obliged to pay a large portion -- sometimes the whole -- of the loan himself : and -- his income, after all, being limited -- how could his benevolence extend further ? Even the coal that was used in the school during the cold weather, and for which the children were expected to pay by small contributions -- the few tons of coal were ...« less