Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 January 1894 — Dishonesty at Church Fairs. [ARTICLE]

Dishonesty at Church Fairs.

To chargo from fifty cents to one dollar for a boutonniere which represented only the cost of picking the flowers out of the fields is robbery pure and simple, writes Edward W. Bok in “At Horae with the Editor" in the Ladies’ Homo Journal. On two different occasions that I distinctly remember where I was asked fifty centß for not five cents actual worth of flowers, I was laughingly told by the yqung lady to whom I tendered a b£ok note that, “We never give change at this fair, and gentlemen, like yourself, won’t insist upon it, we know.” It was not enough that I was overcharged, but 1 must be twice robbed, and this, in each instance, in a church and in the name of charity! Is it any wonder, I ask, that it is so difficult to induce men to attend bazaars and fairs? They know what is in store for them if they attend. They know that the innocent “twenty-five cpnts admission" represents an exit costing all the wdy from $lO to $25, in proportion to their good-nature. I am calling tlds practice by its proper name, because I think it is time that the great and noble works done for honest charity in this country should not be asked to suffer, as many of them aro undoubtedly suffering to-day, from this and other forms of abuse practiced in the name of charity. And I do not believe that the managers of charitable fairs really have an accurate realization of the rapidly growing aversion on the part of men for these events. If they had this knowledge I think they would apply the remedy without delay.