Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 October 1874 — A Case of Meanness. [ARTICLE]

A Case of Meanness.

In a Denver paper we find a Btory which amply indicates the meanness of which humanity is capable, under cir-. cumstances which afford opportunity for the exhibition of that quality. A poor widow who had been a ward of the city’s charitable institution went to work in a hotel as a laundress, taking with her a son aged fourteen years and a little daughter old enough to wash and iron napkins. After working some months the woman quit the service of -the hotel and asked for a settlement. This was not refused by the proprietors of the hotel (they never refused settlement), but an offset to the widow’s account was presented in the shape of a bill for board of the children, at the rate of six dollars each per week; whereby the widow was brought out in debt to her employers. In vain the poor widow, pleaded that the boy and girl had fully paid their board by their work, and on this basis a settlement was denied. Suit was brought by the poor woman to compel a more equitable adjustment of the account. The court decided that the work of the two children should -stand as an offset to their board and that the widow was entitled to her wages. Tews of joy came into the eyes of the forlorn and destitute woman at this upright decision, and the avaricious hotel men lost some of their good name as well as the suit.