New York Dispatch

Without Guile or Food

THE GENEROSITY AND CHARITY OF A WELL-KNOWN PUBLICAN.

Last Tuesday evening, when the wind was howling and the rain was falling in torrents, word was brought to Allen's Mabille that a poverty-stricken widow, named Dryas, with her four children, had been expelled from her poor home in Pelt street.

Mr. Allen at once hastened to the place indicated, and found the facts to be as stated. He immediately proceeded to find a place of shelter for the widow and her four mites of children, provided them with food, and furnished sufficient money to carry them through some days. On the following evening he stated the circumstances to his customers, and a purse of fifty dollars was immediately subscribed—Mr. Allen heading the subscription with ten dollars.

"The" Allen, as he is called, is one of the most generous-hearted and charitable of men. And he does not publish his benefactions to the world. Were it not that a reporter of the Dispatch was in the Mabille on last Tuesday evening, nothing would have been known to the world of his charity to the widow and orphans. From a later visit, the reporter learned that every Wednesday evening Mr. Allen distributes to some twenty pensioners—people about whom he has inquired personally and whom he knows to be worthy objects of charity—money, food and clothing.

There are people in this city who think that men who sell drink are unworthy of countenance; that they are all hard-hearted wretches and without thought of aught but money-making. How many of this sort are as generous as Mr. Allen? How many of them would have left their warm firesides on such a pelting pitiless night as that of Tuesday to succor poor houseless and starving wretches? Mr. Allen has run his Mabille for six years, and during that time no disorder has occurred in his place, no one has been arrested in it, nor has any charge been made against the way in which it has been conducted. He is too honest a man himself to see any one wronged, and too moderate in his habits to permit liquor to be sold to those already under its influence.