Daily Intelligencer

A Senator on Poverty as a Crime.

Here is an elegant extract of a recent speech by Senator Wigfall, of Texas:

'It was popular to talk of the poor. Poverty, he said, was a crime. The man who was poor had sinned, and there was a screw loose in his head' somewhere. He would amend the title of the bill to read, 'for the encouragement of crime, providing for criminals and violating the constitution.' It was popular, he repeated, to talk of the bone and sinew of the land, of wool hats and brogans, but poverty was a crime. He would not pander to prejudice by such talk. The bill provided for the purlieus of London, the Five Points of New York, and criminals who violate the law when they get on the lands. The bill provides for those who could not provide for themselves.

Gentlemen tried to be popular in the introduction of such a bill. It was a great mistake of any man to suppose that the people had no sense.— (Laughter.) These lands would be occupied by the outpourings of jails, &c., and when they were represented in Congress, he would like to see the man who wore the ermine. Great God! what a sight it would be.'

Somebody asked Wigfall if Texas had not set the example by donating public lands. They didn't catch Wigfall that way.

He slipped the bridle and run, like this:

'Texas could please her own fancy. She had a right to do as she pleased with her own property, to give it to a missionary society, to publish a Bible or gamble it off in hell. (Laughter.) Texas was a free sovereign State, and exercised rights which were not delegated to this miserable one horse concern in Washington.' (Renewed laughter.)