* The attention of the Morning Advertiser readers was, in the issue of February 27th, called to two sets of facts transpiring contemporaneously in this city. One was the starving condition of four hundred cloakmakers who had struck because they could not live on reduced wages. Arbitration had failed; two hundred of the number, seeing starvation staring them in the face, were forced to give up the fight, and the remaining number continued to do battle for higher wages While these cloakmakers were in the extremity of destitution, millionaires were engaged in subscribing to a fund "for the extension of the church." The extension committee, received at the home of Jay Gould, had met with such signal success as to cause comment throughout the city. The host subscribed ten thousand dollars, his daughter twenty-five hundred and the assembled guests sums ranging between five hundred and one thousand. The Morning Advertiser made inquiry as to whether any of the money contributed for the extension of the church would find its way into the pockets of the hungry cloakmakers. Dr. John Hall said he did not have time to discuss the matter of aiding the needy poor, as there were so many other things that demanded his immediate attention. Mr. Warner Van Norden, Treasurer of the Church Extension Committee, was seen at his office in the North American Bank, of which institution he is President. He took the view that the cloakmakers had brought their trouble upon themselves, and it was not the duty of the charitable to extend to them direct aid. Generally speaking, he was not in favor of helping the poor and needy of the city, save in the way employed by the church. "The experience of centuries, said he, "teaches us that the giving of alms to the poor only encourage them in their idleness and their crimes. The duty of the church is to save men's a souls, and to minister to their bodies incidentally. "It is best to teach people to rely upon their own resources. If the poor felt that they could get material help, they would want it always. In these days if a man or woman can't get along it's their own fault. There is my typewriter. She was brought up in a tenement house. Now she gets two dollars a day, and dresses better than did the lords and ladies of other times. You'll find that where people are poor, it's their own fault. "After all, happiness does not lie in the enjoyment of material things--it is the soul that makes life worth living. You should come to our Working Girls' Club and see this fact illustrated. There you will see girls who have been working all day, singing hymns and following the leader in prayer."