Woodside, the North End of Newark, N.J.: Its History, Legends and Ghost Stories Gathered from the Records and the Older Inhabitants Now LivingHine, C. G. (Charles Gilbert)
History
Woodside, the North End of Newark, N.J.: Its History, Legends and Ghost Stories Gathered from the Records and the Older Inhabitants Now Living
Hine, C. G. (Charles Gilbert)
Hine, C. C. (Charles Cole), 1825-1897; Woodside (Newark, N.J.) -- History
His contempt for money, except for the good it could be made to do, was
genuine and deep seated. His charities, considering his limited income,
were boundless, as evidenced by his check stubs after his death. An
examination of these showed merely that the $50 or $100 had gone to “an
old friend”, or were marked with the one word “charity”. While in many
cases money thus handed out was ostensibly loaned, Mr. Hine early
learned never to expect its return, and he was seldom disappointed. One
of his pet aphorisms, “gratitude is a lively sense of favors to come”,
was frequently applied to this situation.
The fact that he was imposed on and defrauded by charity fakirs time and
again never made any difference; the next time he would take chances
rather than run the risk of not helping where help was needed. He often
said that “he could swallow anything he could get through his shirt
collar”, and his shirt collar was a mighty easy affair, as many “a
friend in need” discovered.
On the other hand, no matter how much it might curtail his income by
antagonizing a customer, he would hit every head in sight if he thought
it deserved it, and he knew how to hit—none better. He had a way of
grasping a situation and clarifying its follies or crooked features that
was at times merciless.
As before stated, Mr. Hine’s opportunities for school education were
limited in his youth. On the other hand, his knowledge was almost
universal. How he kept abreast of the times as he did was a mystery,
even to his own family, for he had no time to read, beyond his morning
and evening paper between home and office. His evenings, when not filled
with church matters, were largely taken up by those who were ever
calling on him for help and who never went away without receiving the
best he had to give, whether they were young or old, or the poorest of
the poor. He would explain a matter to a child with as much courtesy and
patience as to an adult.
On one occasion when he was confined to the house with some slight
indisposition a small girl appeared at the back door with a straggling
bunch of field flowers in her hand and handed it in with the simple
message, “Tell Mr. Hine that I love him”. Hardly anything could have
touched the recipient more deeply, and yet that small girl voiced a
sentiment that was almost universal among those who knew him best.
Mr. Hine was as punctilious in doing for his own boys as for the church,
and while he believed in making them earn those things they desired,
that they might the more fully appreciate them, he always stood by his
agreements, not only in letter but in spirit. His idea seems to have
been to make the boy feel satisfied that he had been given a square
deal. Possibly one or two small instances will do no harm here:—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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