Strictly Business: More Stories of the Four Million
John Stuart Mill · en
When Jacob first began to compare the eyes of needles with the camels
in the Zoo he decided upon organized charity. He had his secretary send
a check for one million to the Universal Benevolent Association of the
Globe. You may have looked down through a grating in front of a decayed
warehouse for a nickel that you had dropped through. But that is
neither here nor there. The Association acknowledged receipt of his
favor of the 24th ult. with enclosure as stated. Separated by a double
line, but still mighty close to the matter under the caption of
“Oddities of the Day’s News” in an evening paper, Jacob Spraggins read
that one “Jasper Spargyous” had “donated $100,000 to the U. B. A. of
G.” A camel may have a stomach for each day in the week; but I dare not
venture to accord him whiskers, for fear of the Great Displeasure at
Washington; but if he have whiskers, surely not one of them will seem
to have been inserted in the eye of a needle by that effort of that
rich man to enter the K. of H. The right is reserved to reject any and
all bids; signed, S. Peter, secretary and gatekeeper.
Next, Jacob selected the best endowed college he could scare up and
presented it with a $200,000 laboratory. The college did not maintain a
scientific course, but it accepted the money and built an elaborate
lavatory instead, which was no diversion of funds so far as Jacob ever
discovered.
The faculty met and invited Jacob to come over and take his A B C
degree. Before sending the invitation they smiled, cut out the C, added
the proper punctuation marks, and all was well.
While walking on the campus before being capped and gowned, Jacob saw
two professors strolling nearby. Their voices, long adapted to indoor
acoustics, undesignedly reached his ear.
“There goes the latest _chevalier d’industrie_,” said one of them, “to
buy a sleeping powder from us. He gets his degree to-morrow.”
“_In foro conscientiæ_,” said the other. “Let’s ’eave ’arf a brick at
’im.”
Jacob ignored the Latin, but the brick pleasantry was not too hard for
him. There was no mandragora in the honorary draught of learning that
he had bought. That was before the passage of the Pure Food and Drugs
Act.
Jacob wearied of philanthropy on a large scale.
“If I could see folks made happier,” he said to himself—“If I could see
’em myself and hear ’em express their gratitude for what I done for ’em
it would make me feel better. This donatin’ funds to institutions and
societies is about as satisfactory as dropping money into a broken slot
machine.”
So Jacob followed his nose, which led him through unswept streets to
the homes of the poorest.