Carlyle

The selection in the book from Thomas Carlyle’s Gospel of Mammonism has really stuck with me over the course these readings, because it really made me wonder what it takes for people to consider others human. When this poor Irish Widow goes about to seek help no one sees her as anyone of great importance, but once she has infected 17 people with her typhoid fever, she is then seen as a problem that must be taken care of. If she had simply received some attention before she herself contracted the typhoid fever, so many lives could have been saved, but people are only concerned with things that affect them directly. The poverty of others is often not something people worry about, but the disease that could spread from a dead body is something that gets people’s attention. I know in today’s society it is hard to help people on the street, because of the fear that people live in each day. One never can tell any more which person generally needs help, which person is running a scam, and which person might be out to hurt someone, but this woman was not begging on the street. She was seeking out help in the right places, but they were obviously not the right places because her pleas were ignored. People must try to eliminate these feelings of isolationism because there are people that need assistance. I am not advocating giving away full paychecks to people on the streets because there is no telling what might happen to it, and above all people must be responsible to their own families, but I am sure most people could afford to give a little to these “Charitable Establishments” (480). It is paramount that these establishments have the funds to operate, but it is also the public’s responsibility to ensure that these establishments are doing their jobs in an appropriate fashion. Obviously in the case of the Irish Widow, corruption had completely overtaken Edinburgh, and so she received no assistance even though these kinds of places had already been established. They must be kept in check by the people in order to insure they are truly taking care of the needy, because as the only societal creatures who can express empathy and compassion, people do have some responsibility to the well-being of others, even if those less fortunate do not affect us directly.