Herman Melville on Pauperism

“In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers.”

“The miseries of poverty are no longer glossed over by such political assurances as Redburn's belief that “to be a born American citizen seems a guarantee against pauperism; and this, perhaps, springs from the virtue of a vote.”