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 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 NEW YORK and LONDON. 
 
Questions of the Day.— No. xiil 
 
 PUBLIC RELIEF 
 
 AND 
 
 PRIVATE CHARITY 
 
 JOSEPHIXE SHAW LOWELL 
 
 
 NEW YORK &. LOXDON 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 Z\t Jinichtrbotktr ^Ucss 
 
 1SS4 
 
3/ 
 
 
 3>/ .. 
 
 
 ■^■■^ J 
 
 
 Copyright 1S84, 
 
 
 BY 
 
 G. 
 
 p. PUTNAxVrS SONS 
 

 In compliance with current copyright 
 
 law, U. C. Library Bindery produced 
 
 this replacement volume on paper 
 
 that meets ANSI Standard Z39.48- 
 
 1984 to replace the irreparably 
 
 deteriorated original 
 
 1998 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 I have compiled this Httle book because I be- 
 lieve some such restatement of the principles upon 
 which the Modern methods of Charity are based is 
 needed. 
 
 There is not, perhaps, an original thought or 
 suggestion in it : — an important part of it is direct 
 and verbal quotation ; and to every student of 
 the subject it will be apparent that almost the 
 whole of it is taken from thewritines of wise men 
 and women who have lived during the past hun- 
 dred years. Yet I do not apologize for offering it 
 to my fellow workers and the public, for there is 
 nowhere a small book in which the principles un- 
 derlying our science can be found clearly- stated. 
 
 I speak of " our science," because fortunately 
 the task of dealing with the poor and degraded 
 has become a science, and has its well defined prin- 
 ciples, recognized and conformed to, (more or less 
 closely, by all who really give time^and thought 
 to the subject. 
 
 From all parts of the world the testimony of the 
 experts is the same, and it is this fact which makes 
 our task so encouraofincr. We have set ourselves 
 to work to "strengthen such as do stand, to com- 
 fort and help the weak-hearted, and to raise up 
 those who fall," and to have found out how this is 
 to be done, is to have taken one step, at least, 
 toward success. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART I. PUBLIC RELIEF. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Public Outdoor Relief— Theory . . . i 
 
 II. " " " Practice in England '. 9 
 
 III. " " " " IN Europe and 
 
 the United States . . . .49 
 
 IV. Public Outdoor Relief— Conclusions . . 58 
 V. Public Relief — Principles . . . .70 
 
 PART II. PRIVATE CHARITY. 
 
 CHAPTEB PAGE 
 
 I. Institutions . . . . . .84 
 
 II. Principles and Rules . ... 88 
 
 III. Methods in Country and City . . . • 97 
 
 IV. Practical Suggestions . . . .101 
 
PART I. PUBLIC RELIEF. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Public Outdoor Relief. 
 
 THEORY. 
 
 The only justification for the spending of public 
 money is, that the result is a public benefit, that is, 
 that it is better for the whole mass of the people 
 that the money should be spent. 
 
 It is not right to tax one part of the community 
 for the benefit of another part ; it is not right to 
 take money by law from one man and give it to 
 another, unless for the benefit of both. The public 
 funds are always somebody's money ; they are 
 composed of the taxes which are very often hard 
 to pay, or it would be safe to say, which are usually 
 hard to pay ; for the men to whom the payment of 
 taxes is an unimportant item are the exceptions in 
 every community, and pay but a very small pro- 
 portion of the amount raised by taxation. The 
 bulk comes from the many, who are struggling to 
 keep or to obtain their own homes, and to whom 
 a slight increase or decrease is a great matter. 
 
2 PUBLIC RELIEF AND PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 Therefore, the policy of public poor relief, or 
 the feeding and maintenance of one part of the 
 people, by money taken by law from the rest, can 
 be justified, only on the ground that it is better 
 both for those who are so fed and maintained, and 
 for those who supply the food and maintenance, 
 that this should be done. 
 
 There are persons who argue that compulsory 
 or public relief in all its forms, tends in the end to 
 do harm, by diminishing prudence and industry, in 
 consequence of removing, not only the most press- 
 ing incentive to those virtues (the fear of suffering 
 and starvation), but also by diminishing the re- 
 wards of industry and forethought, which is neces- 
 sarily done, when a part of what they gain is seized 
 upon to feed indolence and improvidence. Those 
 who argue thus, are undoubtedly right in the ab- 
 stract, but they forget, apparently, that there are 
 in every community, persons who cannot maintain 
 themselves, and who have no friends upon whom 
 they have a claim, and that it would not be well, 
 even for others, that these should be driven to des- 
 peration by the absolute pressure of want ; in this 
 view, public relief is a benefit to the whole people, 
 acting as a preventive of violence. Those who ob- 
 ject to public relief in all its forms, also seem to 
 forget that human pity is imperative, and that were 
 there no final resort for those who cannot maintain 
 themselves, nor assurance against their dying by 
 
PUBLIC OUTDOOR RELIEF. 3 
 
 Starvation, it would be absolutely impossible to re- 
 fuse food and money to all who asked for it. They 
 would ask on the ground that they were starving, 
 and the possibility that such might be the case 
 would open every hand, and in this way a far 
 greater temptation to idleness, improvidence and 
 fraud would be afforded, than any public relief sys- 
 tem could present, and a larger share of the earn- 
 ings of hard-worked men and women would be 
 absorbed by idleness and vice. 
 
 It will scarcely be denied by any one that, if 
 possible, all the members of any civilized com- 
 munity must live. To live, they must be maintain- 
 ed by the produce of those members who work, 
 and so create the means of living. The question 
 is as to the way in which this produce shall be 
 taken from those who create it, and given to 
 those who can not create it. Shall it be done 
 systematically, so that it will supply only those 
 who actually can not create it, and thus reduce the 
 amount to be taken to a minimum, or shall it be 
 distributed by the producers themselves, who will 
 be a prey to all who pretend that they can not 
 create it ? In other words, shall there or shall there 
 not be public relief ? 
 
 In Ireland, before the establishment of any poor- 
 law, one cause of the suffering of the cottiers, as 
 stated by Sir George Nichols, author of the His- 
 tory of the English, Scotch and Irish Poor-laws, 
 
4 PUBLIC RELIEF AND PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 was the extraordinary number of beggars, who in- 
 vaded every cabin, and were maintained by those 
 nearly as poor as themselves, and in every com- 
 munity the amount given to unknown and often 
 unworthy beggars is undoubtedly a decided tax 
 on industry, which would be increased almost in- 
 definitely, were there no public and systematized 
 means of relieving the poor. Public relief, then, 
 appears to be not only a benefit to the whole com- 
 munity, but a necessity. The next point is as to 
 the best form it can assume, and to decide upon 
 this, it is necessary to define clearly the objects of 
 public relief. They seem to be all included under 
 the following heads : 
 
 1. To provide that no one shall starve, or shall 
 suffer for the absolute physical necessaries of 
 life. 
 
 2. To make this provision in such a way as 
 shall do as little moral harm as possible, both 
 to the recipient of relief and to the community 
 at large. 
 
 3. To use every means to render the necessity 
 for relief of short duration. 
 
 4. To take as small a sum from the tax-paying 
 (that is the working) part of the community as is 
 consistent with the accomplishment of the first 
 three objects. 
 
 5. To convince the community that all these 
 objects are attained, and that consequently, they 
 
PUBLIC OUTDOOR RELIEF. 5 
 
 need not take upon themselves the provision of 
 the necessaries of life for those who have no direct 
 or personal claim upon them. 
 
 Such being the objects, how are they to be at- 
 tained ? What are the methods by which public 
 relief may be wisely given — that is, by which a 
 certain part of the people may be fed and main- 
 tained by the rest? 
 
 There are only two methods with which we 
 need now to concern ourselves — these are out- 
 door relief and relief in a work-house or alms- 
 house, or in other words, relief given to poor 
 persons at their own homes (outside the doors of 
 the work-house or alms-house) and relief adminis- 
 tered inside of an institution, built and maintained 
 at the public expense and controlled by public 
 officials. 
 
 It would seem that, a priori, ever}- argument 
 was in favor of the first method — of out-door 
 relief. Given, a community of which some of the 
 members are to be fed and clothed at the cost of 
 the rest, it would be said at once, that the right 
 and simple way was to furnish to them, in their 
 own homes, such relief as they required, and that 
 in this way, all the objects aimed at would be 
 attained. 
 
 1. They would be saved from star\'ation or 
 sufferino-. 
 
 2. Neither they, nor any other person, would 
 
6 PUBLIC RELIEF AND PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 suffer moral injury, because they, living in their 
 own homes, would not be brought in close contact 
 with any one else, either to corrupt or be corrupted 
 — none of the natural relations, either of the 
 family or the community, would be interrupted. 
 
 3. The relief would be of short duration, because, 
 the need having passed, the relief would stop as a 
 matter of course. 
 
 4. It would be much the cheapest method of 
 giving relief, because all the expense incurred 
 would be for absolute necessaries, food, fuel and 
 clothing, and even this would be reduced to a 
 minimum, because often all that would be required 
 would be a small sum to supplement the means of 
 livine, which would be cut off were relief inside 
 an institution to be substituted; while in the latter 
 case, the cost of the building and of supervision 
 would also have to be added. 
 
 5. The public w^ould certainly be satisfied when 
 assured that the wants of every poor person were 
 supplied at their own homes ; while on the other 
 hand the public would certainly not be reconciled 
 to the fact that, simply because a man was poor, 
 therefore his home was to be broken up, and he 
 and his family be sent into a work-house to become 
 paupers. 
 
 These are the arguments on the side of out-door 
 relief ; arguments v/hich, as arguments, are un- 
 answerable. Considered a priori, the decision 
 
PUBLIC OUTDOOR RELIEF, 7 
 
 would seem to be inevitably in favor of out-door 
 relief. Fortunately, however, or unfortunately, 
 considering the results of experiment, the effect 
 on a community of out-door relief is not a field for 
 a priori argument ; not only in our own country 
 have partial experiments in this direction been 
 made, but in other countries, more especially in 
 England, has the whole question been put to a 
 practical test and proved to the very extreme of 
 danger, the results being the exact opposite of 
 what it seemed reasonable to expect. 
 
 About the end of the last century, the upper 
 and middle classes of England, reasoning a priori 
 (and influenced, undoubtedly, by the French 
 Revolution) came to the conclusion that every man 
 ought to be able to make a living for himself and 
 his family, and that, if he could not make it, it 
 should be furnished him ; they not only came to 
 this conclusion, but they acted upon it, and for 
 about fifty years there was no man in England 
 who, however idle, vicious or even dangerous he 
 might be, could not obtain from the "Rates" 
 (that is, the taxes on land) the means of support- 
 ing himself and his family of six, or ten, or twenty 
 children and grandchildren. 
 
 Instead, however, of increased comfort and 
 prosperity and of diminished suffering, the tide of 
 poverty, most unaccountably, rose higher and 
 hio-her, and the flood of pauperism seemed about 
 
8 PUBLIC RELIEF AND PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 to engulf not only the paupers themselves, but the 
 whole population of England. 
 
 There was not only a constant failure of all the 
 efforts to check pauperism and crime, but the 
 anomaly was apparently presented that the very 
 efforts intended to check them merely served to 
 increase them. 
 
 Such a state of things could not fail to attract 
 the attention of the statesmen and philanthropists 
 of the time, and throughout this whole period 
 (from 1790 to 1834) there are writings and reports 
 of all kinds upon the subject, both from irrespon- 
 sible persons and by commissions appointed by 
 Parliament, all presenting the same picture of 
 unmitigated woe and deep and growing degradation. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 Public Outdoor Relief Practice in England. 
 
 As early as 1 798, Malthus wrote : 
 
 "Fortunately for England a spirit of independence 
 still remains among the peasantry. The poor laws are 
 strongly calculated to eradicate this spirit. They have 
 succeeded in part ; but had they succeeded as completely 
 as might have been expected, their pernicious tendency 
 would not have been so long concealed. 
 
 "Hard as it may appear in individual instances, depend- 
 ent poverty ought to be held disgraceful. Such a stimu- 
 lus seems to be absolutely necessary to promote the hap- 
 piness of the great mass of mankind ; and every- general 
 attempt to weaken this stimulus, however benevolent its 
 intention, will always defeat its own purpose. If men be 
 induced to marry from the mere prospect of parish pro- 
 vision, they are not only unjustly tempted to bring un- 
 happiness and dependence upon themselves and their 
 children, but they are tempted without knowing it, to in- 
 jure all in the same class with themselves. 
 
 " The parish laws of England appear to have contributed 
 to raise the price of provisions, and to lower the real price of 
 labor. They havetherefore contributed to impoverish that 
 classof people whose only possession is their labor. It is 
 also difficult to suppose that they have not powerfully con- 
 tributed to generate that carelessness and want of frugal- 
 ity, observable among the poor, so contrary to the dispo- 
 
lo PUBLIC RELIEF AND PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 sition generally to be remarked among petty tradesmen 
 and small farmers. The laboring poor, to use a common 
 expression, seem always to live from hand to mouth. 
 Their present wants employ their whole attention ; and 
 they seldom think ot the future. Even when they have 
 an opportunity of saving they seldom exercise it ; but all 
 that they earn beyond their present necessities goes, gen- 
 erally speaking, to the ale-house. The poor laws may 
 therefore be said to diminish both the power and the will 
 to save among the common people, and thus to weaken 
 one of the strongest incentives to sobriety and industry, 
 and consequently to happiness. -st * ■;«■ % 
 
 " The poor laws of England were undoubtedly instituted 
 for the most benevolent purpose ; but it is evident they 
 have failed in attaining it. They certainly mitigate some 
 cases of severe distress which might otherwise occur, 
 though the state of the poor who are supported by par- 
 ishes, considered in all its circumstances, is very miserable. 
 But one of the principal objections to the system is, that 
 for the assistance which some of the poor receive, in it- 
 self almost a doubtful blessing, the whole class of com- 
 mon people of England is subject to a set of grating, in- 
 convenient, and tyrannical laws, totally inconsistent with 
 the genuine spirit of the constitution. 
 
 "The whole business of settlements, even in its present 
 amended state, is contradictory to all ideas of freedom. 
 The parish persecution of men whose families are liable 
 to become chargeable, and of poor women who are near 
 lying in, is a most disgraceful and disgusting tryanny. 
 And the obstructions continually occasioned in the mar- 
 ket of labor by these laws have a constant tendency to 
 add to the difficulties of those who are struggling to sup- 
 port themselves without assistance." 
 
O UTDOOR RELIEF PRACTICE IN ENGLAND. 1 1 
 
 In 1817 a Parliamentary Committee, appointed 
 to inquire into the condition of the Poor, and pre- 
 sided over by Mr. Sturges Bourne, presented a 
 Report from which extracts are given below : 
 
 "A compulsory contribution for the indigent from the 
 funds originally accumulated from the labor and industry 
 of others could not fail in process of time, with the in- 
 crease of population which it was calculated to foster, to 
 produce the unfortunate effect of abating those exertions 
 on the part of the laboring classes on which, according to 
 the nature of things, the happiness and welfare of man- 
 kind have been made to rest. By diminishing this natu- 
 ral impulse by which men are instigated to industry and 
 good conduct, by superseding the necessity of providing 
 in the season of health and vigor for the wants of sickness 
 and old age, and by making poverty and misery the con- 
 ditions on Avhich relief is to be obtained, your committee 
 can not but fear, from a reference to the increased num- 
 bers of the poor, and the increased and increasing amount 
 of the sums raised for their relief, that this system is per- 
 petually encouraging and increasing the amount of mis- 
 ery it was designed to alleviate, creating at the same time 
 an unlimited demand on funds which it cannot augment ; 
 and as every system of relief founded on compulsory en- 
 actments must be divested of the character of benevo- 
 lence, so it is without its beneficial effects; as it proceeds 
 from no impulse of charity, it creates no feeling of grati- 
 tude, and not unfrequently engenders dispositions and 
 habits calculated to separate rather than unite the inter- 
 ests of the higher and lower orders of the community; 
 even the obligations of natural affection are no longer 
 left to their own impulse, but the mutual support of the 
 
12 PUBLIC RELIEF AND PRIVATE CHARITY. 
 
 nearest relations has been actually enjoined by a positive 
 law, which the authority of magistrates is continually re- 
 quired to enforce. 
 
 " The progress of these evils, which are inherent in the 
 system itself, appears to have been favored by the cir- 
 cumstances of modern times, by an extension of the law in 
 practice, and by some deviations from its most important 
 provisions. How much of the complaints which have been 
 referred to your committee may be attributable to one 
 cause or the other it is perhaps not easy to ascertain. 
 The result, however, appears to have been highly preju- 
 dicial to the moral habits, and consequent happiness, of 
 a great body of the people, who have been reduced to 
 the degradation of a dependence upon parochial support, 
 while the rest of the community, including the most 
 industrious class, has been oppressed by a weight 
 of contribution taken from those very means which 
 would otherwise have been applied more beneficiall)'' 
 to the supply of employment, and as the funds which 
 each person can expend in labor are limited in proportion 
 as the poor rate diminishes those funds, in the same pro- 
 portion will the wages of labor be reduced to the imme- 
 diate and direct prejudice of the laboring classes; the 
 system thus producing the very necessity which it is 
 created to relieve." 
 
 Still, however, the evils described, continued to 
 grow, and in Feburary 1832, a Commission was 
 appointed by the Crown and was directed to " make 
 a diligent and full inquiry into the practical opera- 
 tion of the laws for the relief of the poor in Eng- 
 land and Wales, and into the manner in which 
 
OUTDOOR RELIEF PRACTICE IN EiVGLAA'D. 13 
 
 those laws are administered, and to report whether 
 any and what alterations, amendments or improve- 
 ments may be beneficially made in the said laws, or 
 in the manner of administering them and how the 
 same may be best carried into effect." 
 
 The following account of the powers and action 
 of the Commissioners is taken from " The History 
 of the English Poor Law," by Sir George Nichols: 
 
 *" They were empowered to appoint assistant or itiner- 
 ant commissioners to visit the several districts both urban 
 and rural, and report the practices which they found to 
 prevail, so that the different modes in which relief was 
 administered in different parts of the country, and the 
 effects produced in each case, might become known, and 
 serve as guides in framing any measure which the com- 
 missioners might deem it necessary to recommend. The 
 assistants were appointed and instructed in the nature of 
 the duties required from them with as little delay as pos- 
 sible, and queries were likewise extensively circulated 
 throughout the country, the returns to which afforded 
 much valuable information. 
 
 " The subject to be inquired into was, however, so large 
 and complicated, that much time was unavoidably oc- 
 cupied in preparation, and in what may be called prelimi- 
 nary matters, producing no immediate result. But on the 
 19th of March, 1833, in compliance with a request to that 
 effect, the commissioners presented to the government a 
 volume of extracts, containing generally the substance of 
 the information they had up to that time received, and 
 which, although comprising only a small portion of the 
 evidence in their possession, they declared it to be their 
 
14 PUBLIC RELIEF AND PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 belief, 'contained more information on the subject to 
 which it relates, than had ever yet been afforded to the 
 country.' The commissioners further remark that ' the 
 most important and certainly the most painful part of its 
 contents are the proof that the maladministration, which 
 was supposed to be principally confined to some of the 
 agricultural districts, appears to have spread over almost 
 every part of the country, and into the manufacturing 
 towns, the proof that actual intimidation, directed against 
 those who are, or are supposed to be, unfavorable to pro- 
 fuse relief, is one of the most extensive sources of malad- 
 ministration, and the proof that the evils though checked 
 in some places by extraordinary energy and talent, is on 
 the whole steadily and rapidly progressive.' 
 
 "This volume of extracts was distributed throughout 
 the country, and produced a very marked effect on the 
 public mind, the information it contained being admirably 
 selected and arranged for the purpose. It was followed 
 on the 20th of February in the succeeding year, by the 
 full and very elaborate report of the commissioners, with 
 an abridged supplement appended, and also accompanied 
 by an appendix, of which the commissioners 'remark : 
 ' The evidence contained in our appendix comes from 
 every county and almost every town, and from a ver>' 
 large proportion of even the villages in England. It is 
 derived from many thousand witnesses of ever}- rank, and 
 of every profession and employment — members of the 
 two houses of Parliament, clergymen, countr>' gentlemen 
 magistrates, farmers, manufacturers, shop-keepers, artisans 
 and peasants, differing in every conceivable degree in 
 education, habits and interests, and agreeing only in their 
 practical experience as to the matters in question, in their 
 general description both of the mode in which the laws 
 
OUTDOOR RELIEF PRACTICE IN ENGLAND. 15 
 
 for the relief of the poor are administered, and of the con- 
 sequences which have already resulted from the adminis- 
 tration, and in their anticipation of certain further conse- 
 quences from its continuance.' The commissioners then 
 declare their opinion that ' the amendment of those laws 
 is perhaps the most urgent and the most important mea- 
 sure now remaining for the consideration of parliament,* 
 and they express a hope that they shall facilitate that 
 amendment * by tendering the most extensive, and at the 
 same time, the most consistent body of evidence that was 
 ever brought to bear on a single subject,' The report is 
 signed by the bishop of London, the bishop of Chester, 
 Sturges Bourne, Nassau, W. Senior, Henry Bishop, Henry 
 Gaivler, W. Coulson, James Trail and Edward Chadwick 
 — names deserving to beheld in grateful remembrance by 
 all who love their country, and feel an interest in the wel- 
 fare of the people." 
 
 I make no excuse for giving very copious ex- 
 tracts from the Report itself, for I consider that it 
 is probably the most instructive historical docu- 
 ment in existence which relates to pauperism. 
 
 The Commissioners give the following account 
 of the gradual, growth of the practice of administer- 
 ing " Outdoor Relief." 
 
 "The histor}^ of the Poor Laws abounds with instances 
 of a legislation which has been worse than unsuccessful, 
 which has not merely failed in effecting its purposes, but 
 has been active in producing effects which were directly 
 opposed to them, has created whatever it was intended 
 to prevent and fostered whatever it was intended to dis- 
 courage. 
 
l6 PUBLIC RELIEF AND PRIVATE CHARITY. 
 
 " ' One clause in the 9 Geo. I, was however efficient in 
 promoting the objects of that Act — that which enabled 
 parishes to purchase or hire, or unite in purchasing or 
 hiring a workhouse, and to contract for the maintenance 
 there of their poor, and enacted that any persons who 
 should refuse to be lodged in such houses should not be 
 entitled to receive collection or relief. An enactment 
 which, while it was in operation, appears to have checked 
 the increase of pauperism, and in many instances to have 
 occasioned its positive diminution.' 
 
 "But towards the end of the last century, a period arrived 
 when the accidents of the seasons and other causes occa- 
 sioned a rise in the price of the necessaries of life. If 
 things had been left to take their course, the consequences 
 in England would have been what they were in Scotland, 
 and what they were with us in those occupations, which, 
 from their requiring skill, raise the workingman above the 
 region of parish relief. Wages would have risen to meet 
 the depreciation of money, and the laborer would have 
 earned the same or nearly the same amount of raw pro- 
 duce, and a larger amount of manufactured commodities. 
 
 " But things were not left to take their own course. 
 Unhappily no knowledge is so rare as the knowledge 
 when to do nothing. It requires an acquaintance 
 with general principles, a confidence in their truth, 
 and a patience of the gradual process by which ob- 
 stacles are steadily but slowly surmounted, which arc 
 among the last acquisitions of political science and exper- 
 ience. Under the 3 and 4 Will, and jMary, and 9 Geo. I., 
 or under the 5 Eliz. c.4, empowering the Justices to fix the 
 rate of wages, it appeared that the existing difficulties 
 might be instantly got rid of. The latter statute appeared 
 to enable a forced rise of wages, the former statutes ap- 
 
OUTDOOR RELIEF PRACTICE TV EXGLAND. 17 
 
 peared to enable relief to be ordered if wages should 
 remain insufficient. Each plan was proposed. Sir Fred- 
 erick Eden's account of the mode in which the latter plan 
 was adopted is so instructive that we will venture to 
 quote it. 
 
 " ' Instead of an advance in wages proportioned to the 
 increased demand for labor, the laborer has received a 
 considerable part of that portion of his employer's capital 
 which was destined for his maintenance in the form of 
 poor's rate (the very worst that it could assume) instead 
 of being paid it, as the fair, well-earned recompense of 
 equivalent labor. This is a deplorable evil, which has 
 fallen heavier on the poor than on the rich; and it has 
 been considerably aggravated by the very injudicious 
 steps which have been adopted for administering relief to 
 those whom the pressure of the late scarcity had inca- 
 pacitated from supporting themselves and families in the 
 way to which they had been accustomed. Many instances 
 might be adduced of the ill effects of the indiscriminating 
 charity of individuals, and of the no less ill effects of the 
 discriminating interference of magistrates and parish 
 officers; but that I may not swell this work to too great 
 a length, I shall content myself with offering a short 
 statement (which was obligingly communicated to me by 
 a gentleman who himself served the office of overseer in 
 his own parish), of the proceedings which took place in a 
 single county, for the relief of the poor last year. 
 
 " ' The very great price of the necessaries of life, but 
 more particularly of bread-corn, during the whole of last 
 year, produced extraordinary demands for parochial 
 assistance. In many parishes in the county of Berks 
 relief from the poor's rates was granted, not only to the 
 infirm and impotent, but to the able-bodied and industri- 
 
1 8 PUBLIC RELIEF AXD PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 ous, who had very few of them ever applied to the parish 
 for relief, and then only during temporary illness or disa- 
 bility. There was no doubt but that the circumstances 
 of the times required an increase in the income of the 
 laborers in husbandry who in this country at least com- 
 pose the most numerous body of those liable to want as- 
 sistance from the parish. But there existed a difference 
 of opinion respecting the mode of making such increase. 
 In order to apply adequate remedy to the evil, a meeting 
 of the magistrates for the county was held about Easter, 
 1795, when the following plans Avere submitted to their 
 consideration : 
 
 " ' 1st. That the magistrates should fix the lowest price 
 to be given for labor as they were empowered to do by 
 5 Eliz. c. 4; and secondly, that they should act with uni- 
 formity in the relief of the impotent and infirm poor, by 
 a table of universal practice corresponding with the sup- 
 posed necessities of each family. The first plan was re- 
 jected by a considerable majority, but the second was 
 adopted. 
 
 " ' Kad political relations not interfered, the demand for 
 labor would have raised its price, not only in a ratio 
 merely adequate to the wants of the laborer, but even 
 beyond it ; and that price would have been advanced by 
 the individual who employed him, instead of being a 
 general tax on those who are liable to be rated, and who 
 are not all employers of laborers. The capital which 
 employs labor has increased ; the demand of labor 
 would consequently increase. It did increase, for the 
 situation of the laboring poor in Berks was never better 
 than during the last hard winter ; but they received these 
 advanced wages in the way most prejudicial to their 
 moral interests ; they received it as charity, as the extorted 
 
OUTDOOR RELIEF PRACTICE IN ENGLAXD. 19 
 
 charity of others, and not as the result of their own well- 
 exerted industry; and it was paid them not by their im- 
 mediate employers, but by those who were in many 
 instances, not the employers in any labor.' 
 
 "The clause of the 9th Geo. I, c. 7, prohibiting relief to 
 those who refused to enter the workhouse was however 
 an obstacle ; to remove it the 36 Geo. 3d, c. 23 was passed. 
 That act after reciting the clause in question, proceeds 
 thus: 
 
 " ' And whereas the said provision contained in the Act 
 above-mentioned has been found to have been and to be 
 inconvenient and oppressive, inasmuch as it often prevents 
 an industrious poor person from receiving such occasional 
 relief as is best suited to the peculiar case of such poor 
 person; and inasmuch as in certain cases it holds out 
 certain conditions of relief, injurious to the comfort, and 
 domestic situation, and happiness of such poor per- 
 sons.' 
 
 "And then repeals the clause forbidding relief to those 
 who should refuse to enter the workhouse, and proceeds 
 more directly to its object by the following provision : 'And 
 be it further enacted, that it shall be lawful for any of his 
 majesty's justice or justices of the peace of any county, 
 city, town or place, usually acting in and for the district 
 wherein the same shall be situated, at his or their proper 
 discretion, to direct and order collection or relief to any 
 industrious poor person ; and he shall be entitled to ask 
 and receive such relief, at his home or house in any parish, 
 town, township or place, notwithstanding any contract, 
 shall have been or shall be made, for lodging, keeping, 
 maintaining and employing poor persons in a house for 
 such purpose hired or purchased; and the overseers for 
 such parish, town, township or place are required and 
 
2 o P UBLIC RELIEF A XD PRI VA TE CHA RI T Y. 
 
 directed to obey and perform such order for relief given 
 by any justice or justices as aforesaid.' 
 
 " Those who are irritated by the pressure of the evils 
 which allowance to the able-bodied has produced, and by 
 the apprehension of the still greater evils which it may be 
 expected to produce, are sometimes inclined to attribute 
 the most childish folly, or the most profligate dishonesty 
 to those who could aid in establishing such a system. 
 But we must not judge them according to the knowledge 
 which we have acquired in the dear-bought experience of 
 forty years. It is clear that when the magistrates assem- 
 bled at Speenhamland in 1795 * to settle the weekly in- 
 come of the industrious poor ' public opinion sanctioned 
 their attempt. This is shown by the 36th Geo. 3d, c. 23, 
 which was passed a few months after, and may be con- 
 sidered the great and fatal deviation from our previous 
 policy. The 43d Elizabeth never contemplated as objects 
 of relief industrious persons. It made no promises of 
 comfort or happiness; it directed that those having no 
 means, and using no daily trade of life to get their living 
 by, should be set to work, and that the impotent should 
 receive the necessary relief. These were unalluring offers 
 — they held out nothing but work and necessary relief, 
 and those only to the impotent, and to persons who must 
 always form a small minority in any tolerably regulated 
 society, that is persons having no property, and using no 
 daily trade. The able-bodied industrious laborer was 
 carefully excluded and relief therefore, as Mr. Pitt (in the 
 speech introducing his Poor Bill in 1796) complained 
 became a ground for opprobrium and contempt. They 
 were precise offers : — the question whether a person using 
 no trade had been set to work, or one unable to work 
 had received necessary relief, were matters of fact. The 
 
OUTDOOR RELIEF PRACTICE IX ENGLAND. 21 
 
 engagements of the 43d Elizabeth, were perhaps dangerous 
 engagements, but they were engagements which for 100 
 years were performed apparently without substantial 
 injury to the morals and industry of the laborers, or to 
 the general prosperity of the country. And whatever 
 may be the objection in principle to the power given 
 to the magistrates or assumed by them under the 3d 
 and 4th Will, and Mary, and 9th Geo. I. it does not 
 seem to have produced much practical evil while 
 the 9th Geo. I. was in force. Parochial relief appears 
 to have been given chiefly through the workhouse, 
 and not to have been extended to many besides 
 the impotent. The duty of the magistrates was tolerably 
 plain ; if the applicant fell within the classes pointed out 
 by the 43d Elizabeth as objects of relief, that is if he had 
 no property, used no ordinary or daily trade to get his 
 living b}', or was lame, impotent, blind, or otherwise not 
 able to work, he could direct him to be admitted into the 
 workhouse, and if he was included in the first class, set 
 to work by the parish officers ; or if included in the sec- 
 ond class, supplied with necessary relief. Relief was 
 considered a burden to the payers, and a degradation to 
 the receivers (and to be marked as such by a badge), a 
 remedy for unexpected calamity and a mitigation of the 
 punishment inflicted by nature on extravagance and im- 
 providence, but no part of the ordinary fund for the sup- 
 port of labor. Public opinion sanctioned the magistrate in 
 a sparing exercise of his power, and he had, in fact, no 
 motive for undue interference. The paupers were a 
 small disreputable minority, whose resentment was not 
 to be feared, and whose favor was of no value ; all other 
 classes were anxious to diminish the number of appli- 
 cants, and to reduce the expense of their maintenance. 
 
2 2 PUBLIC RELIEF AXD PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 " The 36th of Geo. 3d removed all these fences ; it recog- 
 nized as objects of relief, industrious persons, and enabled 
 the magistrate, at his just and proper discretion, to order 
 it to be given in a way which should not be injurious to 
 their comfort, domestic situation and happiness. Mr. 
 Pitt's bill went still further ; it admitted within the pale 
 of pauperism, not only the industrious laborer, but the 
 person with property, and enabled him when possessed 
 of land, not only to retain it while an applicant for relief 
 but to be supplied at the expense of the parish, with 
 a cow. It is true that this bill was dropped, but as it 
 was not an individual, but a government measure, it 
 may be cited as evidence of the general feeling on the 
 subject. 
 
 " When allowance to the able-bodied, in aid of their 
 wages had once been introduced, when it had been found 
 to be an expedient by which the expenditure in wages 
 could be reduced and profits and rents could be raised, 
 when the paupers became numerous in most districts, and 
 in some districts formed the majority and even the large 
 majority of the peasantr}^; when their clamors for al- 
 lowance were favored by the farmers, and apparently jus- 
 tified by the rise in the price of the necessaries of life, 
 who can be surprised if the magistrates were led, in some 
 places to connive at, in others to sanction, and, in still 
 more, to promote, a practice, the evil of which had not 
 then been experienced, which seemed so plausible in itself, 
 and which so many persons combined to favor? Who 
 can wonder, that thus urged and encouraged, they should 
 have fancied themselves entitled to settle the weekly 
 income of the laborers ; and who can wonder at any 
 amount of evil that has followed so preposterous an 
 attempt ? " 
 
OUTDOOR REL lEF PR A C TICE IN EXGLA ND. 2 3 
 
 Under the head of " General Remarks on Out- 
 door Relief," the Commissioners write : 
 
 "We have dwelt at some length on out-door relief, be- 
 cause it appears to be the relief now most extensively- 
 given, and because it appears to contain in itself the 
 elements of an almost indefinite extension ; of an ex- 
 tension, in short, which may ultimately absorb the whole 
 fund out of which it arises. Among the elements of ex- 
 tension are the constantly diminishing reluctance to claim 
 an apparent benefit, the receipt of which imposes no 
 sacrifice, except a sensation of shame, quickly obliterated 
 by habit, even if not prevented by example ; the difficulty 
 often amounting to impossibility, on the part of those 
 who administer and award relief, of ascertaining whether 
 any and what necessity for it exists ; and the existence in 
 many cases of positive motives on their parts to grant it 
 when unnecessary, or themselves to create the necessity. 
 The first and third of these sources of mal-administration 
 are common to the towns and to the country ; the second, 
 the difificulty of ascertaining the wants of the applicants, 
 operates most strongly in the large towns. 
 
 "From the preceding evidence it will be seen how 
 zealous must be the agency, and how intense the vigilance, 
 to prevent fraudulent claims crowding in under such a 
 system of relief. But it would require still greater vigi- 
 lance to prevent the bona fide claimants degenerating into 
 impostors : and it is an aphorism amongst the active 
 parish officers that 'cases which are good to-day are bad 
 to-morrow, unless they are incessantly svatched.* A per- 
 son obtains relief on the grounds of sickness; when he 
 has become capable of returning to moderate work he is 
 tempted by the enjoyment of subsistence without labor. 
 
24 PUBLIC RELIEF AND PRIVATE CHARITY. 
 
 to conceal his convalescence, and fraudulently extend the 
 period of relief. When it really depends upon the re- 
 ceivers whether the relief shall cease with its occasion, it 
 is too much to expect of their virtue that they shall in 
 any considerable number of instances, voluntarily forego 
 the pension." 
 
 The Commissioners describe* the effects of out- 
 door relief on " Laborers actually relieved," and 
 " Not actually relieved." 
 
 " It gives him (the pauper) also, strange as it may ap- 
 pear, a sort of independence. He need not bestir himself 
 to seek work ; he need not study to please his master ; he 
 need not put any restraint upon his temper; he need not 
 ask relief as a favor. He has all a slave's security for 
 subsistence without his liability to punishment. As a 
 single man indeed, his income does not exceed a bare 
 subsistence ; but he has only to marry, and it increases. 
 Even then it is unequal to the support of a family ; but it 
 rises on the birth of every child. If his family is numer- 
 ous the parish becomes his principal paymaster ; for small 
 as the usual allowance of 2 s. a head may be, yet, when 
 there are more than three children, it generally exceeds 
 the average wages given in a pauperized district. A man 
 with a wife and six children, entitled according to the 
 scale, to have his wages made up to i6 s. a week, in a 
 parish where the wages paid by individuals do not ex- 
 ceed lo or 12 s. is almost an irresponsible being. All the 
 other classes of society are exposed to the vicissitudes of 
 hope and fear ; he alone has nothing to lose or gain." 
 
 " In Coggeshall, Essex," says Mr. Magendie, " weekly 
 wages are 8 s. but by piece-work a good laborer may earn 
 10 s. Now consider the case of laborers with four chil- 
 
OUTDOOR RELIEF PR A C TICE IN ENGLA ND. 25 
 
 dren, for the subsistence of which family (according to the 
 Chelmsford scale, which is the law of that district,) 1 1 s. 
 and 6 d. is required. Of this sum the good laborer earns 
 10 s., and receives from the parish i s. 6 d. The inferior 
 laborer earns 8 s., and receives from the parish 3 s. 6 d. 
 The man who does not work, and whom no one will em- 
 ploy, receives the whole from the parish. 
 
 "Other classes of society are restrained from misconduct 
 by fear of the evils which may result to their families. 
 Parochial legislation rejects this sanction. In Barnard 
 Castle, in Northumberland, Mr. Wilson states that if any 
 remonstrance is made on account of the applicant's bad 
 character the reply of the magistrate commonly is 'the 
 children must not suffer for it.' 
 
 " The answer given by the magistrates when a man's 
 bad conduct is urged by the overseer against his relief is, 
 ' We can not help that ; his wife and family are not to suf- 
 fer because the ma"n has done wrong.' 
 
 " Too frequently petty thieving, drunkenness or im- 
 pertinence to a master throw able-bodied laborers, per- 
 haps with large families, on the parish funds, when relief 
 is demanded as a right, and if refused, enforced by a mag- 
 istrate's order, without reference to the cause which has 
 produced his distress, viz.; his own misconduct, which re- 
 mains as a barrier to his obtaining any fresh situation, 
 and leaves him a dead weight upon the honesty and in- 
 dustry of his parish. 
 
 " It appears to the pauper that the government has un- 
 dertaken to repeal, in his favor, the ordinary laws of 
 nature ; to enact that the children shall not suffer for the 
 misconduct of their parents — the wife for that of the 
 husband, or the husband for that of the wife ; that no one 
 shall lose the means of comfortable subsistence, whatever 
 
26 PUBLIC RELIEF AND PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 be his indolence, prodigality or vice; in short, that the 
 penalty, which, after all must be paid by some one for 
 idleness and improvidence is to fall, not on the guilty 
 person or his family, but on the proprietors of the lands 
 and houses encumbered by his settlements. Can we 
 wonder if the uneducated are seduced into approving a 
 system which aims its allurements at all the weakest parts 
 of our nature, which offers marriage to the young, security 
 to the anxious, ease to the lazy, and impunity to the 
 profligate ? 
 
 " We have seen that one of the objects attempted by the 
 present administration of the Poor Law is to repeal pro 
 tanto that law of nature by which the effects of each man's 
 improvidence or misconduct are borne by himself and his 
 family. The effect of that attempt has been to repeal /r^ 
 tanto the law by which each man and his family enjoy the 
 benefit of his own prudence and virtue. In abolishing 
 punishment we equally abolish reward. Under the opera- 
 tion of the scale system — the system which directs the 
 overseer to regulate the income of the laborers according 
 to their families — idleness, improvidence and extravagance 
 occasion no loss, and consequently diligence and economy 
 can afford no gain. But to say merely that these virtues 
 afford no gain is an inadequate expression ; they are often 
 the causes of absolute loss. We have seen that in many 
 places, the income derived from the parish for easy or 
 nominal work, or, as it is most significantly termed " in 
 lieu of labor," actiially exceeds that of the independent 
 laborer ; and even in those cases in which the relief 
 money only equals, or nearly approaches the average rate 
 of wages, it is often better worth having, as the pauper 
 requires less expensive diet and clothing than the hard- 
 working man. In such places a man who does not possess 
 
OUTDOOR RELIEF PR A C TICE IN ENGLAND. 2 7 
 
 either some property or an amount of skill which will en- 
 sure to him more than the average rate of wages, is of 
 course a loser by preserving his independence. Even if 
 he have some property he is a loser, unless the aggregate 
 of the income which it affords and of his wages equal what 
 he would receive as a pauper. It appears accordingly that 
 when a parish has become pauperized, the laborers are 
 not only prodigal of their earnings, not only avoid ac- 
 cumulation, but even dispose of and waste in debauchery 
 as soon as their families entitle them to allowance, any 
 small property which may have devolved on them, or 
 which they may have saved in happier times. Self-respect, 
 however, is not yet so utterly destroyed among the En- 
 glish peasantry as to make this universal. 
 
 " But though the injustice perpetrated on the man who 
 struggles, as far as he can struggle, against the oppression 
 of the system, who refuses as far as he can refuse, to be 
 its accomplice, is at first sight the most revolting ; the 
 severest sufferers are those who have become callous to 
 their own degradation, who value parish support as their 
 privilege, and demand it as their right, and complain only 
 that it is limited in amount, or that some sort of labor or 
 confinement is exacted in return. No man's principles 
 can be corrupted without injury to society in general; 
 but the person most injured is the person whose principles 
 have been corrupted. The constant war which the pauper 
 has to wage with all who employ or pay him, is destruc- 
 tive to his honesty and his temper; as his subsistence 
 does not depend upon his exertions, he loses all that 
 sweetens labor, its association with reward, and gets 
 through his work, such as it is, with the reluctance of a 
 slave. His pay, earned by importunity or fraud, or even 
 violence, is not husbanded with the carefulness which 
 
28 PUBLIC RELIEF AND PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 would be given to the results of industry, but wasted in the 
 intemperance to which his ample leisure invites him. The 
 ground on which relief is ordered to the idle and dissolute 
 is, that the wife and family must not suffer for the vices 
 of the head of the family ; but as that relief is almost 
 always given into the hands of the vicious husband or 
 parent, this excuse is^ obviously absurd. It appears from 
 the evidence that the great supporters of the beer-shops 
 are the paupers. * Wherever,' says Mr. Lawrence, of Hen- 
 field, ' the laborers are unemployed, the beer-shops of the 
 parish are frequented by them.' And it is a striking fact 
 that in Cholesbury, where, out of 139 individuals, only 35 
 persons, of all ages, including the clergyman and his 
 family, are supported by their own exertions there are 
 two public houses." 
 
 " Hundreds of instances," says Mr. Okeden, " came un- 
 der my observation, in which the overseers knew that 
 the wages and parish allowance were spent in two nights 
 at the beer-houses, which ought to have been the week's 
 subsistence for the whole family. Still no steps are taken, 
 the scale is referred to, and acted on, and the parish act- 
 ually supports and pays for the drunken excesses of the 
 laborers. The character and habits of the laborer have, 
 by this scale system, been completely changed. Indus- 
 try fails, moral character is annihilated, and the poor 
 man of twenty years ago, who tried to earn his money 
 and was thankful for it, is now converted into an insolent, 
 discontented, surly, thoughtless pauper, who talks of 
 right and income, and who will soon fight for these sup- 
 posed rights and income, unless some step is taken to ar- 
 rest his progress to open violence. Some rude efforts he 
 may, at first, make to shake off his state of servitude ; 
 but he finally yields to the temptations of the pay-table 
 
OUTDOOR RELIEF PRACTICE IX ENGLAND. 29 
 
 and the scale, feels his bondage, puts off his generous 
 feeling of industry, and gratitude, and independence, and 
 
 To suit 
 His manner with his fate, puts on the brute." 
 
 " I can decidedly state as the result of my experience 
 that when once a family has received relief, it is to be ex- 
 pected that their descendants, for some generations, will 
 receive it also. 
 
 " The change made in the character and habits of the 
 poor, by once receiving parochial relief, is quite remarka- 
 ble ; they are demoralized ever afterwards. 
 
 " I state it confidently, as the result of my experience, 
 that if once a young lad gets a pair of shoes given him 
 by the parish he never afterwards lays by sufficient to 
 buy a pair ; so if we give to the fathers or mothers of 
 children clothing or other assistance they invariably ap- 
 ply again and again. 
 
 " The regular applicants for relief are generally of one 
 family ; the disease is hereditary, and when once a family 
 has applied for relief, they are pressed down forever. 
 
 ** Whether in work or out of work when they once be- 
 came paupers, it can only be by a sort of miracle that 
 they can be broken off. They have no care, no thought, 
 no solicitude, on account of the future, except the old 
 musty rent-roll of receipts or an old dirty indenture of 
 apprenticeship, which are handed down from father to 
 son with as much care as deeds of freehold property, and 
 by which they pride themselves in the clear claim to the 
 parish money and the workhouse. All the tricks and 
 deceptions of which man is capable are resorted to; the 
 vilest and most barefaced falsehoods are uttered, and the 
 worst characteristics of human nature are called into ex- 
 
30 PUBLIC RELIEF AND PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 ercise for the purpose of exciting a favorable feeling in 
 their behalf ; their children are eye and ear witnesses to 
 all this. The cliild remembers his father's actions, and 
 the hereditary pauper increases his ranks, by instruction 
 as well as by example. Their numbers will, as a matter 
 of course, still increase, while these laws exist in their 
 present form." 
 
 The effect of Out door Relief in lowering wages 
 is thus described : 
 
 " Ribbon-weaving is carried on to a great extent in all 
 the villages around Coventry. Work is given out by the 
 manufacturers to persons who are termed undertakers, 
 who contract for it at a certain price, and the amount of 
 their profit depends upon the rate at which they can pro- 
 cure labor ; they consequently seek it at the lowest possible 
 price, and for this purpose it is said they often employ 
 persons who are dependent on the county parishes, which 
 of necessity, if done to any extent, must affect the rate 
 of wages in the trade as much as if the competition arose 
 in a foreign country. 
 
 " In the reply of the vestry clerk of Birmingham, he 
 states that relief is given occasionally according to the 
 number of children, but not given to eke out the wages 
 of able-bodied persons ivJiolly employed. 
 
 " Upon inquiring the meaning of the words not ivholly 
 employed, it was explained to refer to those persons whose 
 masters had certified that they only enabled them to earn 
 a half of the average rate of wages in any branch of man- 
 ufacture. On this subject Mr. Lewis, the Governor of 
 the workhouse at Erdington, who has the manangement 
 of the poor at Aston, the immediate adjoining parish to 
 Birmingham, and now included within the Borough, 
 
OUTDOOR RELIEF PRACTICE IN ENGLAND. 31 
 
 Stated that he was in a manufacturing house for fifteen 
 years at Birmingham, and that he is well acquainted with 
 the practices of different masters, and that from his own 
 knowledge he could state that what are called small mas- 
 ters in this town, i. c, those employing one or two jour- 
 neymen, and who also work for some of the other mas- 
 ters, were in the constant habit of employing men who 
 were receiving allowances from the parish, and that many 
 in consequence were able to undersell other masters who 
 were paying the full wages themselves. 
 
 "The practice of paying the wages of manufacturers 
 out of the rate is strongly illustrated in the case of Col- 
 lumpton, at a short distance from Tiverton, where the 
 weaving of serge and cloth is carried on by two manu- 
 facturers on whose employment many of the poor in that 
 town have chiefly depended for support; one of these 
 manufacturers, however, receives at present regular an- 
 nual payments from the parishes in the neighborhood to 
 employ their paupers, the sums paid being less than the 
 cost of their support by the parishes. The same system 
 is not adopted by the parish of Collumpton ; the result, 
 therefore, with regard to the poor at large is not to di- 
 minish the amount of pauperism, but to change its lo- 
 cality; for the first effect of such a measure was to in- 
 crease the number of persons unemployed at Collumpton, 
 and consequently to reduce wages. It was operating al- 
 so with injustice to the other manufacturer. 
 
 " On conversing with a manufacturer at Tewkesbury, I 
 found that he regretted the great fall in wages, but said 
 that as a capitalist he had no choice between reducing 
 the wages of his men and giving up his business, and that 
 if a certain proportion of the operatives were obliged to 
 take lower wages, the wages of the rest must also fall, since 
 
32 PUBLIC RELIEF AND PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 otherwise the master who employed those at reduced 
 wages would get possession of the market. He said that 
 he could always calculate out of a given number of work- 
 men what proportion working at low wages would bring 
 down the rest ; and that if any circumstance caused a 
 fall in one district, wages must fall in ail other districts 
 producing the same article. He admitted that this would 
 equally be the case, if the operatives in any number, were 
 relieved by the parish. 
 
 " Stockings are made in all the neighboring parishes in 
 a circle around Nottingham of twenty or more miles in 
 diameter, in the cottages of the journeymen, who rent 
 frames at i s. per week each, which they hire from a 
 capitalist, who possesses, perhaps, several hundred, and 
 the capitalist gives the operative work to do, and pays 
 him wages. The operative in whatever parish he may be, 
 is informed that his wages must be lowered, and in con- 
 sequence applies to the parish ; his master in Nottingham 
 furnishes him with a certificate that he is only receiving 
 (suppose) 6 s. a week ; and thus the parishes were in- 
 duced to allow him 4 s. or 5 s. 
 
 " Mr. Chaddick, the former overseer of Basford, which 
 is a few miles from Nottingham, told me that this system 
 was universal, and went into a calculation, proving that 
 by means of it master manufacturers were enabled to sell 
 stockings at a profit, though the selling price did not 
 cover the prime cost, if the parochial addition to the 
 wages paid by the master was to be taken as an element 
 of the prime cost, as it undoubtedly ought to be. 
 
 " At Southwell, I heard of instances in which the mas- 
 ter manufacturer had combined with his men to give 
 them false certificates of the amount of their wages, so 
 that they might claim a larger sum from the parish. 
 
OUTDOOR RELIEF PRACTICE IN ENGLAND. n 
 
 " Whole branches of manufacture may thus follow the 
 course not of coal mines or of streams, but of pauperism ; 
 may flourish like the funguses that spring from corrup- 
 tion in consequence of the abuses which are ruining all 
 other interests of the places in which they are established, 
 and cease to exist in the better administered districts 
 in consequence of that better administration." 
 
 Mr. Henry Morley in Derbyshire says : 
 
 " When I was overseer I refused to relieve able-bodied 
 men working for other people, considering that, by re- 
 lieving them I was injuring the respectable part of the 
 poor (I mean those just above pauperism) by running 
 down their wages. I found that some of the children in 
 the workhouse were put out to the cotton and silk mills, 
 and because they were workhouse children, the manu- 
 facturers paid them less wages than were given to the 
 children of independent work-people, who, on applying 
 for employment for their children at 2 s. a week, were 
 told ' I only give that girl who is older and bigger i s. 
 6 d. ;' I determined therefore to take them away from 
 the mills, and that they should do something, or even 
 nothing in the house rather than injure the deserving 
 poor. I am certain that for every 5 s. loss that the par- 
 ish sustained by this conduct is gained ;^5 by assisting 
 the respectable poor and by preventing them from re- 
 quiring parish relief." 
 
 In the introduction to that part of their Report 
 which treats of "Remedial Measures" the Com- 
 missioners say : 
 
 " It may be assumed that in the administration of relief, 
 the public is warranted in imposing such conditions on 
 
34 PUBLIC RELIEF A. YD PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 the individual relieved, as are conducive to the benefit 
 either of the individual himself, or of the country at large 
 at whose expense he is to be relieved. 
 
 "The first and most essential of all conditions, a princi- 
 ple which we find universally admitted, even by those whose 
 practice is at variance with it, is, that his situation on the 
 whole shall not be made really or apparently so eligible 
 as the situation of the independent laborer of the lowest 
 class. Throughout the evidence it is shown that in pro- 
 portion as the condition of any pauper class is elevated 
 above the condition of independent laborers, the con- 
 dition of the independent class is depressed ; their 
 industry is impaired, their employment becomes unsteady, 
 and its remuneration in wages becomes diminished. 
 Such persons, therefore, are under the strongest induce- 
 ments to quit the less eligible class of laborers, and enter 
 the more eligible class of paupers. The converse is the 
 effect when the pauper class is placed in its proper posi- 
 tion below the condition of the independent laborer. 
 Every penny bestowed that tends to render the condition 
 of the pauper more eligible than that of the independent 
 laborer is a bounty on indolence and vice. We have 
 found that as the poor rates are at present administered, 
 they operate as bounties of this description, to the 
 amount of several millions annuallv. 
 
 "The standard, therefore, to which reference must be 
 made in fixing the condition of those who are to be 
 maintained by the public, is the condition of those who 
 are maintained by their own exertions. But the evidence 
 shows how loosely and imperfectly the situation of the 
 independent laborer has been inquired into, and how 
 little is really known of it by those who award or distribute 
 relief. It shows also that so little has their situation been 
 
OUTDOOR RELIEF PR A C TICE //V EXGLA ND. 3 5 
 
 made a standard for the supply of commodities, that the 
 diet of the workhouse almost always exceeds that of the 
 cottage, and the diet of the jail is generally more profuse 
 than even that of the workhouse. It shows also that 
 this standard has been so little referred to in the exaction 
 of labor, that commonly the work required from the 
 pauper is inferior to that performed by the laborers and 
 servants of those who have prescribed it; so much so 
 generally inferior as to create a prevalent notion among 
 the agricultural paupers that they have a right to be ex- 
 empted from the amount of work which is performed 
 and indeed sought for by the independent laborer. 
 
 "But it will be seen that the process of depauperizing 
 the able-bodied is, in its ultimate effects, a process which 
 elevates the condition of the great mass of society. 
 
 " Before the experiment was made it might fairly have 
 been anticipated that the discontinuance of parochial 
 allowance would effect little or no improvement in wages 
 unless a similar change were made in the neighboring 
 parishes. When a considerable proportion of the laborers 
 who had been entirely dependent upon the parish were 
 driven to rely on their own industry, it might have been 
 anticipated that the wages of the entire body of laborers 
 within the parish would have been injuriously affected by 
 their competition, and this certainly would have been the 
 case if they had added nothing to the fund out of which 
 their wages came. That fund is, in fact, periodically con- 
 sumed and reproduced by the laborer, assisted by the land 
 and the farmer's capital, and, all other things remaining 
 the same, the amount of that fund, and consequently his 
 share of it, or, in other words, the amount of his wages, 
 depends on his industry and skill. If all the laborers in a 
 parish cease to work they no longer produce any fund for 
 
36 PUBLIC RELIEF AND PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 their own subsistence, and must either starve or be sup- 
 ported, as they were at Cholesbury, by rates in aid. 
 A single man who has no property and is supported 
 without working bears the same relation to the laborers 
 who do work as the parishioners of Cholesbury bore to 
 the neighboring parishes. He is supported by a sort 
 of rate in aid on their industry. His conversion from 
 a pauper, wholly or partially supported by the labor 
 of others, into an independendent laborer producing his 
 own subsistence, and in addition to that a profit to his 
 employer, so far from injuring his fellow workmen, pro- 
 duces on them the same effects as the enabling the 
 inhabitants of Cholesbury to support themselves has 
 produced on the parishes which had to supply them with 
 rates in aid. This has been perceived by some of our 
 witnesses. A farmer of considerable intelligence who had 
 resided in Cookham, and observed the effects of the 
 change in that parish, declared his conviction that if such 
 a change could be generally introduced, the money saved 
 in the poor's rate w^ould almost immediately be paid in 
 wages. The withdrawal of relief in aid of wages appears 
 to be succeeded by effects in the following order: — First, 
 the laborer becomes more steady and diligent; next, 
 the more efficient laborer makes the return to the farmer's 
 capital larger, and the consequent increase of the fund 
 for the employment of labor enables and induces the cap- 
 italist to give better w^ages." 
 
 After describing the condition of the few 
 parishes where, previous to their inquiry, outdoor 
 relief had been cut off and paupers relieved only 
 in a workhouse, the Commissioners say : 
 
 " From the above evidence it appears that wherever the 
 
OUTDOOR RELIEF PRACTICE IN ENGLAND. 37 
 
 principle which we have thus stated has been carried into 
 effect either wholly or partially, its introduction has been 
 beneficial to the class for whose benefit the Poor Laws 
 exist. We have seen that in every instance in which the 
 able-bodied laborers have been rendered independent of 
 partial relief, or of relief otherwise than in a well regulated 
 workhouse : 
 
 1. Their industry has been restored and improved. 
 
 2. Frugal habits have been created or strengthened. 
 
 3. The permanent demand for their labor has increased. 
 
 4. And the increase has been such that their wages, so 
 far from being depressed by the increased amount of 
 labor in the market, have in general advanced. 
 
 5. The number of improvident and wretched marriages 
 has diminished. 
 
 6. Their discontent has been abated, and their moral 
 and social condition in every way improved." 
 
 The Commissioners recommend the total aboli- 
 tion of out-door relief, and then proceed : 
 
 "One objection we will answer immediately, and that is, 
 that the whole or a large proportion of the present 
 paupers must become inmates of the workhouse. One of 
 the most encouraging of the results of our inquiry is the 
 degree in which the existing pauperism arises from fraud, 
 indolence or improvidence. If it had been principally 
 the result of unavoidable distress we must have inferred 
 the existence of an organic disease, which, without 
 rendering the remedy less necessary, would have fearfully 
 augmented its difficulty. But when we consider how 
 strong are the motives to claim public assistance, and how 
 ready are the means of obtaining it, independently of real 
 necessity, we are surprised, not at the number of paupers, 
 
38 PUBLIC RELIEF AND PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 but at the number of those who have escaped the conta- 
 gion. A person who attributes pauperism to the inability 
 to procure employment, will doubt the efficiency of the 
 means by which we propose to remove it, tried as they 
 have been and successful as they have always proved. 
 
 " In several of the depauperized parishes, the erection 
 of workhouses, and other remedial measures, were strongly 
 and sincerely opposed on similar grounds. In answer to 
 all objections founded on the supposition that the present 
 number of able-bodied paupers will remain permanently 
 chargeable, we refer to the evidence which shows the gen- 
 eral causes of pauperism, and to the effects produced by 
 administration on a correct principle, as guaranteeing the 
 effects to be anticipated from the general application of 
 measures which have been tried by so many experiments. 
 But we cannot expect that such evidence will satisfy the 
 minds of those who sincerely disbelieve the possibility of 
 a class of laborers subsisting without rates in aid of wages ; 
 and we have found numbers who have sincerely disbe- 
 lieved that possibility notwithstanding they have had daily 
 presented to their observation the fact, that laborers of 
 the same class, and otherwise no better circumstanced, do 
 live well without such allowances ; still less can we expect 
 that such evidence will abate the clamors of those who 
 have a direct interest in the abuses which they defend 
 under the mask of benevolence. 
 
 "Such persons will no doubt avail themselves of the 
 mischievous ambiguity of the word poor, and treat all 
 diminution of the expenditure for the relief of the poor 
 as so much taken from the laboring classes, as if those 
 classes were naturally pensioners on the charity of their 
 superiors, and relief, not wages, were the proper fund for 
 their support ; as if the independent laborers themselves 
 
UTDOOR RELIEF PRACTICE IN ENGLAND. 39 
 
 were not, directly or indirectly, losers by all expenditures 
 on paupers ; as if those who would be raised from pau- 
 perism to independence would not be the greatest gam- 
 ers by the change ; as if, to use the expression of one of 
 the witnesses we have quoted, ' the meat of industry were 
 worse than the bread of idleness.' 
 
 " To permit outdoor relief as an exception would be to 
 permit it as a rule. The construction which has been put 
 on the 59th George 3d., shows that every case would be 
 considered a case of emergency, and under provisions 
 directing that the able-bodied shall be relieved only in 
 the work house, but allowing relief in money to be con- 
 tinued to the sick, we must be prepared to f^nd allowances 
 continued to many of the able-bodied as belonging to the 
 excepted class." 
 
 The Report of the Commissioners from which 
 the above extracts are taken was accompanied by 
 a Bill, entitled : ''The 4th and 5th William IV. 
 Cap. 76, for the Amendment and Better Adminis- 
 tration of the Laws relating to the Poor in En- 
 gland and Wales." In the course of his speech in 
 Parliament, moving its adoption, Lord Brougham, 
 then Lord Chancellor, spoke in part as follows : 
 
 " First then, wc have a constant, and I may say almost 
 a re-ular'proof, in every part of the country, in districts 
 agricultural, manufacturing, and even commercial, and 
 whether the people are superabundant or scarce, increas- 
 ing stationaryor diminishing in numbers, that able-bodied 
 men prefer a small sum in idleness, to a larger sum in 
 wa-es, attended with the condition of earning those 
 wages by labor. We have in one place a young man say- 
 
40 PUBLIC RELIEF AXD PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 ing : * I have 3 s. 6 d. a -week from the parish. I do no 
 work. I have no need to labor ; I would rather have my 
 3 s. 6 d. without working than toil to get 10 s. or 12 s. a 
 week.' This is not a single instance. But are these per- 
 sons only idle? Are they really doing nothing? Do 
 they receive 3 s. 6 d. and remain inactive? Do they work 
 no mischief? My Lords, it is idle in me to put such 
 questions. These persons are making the parish pay 3 s. 
 6 d. a week out of the honest laborer's hard earnings, to 
 maintain the constant promoters of crime, the greatest 
 workers of mischief in the country ; men, who, when they 
 happen not to be ring-leaders, are the ready accomplices 
 and followers in every depredation, every outrage that is 
 perpetrated in their neighborhood. But these facts are 
 not confined to agricultural districts, or inland places, or 
 to lazy rustics. Look to the hardy sailor who never used 
 to know what danger was ; look to the ver>' boatmen of 
 the Kentish coast — they who formerly would rush to a 
 wreck without looking to the waves any more than to 
 the reward — who would encounter the most appalling 
 perils to save a life with as much alacrity as they would 
 dance around a i\Iay-pole, or run a cargo of smuggled 
 goods in the midst of a tempest, or in the teeth of the 
 preventive service ; these men, who, if you had ever said, 
 in former times, ' Surely you do not mean to launch your 
 boat at this tempestuous time of year?' would answer by 
 instinct, 'Time of year! We take no account of season — 
 by our boats we live ; from the sea in winter as in sum- 
 mer, we must seek our sustenance; fair weather or foul, 
 our vessels must be afloat, else how could we keep our 
 families from the parish ? ' No such answer will you get 
 now. The same spirit of honest and daring independ- 
 ence inflames them no more. ' We have \2s. a week from 
 
OUTDOOR RELIEF PRACTICE IN ENGLAND. 41 
 
 the parish,' say the Kentish sailors ; ' we will go out no 
 longer in winter — we will wait for summer and fair weather 
 — we will live at home the while, for the parish fund pro- 
 vides us.' Comment upon such facts is superfluous. 
 But the same classes now assume that they who live upon 
 the parish have a right not only to work as little as the 
 independent laborer, but not to work so hard. They have 
 in many places distinctly set up this claim ; and in one or 
 two instances appeals have actually been made by the 
 pauper against the overseers, upon the ground that the 
 latter had attempted, as they say, 'A thing till then un- 
 known in these parishes to make the paupers work the 
 same number of hours in the day as the independent 
 laborers, who receive no parochial assistance.' These are 
 things which almost force incredulity; but when we see 
 them proved by evidence which admits of no doubt, be- 
 lief is extorted from us. Then it is needless to say that 
 the parish pauper regards himself independent of fair 
 weather or foul, of baci health or good, of the full harvest 
 or scanty crop, of all the calamities to which the rest of 
 mankind are subject. Again : All shame of begging is 
 utterly banished— the pauper glories in his dependence— 
 if, indeed, he does not consider the land as his own and 
 its nominal proprietor as his steward. Nay, instances are 
 to be found of the shame, being by a marvelous perver- 
 sion of feeling, turned the other way; and the solitary 
 exception to the rule of parish relief under which a whole 
 hamlet lived, 'being shamed,' as a female said, 'out of 
 her singularity and forced by her neighbors to take the 
 dole like themselves!' But, for all this I do not blame 
 the pauper; I blame the bad law and its worse adminis- 
 tration which have made him a worthless member of 
 society. The law of nature says that a man shall support 
 
42 PUBLIC RELIEF AXD PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 his child — that the child shall support his aged and infirm 
 parent — and that near relations shall succor one another 
 in distress. But our law speaks another language, saying 
 to the parent: 'Take no trouble of providing for your 
 child,' — to the child, ' Undertake not the load of support- 
 ing your parent — throw away none of your money on 
 your unfortunate brother and sister — all these duties the 
 public will take on itself.' It is, in truth, one of the 
 most painful and disgusting features of this law, that it 
 has so far altered the nature of men. It is now a com- 
 mon thing to hear the father say : ' If you only allow me 
 so many shillings a week for my children, I will drive 
 them from my doors, and deny them the shelter of my 
 roof ; ' and it is not unusual to hear the child say : ' If you 
 do not allow my aged mother more I shall take her out 
 of my house and lay her in the street or at the overseer's 
 door.' " 
 
 Sir George Nichols, In his " History of the 
 English Poor Law," still speaking of this period 
 (1830-4), and of the work of the Commissioners, 
 writes as follows : 
 
 "It is worthy of especial notice, that in the counties 
 where the largest amount of relief was afforded under the 
 Poor Law, the greatest number of riots and rick burnings 
 occurred in the years 1830 and 1831, thus seeming to 
 establish a close relationship between the one and the 
 other, in the nature of cause and effect. The commission 
 of inquir\' adopt this view, which they support by citing the 
 instances. The commissioners remark that 'the counties 
 in which the expenditure is large are those in which the 
 industry and skill of the laborers are passing away, the con- 
 
OUTDOOR RELIEF PRACTICE IN ENGLAND. 43 
 
 nection between master and servant has become precari- 
 ous, the unmarried are defrauded of their fair earnings, 
 riots and incendiarisms have prevailed. The three coun- 
 ties in which it is comparatively small, are those in which 
 scarcely any instance of fire or tumult appears to have 
 occurred, in which mutual attachment exists between the 
 workman and his employer, in which wages depend not on 
 marriages but on ability, and the diligence and skill of 
 the laborers are unimpaired and increased.' 
 
 " The state of feeling which prevailed in the southern 
 agricultural counties toward the end of 1830, has been 
 thus described : ' The farmers and their families had no 
 comfort in their lives. All day they looked with unavoid- 
 able suspicion upon the most ill-conditioned of their 
 neighbors, and on every stranger who came into the 
 parish. All night they were wakeful, either acting as 
 patrols, or looking out toward the stack-yards, or listening 
 for the rumble of the fire-engine. If a man weary with 
 patroling for three or four nights hoped for a night's sleep, 
 and went the last thing to his rick-yard, and explored 
 every corner, and visited every shed on his premises, he 
 might find his chamber illuminated by his burning ricks 
 by the time he could get up stairs. This was naturally 
 a time for malicious or encroaching persons to send 
 threatening letters, and for foolish jesters to play off 
 practical jokes, and for timid persons to take needless 
 alarms, and for all the discontented to make the most of 
 their grievances, and a dreary season of apprehension 
 indeed it was. The military were harassed with fruitless 
 marches, their nightly path lighted by fires from behind, 
 whichever way they turned. Large rewards were offered 
 - — i^500 for a single conviction, and these rewards were 
 believed to have been now and then obtained by the 
 
44 PUBLIC RELIEF AXD PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 instigators, while the poor tools were given over to de- 
 struction.' 
 
 " Such was the state of a large portion of the agricul- 
 tural districts in the south of England, a very short time 
 before the passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act. 
 There may have been, and probably were, various causes 
 in operation of longer or shorter standing, to bring about 
 such a state of things; but it can hardly be doubted that 
 the maladministration of the Poor Laws was one of them, 
 if it were not, as indeed seems most likely, the principal 
 cause. Wherever the allowance system prevailed in any 
 form, or to any extent, a part of the laborer's wages, 
 greater or less, according to the circumstances of the dis- 
 trict, would be dealt out to him in the shape of parish 
 relief, and there would be a constant struggle between 
 him and the parish authorities (that is, the farmers and 
 the employers of labor) on their part to give as little as 
 possible, and on the laborer's part to obtain as much as 
 possible out of that fund to which he had been trained 
 up to believe his right was as good as theirs. Can we 
 wonder, then, that an ill-feeling should exist between par- 
 ties so situated, that the roundsman, or the laborer, under 
 the allowance system should look upon his employer as a 
 tyrant, and an oppressor who withheld from him and his 
 family an allowance to which they had a right, and that 
 he and they should regard such employer with feelings of 
 hatred and revenge, for the manifestation of which an 
 opportunity only was required. Now incendiarism afforded 
 this opportunity, and also the simplest and safest means 
 of gratifying revengeful feelings, however engendered, or 
 from whatever cause arising, and we see the consequences 
 painted with great force and truth in the extracts given 
 above." 
 
OUTDOOR RELIEF PRACTICE IN ENGLAND. 45 
 
 Under the Act referred to, Poor Law Commis- 
 sioners were appointed, and the following ex- 
 tracts from Sir George Nichols's History show the 
 character of their first Annual Report, dated 
 August 8, 1835 : 
 
 "Anxious attention had been directed to the effect of 
 the change upon the working classes, more especially 
 upon those who had been accustomed to the allowance 
 system, and inquiries were made as to the subsequent 
 condition of the laborers whose allowance had been dis- 
 continued, and who notwithstanding, refused to accept 
 relief in a workhouse. It was found that these persons 
 generally obtained independent employment without 
 quitting their parishes, and the commissioners cite the 
 example of the Faringdon nnion, in which all out-door 
 relief was discontinued, and relief in the workhouse was 
 offered to 240 able-bodied laborers, and more than about 
 twenty of whom entered the house, and not one-half of 
 these remiained there more than a few days, ' the diet in 
 the workhouse being at the same time high, as compared 
 with the diet of large classes of independent laborers.' It 
 is further stated that all the more recent reports from the 
 dispauperized districts represent the wages as being im- 
 proved, and that the amounts paid are greater than in the 
 adjacent pauperized parishes. 
 
 " The commissioners declare that they see nothing to 
 prevent the extension of the union system to the less 
 pauperized districts not yet visited, its advantages being 
 universally applicable, and they further state their inten- 
 tion of revising their orders and arrangements from time 
 to time 'with a view to a closer and ultimately to a com- 
 plete adoption of the workhouse system, and the extinc- 
 
46 PUBLIC RELIEF AND PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 tion of all out-door relief to the able-bodied.' In con- 
 cluding their report, the commissioners observe, that they 
 are sustained in their labors by the conviction that the 
 act which they had to administer will fulfill the beneficent 
 intentions of the legislature, and will conduce to elevate 
 the moral and social condition of the laboring classes and 
 promote the welfare of all." 
 
 Unhappily for England, the wise suggestions of 
 the Poor Law Commissioners have never been 
 carried out, and the country still groans under a 
 heavy burden of pauperism, due in great measure, 
 as experts believe, to the unwise administration of 
 Public Out-door Relief. 
 
 The testimony of two authorities since 1S35 "^^'^^^ 
 suffice : 
 
 From First Report of the Local Government Board, 
 1871-72. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by 
 command of Her Majesty : 
 
 Extracts from Circular Letter to Guardians, iS/i. 
 "It has been shown that in numerous instances the 
 Guardians disregard the advantages which result not only 
 to the rate-payers but to the poor themselves from the 
 offer of in-door in preference to out-door relief. A cer- 
 tainty of obtaining out-door relief in his own home when- 
 ever he may ask for it extinguishes in the mind of 
 the laborer all motive for husbanding his resources, and 
 induces him to rely exclusively upon the rates instead of 
 upon his own savings for such relief as he may require. 
 It removes every incentive to self-reliance and prudent 
 forethought on his part, and induces him, moreover, 
 
OUTDOOR RELIEF PRA C TICE IN ENGLAND. 4 7 
 
 to apply for relief on occasions when the circumstances 
 are not such as to render him absolutely in need of it. 
 
 " For instance, in the Amersham Union, Buckingham- 
 shire, during the winter of 1869, 212 persons applied for 
 relief, all of whom received orders for the workhouse, 
 which not one of the applicants, however, entered. In 
 the Wellington Union (Salop), in-door relief was ordered 
 by the Guardians during the last half year ended mid- 
 summer, 187 [, to 322 individuals, of . whom six only 
 entered the workhouse, and of 99 families to whom in- 
 door relief was offered in the same union during the three 
 years preceding Christmas last, the same number of six 
 alone availed themselves of such relief. The Guardians 
 of the Uxbridge Union gave, on the 5th of January last, 
 orders for the workhouse to 269 persons ; of that number 
 twelve only entered the house, of whom seven discharged 
 themselves on the same day, leaving five only who availed 
 themsclf of the proposed relief. The Poor Law Inspec- 
 tor of the district subsequently ascertained that not one 
 of the persons who applied for relief, and to whom in- 
 door relief had been offered, had again asked for assistance. 
 Some Guardians also are inclined to imagine that out-door 
 relief is more economical than in-door, because one 
 individual or family costs more in the workhouse than the 
 amount of out-door relief which would be given in the 
 particular case out of it. 
 
 " This no doubt may be so in an individual case, but 
 the grant of out-door relief multiplies so largely the 
 number of applicants that if relief were afforded to all, the 
 cost of such relief would greatly exceed that of maintain- 
 ing in the workhouse such of the applicants as would be 
 willing to enter it." 
 
 The second extract is from a paper by Sir Charles 
 
48 PUBLIC RELIEF AND PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 Trevelyan (a high authority), written only a few months 
 ago. He says; 
 
 " By far the most demoralizing influence of our time 
 and country is poor law out-door relief, which is an ab- 
 normal departure from the original institution. 
 
 " Upon in-door relief there is a natural check. Nobody 
 asks for it as a favor, and there is a strong presumption 
 that ever>'body who accepts it is really in need of it. 
 
 " Upon out-door relief, on the contrary, there is no 
 self-acting check, for it is a pension, comfortably enjoyed 
 at home in addition to every other advantage and source 
 of income, and everybody is glad to have it. The more 
 a man saves, the less he gets of out-door relief ; if by 
 industry and self-denial he entirely provides for himself, 
 he gets nothing ; if he spends everything at the public 
 house or in any other kind of self-indulgence, he entitles 
 himself to the full measure of out-relief at the expense of 
 the honest and self-denying. It is useless to exhort to 
 industry and thrift, while in practice we hold out this life- 
 long encouragement to idleness and prodigality." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 Public Out-door Relief. 
 
 PRACTICE IN EUROrE AND THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 In 1874 an inquiry was made by the British 
 Government concerning Poor Laws in foreign 
 countries, and the results were published by the 
 Local Government Board. The following are ex- 
 tracts from this report : 
 
 * " Attention is called by Sir Henry Barron to a very re- 
 markable peculiarity in the pauperism and expenditures 
 of the several provinces [of Belgium]. It appears that 
 while the pauperism of the whole kingdom in the year 
 1868 was II. 3 per cent., that of the province of Luxem- 
 burg was only 2.2. In a subsequent part of the report 
 Luxemburg appears to have ' next to no revenue for the 
 poor, yet 710 coviplaiyits of dearth a)id distress ever come 
 from that quarter.' " 
 
 " As to the effect of Belgian Poor Laws upon the charac- 
 ter and condition of the people Sir Henry Barron quotes 
 the following remarkable passage from the preamble of a 
 bill introduced into the chamber by Baron Kero\-ne, late 
 Minister of the Interior: ' Aussi a-t-on constate dans tous 
 
 * From Reports communicated to the Local Government Board by her 
 Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs ; with introductory remarks 
 by Andrew Doyle, Esq., Local Government Inspector. 
 
50 PUBLIC RELIEF AXD PRIVA TE CHARITY, 
 
 les pays, et notamment en Angleterre, ou rintervention 
 de la bienfaisance publique ete poussee aux plus ex- 
 tremes exagerations que plus la charge est accablante 
 pour la production et le travail plus elle reste sterile pour 
 ceux qui en profitent ; car I'indigent loin de ce relever 
 par le secours public dans I'ordre moral, loin d'atteindre 
 une situation meilleure a mesure que ce secours s'accroit 
 et se perpetue, se sent entraine disvantage par I'oisivete 
 dans la misere et dans la degradation. Une longue ex- 
 perience atteste egalemente en Belgique que les charges 
 des communes ont subi une progression effrayante et que 
 les sacrifices exiges des elements les plus honnetes de la 
 population ont ete trop souvent absorbes sans fruit par 
 les individualites honteuses et meprisable.' " 
 
 A work by Mr. Fano, who is spoken of as "one 
 of the highest authorities on matters relating to 
 the condition of the poorer classes In Italy," is 
 quoted as follows : 
 
 This writer describing the squalor and destitu- 
 tion of a large proportion of the peasantry and arti- 
 san population of Italy, says : — 
 
 " But we ought to make war implacably upon idleness 
 and ignorance, because with us, as in all other nations, 
 they are the first and chief causes of misery. The growth 
 of that misery in our country is in a great measure due to 
 those very institutions which were created for itssuppres- 
 sion — the magnificent palaces which rise up on all sides in 
 our cities to give refuge to suffering humanity. 'The life 
 and soul of Italy,' said IMoreau Christophe, ' are in her 
 charitable institutions.' And, indeed, there is no kind of 
 wretchedness or pain for which our fathers have not 
 
PRACTICE IN EUROPE AXD UNITED STATES. 51 
 
 shown pity ; . . . . and this spirit of charity has 
 been preserved, and displays itself more vividly every day. 
 Still better than in institutions, it dwells in the hearts of 
 all men. The result is that the property devoted to the 
 relief of the poor amounts in every town in Italy to en- 
 ormous sums which are swallowed up without profit, even 
 if they do not produce injury and shame. 
 
 " But the crowd of beggars seems to multiply in propor- 
 tion to the increase of the charities destined for the al- 
 leviation of their wants The very profusion 
 
 of charities is then one of the principal causes of the 
 spread of mendicity in our country. When all feel sure 
 that, in whatever disaster, they will find succor, and that 
 they will obtain their sustenance from charity, if they do 
 not earn it by their labor, there ceases to be any reason 
 for being provident, and instead of relying upon his own 
 strength every one accustoms himself to reckon upon the 
 support of others. Thus are annihilated the vigor and 
 the spirit of enterprise which are necessary for a man des- 
 tined to lead a laborious life, and all sense of responsibil- 
 ity is lost. A man may beget children without taking 
 the trouble to reflect whether he can feed them, because 
 an Asylum and a maintenance will be found for them in 
 the foundling hospital or in other institutions for the care 
 of children. The prospect of sickness does not make him 
 redouble his exertions and think of the necessity of sav^- 
 ing and providing for an evil day because it appears to 
 him sufificiently provided for by the hospital or the alms- 
 house But in order to obtain relief it is 
 
 necessary to be poor, or at least to seem so, and the man 
 who works has not the aspect of poverty. The workshop 
 is then abandoned and the rags of common wretchedness 
 are then put on ; and thus many persons voluntarily 
 
52 PUBLIC RELIEF AND PRIVATE CHARITY. 
 
 adopt a mendicant life, and finding it easier and more 
 profitable than one of toil, choosing begging for their in- 
 dustry, and making it their estate. Their example is 
 contagious; it is readily followed, for nothing renders a 
 man more reluctant to work than the sight of indigence 
 relieved. And thus misery increases in proportion to the 
 relief which it finds, and misery and relief are alternately 
 cause and effect. 
 
 " In Italy there are 1,355,341 indigent persons, but no 
 system of legal charity exists. But the multitude of 
 charitable institutions, their mode of administration, their 
 great wealth, and the improvident manner in which their 
 funds are frequently applied, are vices which have for us 
 the same effects as those of legal charity, if not worse. 
 
 " If some of the riches which are squandered in such 
 manner were directed to the purposes of education and 
 the promotion of labor, they would be of more benefit 
 to the classes which are now parasite, and would then be- 
 come productive and moral. For I persist in thinking 
 that in Italy mendicity is an imposture, and not pro- 
 duced by real destitution. And in support of this opinion 
 might be adduced the fact that when Napoleon abolished 
 the religious orders and the convent alms at Rome, out 
 of 30,000 beggars left thus without assistance only 15,000 
 had themselves registered and taken into St. Joseph's 
 Laterans. The same thing happened in Lombardy in the 
 time of Joseph II. When the workhouses of Pizzighettone, 
 Abbiategrasso and Milan were opened for beggars the 
 greater part of them disappeared." 
 
 The following extracts from a standard work by 
 E. Emminghaus,* are also very suggestive : 
 
 * Notes from " Poor Relief in Different Parts of Europe." 
 
PRACTICE IX EUROPE AND UNITED STATES. 53 
 
 " In Basle, the richest town in Switzerland, we find pro- 
 portionally the greatest number of persons relieved. In 
 the flourishing Canton of Zurich, the proportion of per- 
 sons relieved is least favorable in the three rich districts 
 of Zurich, Horgen and Meilen, because as we learn from 
 the Government Council Report of 1861, ' in these dis- 
 tricts which hold the first place as regards prosperity, 
 there is a much greater amount of relief given to the 
 poor generally than is the case in many other districts.' 
 The Zurich Government Council Report of 1865, men- 
 tions as directly conspicuous amongst the causes of pov- 
 erty alleged by individual poor relieving bodies, ' the 
 property belonging to corporations in individual com- 
 munes, on which many a young man depends instead of 
 seeking his fortune elsewhere.' 
 
 " In Canton Berne, too, it was found, after an inquiry 
 was made in 1840, that there were 'the greatest number 
 of persons relieved in proportion to the size of the civic 
 unions: i. In the town communes where rich endowments 
 for the poor encourage them in habits of carelessness. 2. 
 In communes, which in proportion to the size of the com- 
 munal district have an unusually large number of freemen. 
 3. In communes which grant tolerably wide civic privi- 
 leges. 4. In communes which on account of their remote- 
 ness afford but few sources of employment.' Still later, a 
 pamphlet by the Bernese statesman, Blasch, mentions as 
 ' a fact that wherever the greatest communal advantages 
 e.xist, there the greatest indolence and dislike to work 
 are to be found.' 
 
 "The excellent report of State Councilor Schaller on 
 pauperism in Canton Fribourg, also calls attention to 
 the fact ' that the number of poor is far greater in rich 
 comm.unes, such as Fribourg, Greyerz, ]\Iacon, &c., and 
 
54 PUBLIC RELIEF AXD PRIVA TE CHARITY} 
 
 keeps up, though the means which the authorities there 
 have at their disposal ought to enable them by precau- 
 tionary measures, to strike at the very existence of pau- 
 perism." 
 
 Happily for the United States, the practice of 
 distributing Public Out-door Relief has not as yet 
 obtained a very firm hold among us, but it has 
 been the custom in many of our Cities to a limited 
 extent, and we can give some testimony which 
 shows that Its evil effects are the same here as else- 
 where. 
 
 In a paper read by Seth Low, Esq. of Brooklyn, 
 at the Conference of Charities and Correctibn in 
 1 88 1, he says : 
 
 " Perhaps the most thorough inquiry which has been 
 made on American soil as to the operation of out-door 
 relief in this country, was instituted by the Secretary of 
 the Massachusetts State Board of Charities, in 1871, as to 
 the operation of the system in Massachusetts. Referring 
 to the condemnation of the system in England by such 
 writers as Professor Fawcett, by May, the author of the 
 "Constitutional History of England," and by Sir George 
 Nichols, the author of the " Histor>^ of the English Poor 
 Law," the Secretary proposed a series of seven questions, 
 with the view of obtaining the results of the system of 
 out-door relief from the experience of the overseers of the 
 poor. Answers were received from one hundred and 
 sixty towns, enough to give a complete view of the sys- 
 tem. An examination of the replies, as quoted in the 
 report, shows that the same evils in connection with out- 
 door relief recognized in England were largely recognized 
 
PRACTICE IN EUROPE AND UNITED STA TES. 55 
 
 in Massachusetts, but the weight of opinion was to the 
 effect that these evils in Massachusetts could still be kept 
 within bounds, while to do away altogether with out-door 
 relief was certain to result in great hardship to many de- 
 serving poor." 
 
 To this, we will add the testimony of George E. 
 McGonegal, the wisest and most experienced Su- 
 perintendent of the Poor of New York State. 
 Mr. McGonegal says : 
 
 * "We have a system in our State of furnishing what is 
 called temporary or out-door relief, the object of which is to 
 relieve families, who from sickness or other disability, be- 
 come temporarily incapacitated from wholly maintaining 
 themselves. This is a worthy object, and deserving of all 
 praise; but the great bulk of what is called temporar>^ 
 relief, is not temporary, but permanent relief. Families 
 are furnished a stated amount weekly or monthly, and this 
 is continued week after week and year after year; and i 
 know of nothing which does so much to encourage pau- 
 perism and educate paupers for the next generation, as 
 this system, which I think is in operation in most of the 
 counties, cities and towns in this State. There is nothmg 
 except intemperance in the use of alcoholic liquors which 
 is more demoralizing to the head of a family or more 
 ruinous to children, than to become imbued with the idea 
 that the public is bound to provide for them. And it 
 people could only realize, when they recommend, bring 
 or send a family, composed, in part, of bright, intelligent 
 children, who have never yet received public aid, to the 
 
 *From the proceeding, of the Convention of the Superintendents of the 
 Poor of the State of New York, held at Rochester, ^. ^.. June 6. 7. S. 
 I8S2 From paper read by Mr. McGonegal of Monroe county. 
 
56 P UBLIC RELIEF A XD PRI VA TE CHA RI T Y. 
 
 superintendent or overseer of the poor, and insist upon 
 aid being furnished, that such an act was almost sure to 
 ruin those bright children, and educate them for paupers 
 or criminals when they become men and women, it seems 
 to me that such people should exhaust every other re- 
 source to provide a way for such family to overcome its 
 immediate difficulty, before incurring the fearful responsi- 
 bility of being instrumental in making them paupers. 
 
 " People, very soon after commencing to receive public 
 aid, lose their energy and self-respect, find it easier to 
 rely upon the industry of others to furnish them their 
 daily bread than to exert themselves to earn a livelihood ; 
 their children learn to think that getting provisions and 
 fuel from the overseer of the poor is perfectly right and 
 proper, and they are almost certain to follow in the foot- 
 steps of their parents, especially as it requires a great deal 
 less exertion than to earn their living by honest labor. 
 
 " There are cases where temporary relief is undoubtedly 
 necessary, and if judiciously disbursed and discontinued 
 at the earliest possible moment, before it becomes perma- 
 nent relief and before the recipients become chronic pau- 
 pers, then I have no doubt it is a real benefit to those who 
 receive it. But after an experience of nearly twelve years 
 in the care of the poor, and carefully studying, during that 
 time, the effects of this so-called tcmporar}' relief, I am 
 thoroughly convinced that the harm done by means of it 
 greatly over-balances the good, and I think it is a question 
 well worth considering, whether it would not be better to 
 abolish it entirely. I believe that three-fourths of what 
 is called temporary or out-door relief, furnished in the 
 State of Xew York, is not only a direct injury to those 
 who receive it, but is a great damage to society by en- 
 couraging indolence, and is an enormous unnecessary 
 
PRACTICE I .Y EUROPE AND UNITED STATES. 57 
 
 burden upon the industrious, provident class which is 
 compelled to pay the expense." 
 
 A few words from the last annual report of the 
 State Board of Charities and Reform of the State 
 of Wisconsin are also suggestive : 
 
 " All experience shows that the demand for poor relief 
 grows with the supply, and that a large amount for poor 
 relief does not indicate a large amount of suffering which 
 needs to be relieved, but a large amount of laxity or corrup- 
 tion on the part of officers and a large amount of willing- 
 ness by able-bodied idlers to be fed at the public expense." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Public Out-door Relief. 
 
 conclusions. 
 
 The argument which always has the most 
 weight in favor of continuing, public out-door 
 relief is that many deserving poor persons may 
 suffer should it be cut off. It has already been 
 proved by experience, however, that not only many 
 suffer, but all suffer, by the continuance of a sys- 
 tem which undermines the character of those it 
 pretends to relieve, and at the same time drags 
 down to their level many who never, but for its 
 false allurements, would have been sufferers at all, 
 ? while, on the contrary, the suffering which is 
 / looked for in consequence of the stopping of out- 
 
 l door relief does not occur. These seem to be 
 
 anomalies, but they may be easily explained. The 
 first fact, that poverty and suffering are increased 
 and even caused by the relief intended to cure 
 them, has already been shown to be due to the 
 moral effects of such relief, and one of these effects 
 is very clearly defined by Dr. Thomas Chalmers, 
 the great Scotch divine, in his testimony before a 
 Parliamentary Committee on the Poor Law for 
 Ireland, as follows : 
 
CONCLUSIONS. 59 
 
 " I think it is one evil of public charity that the 
 poor, who are not very accurate arithmeticians, are 
 apt to overrate the power of a public charity, so 
 that the real relaxation of their habits, not being 
 proportional to the amount given, but being pro- 
 portional to the amount expected, leaves them in 
 greater misery than if no such public charity were 
 instituted." 
 
 Another explanation of the evils of public relief 
 is given in the following pregnant sentence of the \ \^ 
 report of the English Commissioners from which . - ^\a 
 Mr. Low quoted, which contains, also, an indication ^ V*" 
 of the direction from which real relief should come. ^ 
 
 "The bane of all pauper legislation has been ^3 
 the leo-islatine for extreme cases. Every excep- 
 tion, every violation of the general rule, to meet a 1 
 real case of unusual hardship, lets in a whole class , 
 of fraudulent cases by which that rule must in 
 time be destroyed. Where cases of real hardship 
 occur, the remedy must be applied by individual 
 charity, a virtue for which no system of compul- 
 sory relief can be or ought to be a substitute." i 
 
 Here, as has been said, we have the solution of I 
 the difficulty. Private charity can and will provide j 
 for every case that should be kept from reporting 
 to public sources of relief. 
 
 The statement that it can and will do this, is not 
 based on the theory that it ought to, but on expe- 
 rience in the cities and towns in this country where 
 
6o PUBLIC RELIEF AND PRIVATE CHARITY. 
 
 public out-door relief has been abolished, not only 
 without causing the suffering among special and 
 worthy cases, which it is always feared will follow 
 such a radical change, but with the most beneficial 
 effects on the character, and as a natural conse- 
 quence, on the condition of the people who for- 
 merly depended on it. 
 
 In Kings county, in our own State, containing a 
 city of almost half a million inhabitants, we have 
 one example ; in Philadelphia, with her 890,000 
 inhabitants, another ; and in smaller communities 
 the same effects follow the same causes. 
 
 We have comparatively full statistics from Kings 
 county of the amount expended each year for her 
 dependent classes, both from public and private 
 funds in and out of institutions, for the ten years 
 ending September 30, 1S82. Until 1879, public 
 out-door relief was given by the county to 
 the amount of $100,000 or more yearly; it was 
 then cut off in the middle of winter, without warn- 
 ing, without any substitute being provided, and 
 the result was — nothing. 
 
 In fact, except for the saving of the money and 
 the stopping of petty political corruption which 
 had been carried on by means of the relief, and 
 the cessation of the spectacle of hundreds of 
 people passing through the streets with baskets of 
 provisions furnished by the public, it would have 
 been impossible to discover that the relief had 
 
COXCL USIONS. 
 
 6i 
 
 been stopped, And there was, besides, in 1879 
 and 1880, a smaller number of persons supported 
 in the alms-house than in any other of the ten 
 years from iS73to 1882. 
 
 The following table, showing approximately the 
 amounts spent by the County and from private 
 sources during that period in charity, will repay a 
 careful study : 
 
 KINGS COUNTY. 
 
 Census 1870. 
 
 1374. 
 
 Census. 
 
 1S76. 
 
 
 
 396,099 
 
 4S=.493 
 
 
 EXPENSES FOR. 
 
 iS73- 
 
 1S7S. 
 
 1:77. 
 
 
 
 
 ..._...' = 
 
 
 
 County alms-house 
 
 County out-door relief 
 
 Private institution'^ .. . 
 
 Private out-door relief societies 
 
 100,55500, 134,93500; 116.52400; q8,iii5oo 
 
 412,274001 395,570001 523.590 ooj 515,10500 
 
 54,615001 53,800 oo| 49.35300; 44.545 CO 
 
 141,137 CO 
 
 523,37400 
 
 47,203 CO 
 
 $372,032 00 5375,255 00 $991,103 00 $927,120 00 ?987,8ii 00 
 
 KINGS COUNTY. 
 
 EXPENSES FOR. 
 
 1373. 
 
 1S79. 
 
 Census. 
 
 566,689 
 
 County almshouse $255,470 oo $245,843 oo S207.9oooo[$265,997oo 
 
 County out-door relief , 57.05400 
 
 Private institutions. .j 524,40000; 493,44000 Oi5,3--ooo 
 
 Private out-door relief soci-; t ' 
 
 eiies I 44,59500 47,779"" 41-17100 
 
 $881,219 00 $787,062 00 $062,391 00 
 
 550.50700 
 46,36700 
 
 $287,236 CO 
 
 1,007,60900 
 45.69500 
 
 $870,87100 *Si, 340.540 00 
 
 It shows that, with an increase of population of 
 about one hundred thousand, the amount of relief 
 
 * NoTE.-Increase of expense in tS32 due to the building of a large hospital by a private 
 Individual, a: a cost o£ several hundred thousand dollars. 
 
62 PUBLIC RELIEF AND PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 given in 1880, in Kings county, was not so large 
 as in 1873, and that the largest amounts spent were 
 in 1875, 1877 and 1882. 
 
 There could scarcely be a stronger proof that 
 the stopping of out-door relief does not cause the 
 suffering that is anticipated, or, in other words, 
 that the need supplied by public out-door relief is 
 in fact created by it. 
 
 The following letter from the Secretary of the 
 Philadelphia Society for Organizing Charity, gives 
 the results of the abolition of public out-door 
 relief in that city : 
 
 Central Office, No 1603 Chestnut St., ) 
 Philadelphia, 23^ 6>c-/^^rr, 1S83. f 
 
 Mrs. J. S. Lowell, Counnissioner, etc., 120 E. lOtJi St., 
 New York, N. Y.: 
 
 Dear Madam — In reply to your favor of the 19th 
 inst., I can say that the out-door poor-law relief in this 
 city amounted to from fifty to eighty thousand dollars 
 annually for many years preceding iSSo, when it was dis- 
 continued. It was dispensed by twelve officials, termed 
 " visitors," appointed, in most instances, for political 
 reasons. At the time it was abolished, we. for a few 
 weeks, felt an increased pressure for relief upon the 
 private charities ; but that was only temporary, and 
 although the population of the city has increased during 
 the past three years, the numbers of the in-door poor 
 have decreased. 
 
 Very respectfully yours, 
 
 JAS. W. WALK, M. D., 
 
 General Secretary. 
 
CONCL USIONS. 63 
 
 Here we have the experiences of two of the 
 largest cities in the United States, and it may be 
 well to add to this record that of New York City, 
 in which the public out-door relief for some years 
 has not exceeded $65,000 yearly, and has been 
 confined to the distribution of coal, of medical re- 
 lief, and of a small annual cash donation to certain 
 blind persons, all of which, in the opinion of many 
 well-informed persons, it would be well to discon- 
 tinue, trusting to private charity to supply what- 
 ever might be required in its place. 
 
 We have shown above that public out-door relief 
 may, with advantage, be discontinued in large 
 cities — and we have also the record of two smaller 
 and rural or mixed communities, which point to 
 the same conclusion. 
 
 The town of Castleton, in Richmond county, 
 N. Y., has a population of 12,679, '^^*^' since 1S79, 
 not one cent of public out-door relief has been 
 given in the town. In former years, the public 
 relief varied from $1,500 to $3,000 per annum, 
 with from one hundred to three hundred persons 
 on the pauper list. 
 
 The poor have not suffered by the entire cessa- 
 tion of public relief ; but there is less idleness, and 
 the proportion of the poor from Castleton who are 
 in the poorhouse is smaller than that from the 
 other towns of the county, where public out-door 
 relief is still distributed. 
 
64 PUBLIC RELIEF AXD PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 In Herkimer county, N. Y., there was in 1870 a 
 population of 39,929, and public out-door relief 
 amounted to $21,290; in 1875, ^^e population was 
 41,589, and the relief $1,084; i^^ 1882 the popula- 
 tion was 42,667, and the relief $2,000. 
 
 The following letter from the Superintendent 
 of the Poor requires no explanation : 
 
 Office of the Superintendent of the Poor, ) 
 Herkimer, N. Y., October 25, 1883. \ 
 
 Mrs. C. R. Lowell, Commissioner, etc., New York City : 
 
 Your favor of the 23d inst. at hand, and in reply- 
 would say that I have compared the figures quoted by 
 you with the itemized accounts pubhshed in the pro- 
 ceedings of the Board of Supervisors, and find them sub- 
 stantially correct. 
 
 "As to the cause of the change," or the difference in 
 the amount expended in 1870 and 1882, it may be a little 
 difficult to make an explanation that would be entirely 
 just and satisfactory to all concerned. In the year 1870, 
 very loose and extravagant notions of expenditures in all 
 departments of government prevailed, and our county- 
 was no exception ; double the numbers of people were 
 kept in the county poor-house, and the cost of supplies 
 being no greater than now, it cost nearly double the 
 amount /'rrr^/'//^z to keep them that it does now. In the 
 }'ear 1878, when all kinds of supplies reached the lowest 
 point, it cost %2 per week in our poor-house ; in 18S2, it 
 cost Si. 27)^ per week, and they were kept in a building 
 warmed by steam and lighted by gas. The following 
 facts may explain the situation to some extent, viz.: 
 
 I. The building of a new county poorhouse. 
 
CONCL USIONS. 65 
 
 2. Sending all disabled transients to the poor house 
 instead of keeping them in hotels or boarding-houses. 
 
 3. Cutting off all those able to work and making them 
 earn their living or go to the poor-house. 
 
 4. No men supported because they vote this or that 
 
 ticket. 
 
 5. When a family apply for relief, their circumstances 
 are fully investigated and a record kept, so that we know 
 the exact condition of all such families. 
 
 6. We grant outside relief only to those having a family 
 of young children ; in such cases we consider it more 
 economical and humane to keep the family together if 
 the circumstances will warrant it. 
 
 The above facts may have something to do with pro- 
 ducing the results which you note. 
 
 As to the effects of cutting off such large expenditures, 
 I can safely say that there are not as many paupers in our 
 poorhouse, that there are not as many destitute in our 
 villages, and that there arc no complaints from any 
 class of people. 
 
 There is but one drawback to our present condition, 
 and that is that the number of our insane is increasing; 
 while pauperism is slightly decreasing, insanity is increas- 
 ing with us. 
 
 Very respectfully yours, 
 
 JOHN CROWLEY, 
 
 Superintendent. 
 
 Out-door relief, then, it appears from the fore- 
 going facts and arguments, fails to attain any one 
 of th'e objects which should be aimed at by relief 
 from the public funds. 
 
66 PUBLIC RELIEF AND PRIVATE CHARITY. 
 
 1. It fails to provide that no one shall starve or 
 suffer for the common necessaries of life, because, 
 however lavish may be the relief, unless self- 
 restraint and providence be conferred upon those 
 who receive it, all that is bestowed will often be 
 wasted by them in riotous living, and the innocent 
 and helpless beings dependent upon them be left 
 to suffer far more than had the relief been denied. 
 
 2. It fails to save the recipient of relief and the 
 community from moral harm, because human 
 nature is so constituted that no man can receive 
 as a gift what he should earn by his own labor 
 without a moral deterioration, and the presence in 
 the community of certain persons living on public, 
 relief, has the tendency, to tempt others to sink to 
 their degraded level. 
 
 3. Out-door relief can not be of short duration, 
 because when it has once been accepted, the barrier 
 is broken down, and rarely, or never, thereafter, is 
 the effort made to do without it, and thus all such 
 relief has the tendency to become regular and 
 permanent. 
 
 4. The tax payers are the losers by out-door 
 relief, because, althoucrh the amount eiven to each 
 individual is, undoubtedly, smaller than would be 
 required for that individual in an institution, yet 
 out-door relief is so infectious, and, once obtained 
 is so easy a way of getting a living, that far larger 
 numbers demand and receive it than could be in- 
 
CONCLUSIONS. 67 
 
 duced to enter an institution, and thus the total 
 cost of public relief is always increased by giving 
 it outside of the workhouse or almshouse. 
 
 5. The chief object, to convince the public that 
 the poor are adequately cared for by public officials, 
 has never been attained by either system, and may 
 be left for time, experience and education. 
 
 Out-door relief, in fact, can not be defended ; it 
 has none of the redeeming features of private 
 charity, because there is nothing personal or 
 softening in it, nor has it the advantages which 
 might, perhaps, be derived from an acknowledged 
 and openly advocated communism, for the princi- 
 ple underlying it is not that the proceeds of all 
 men's labor is to be fairly divided among all, but 
 that the idle, improvident and even vicious man 
 has the right to live in idleness and vice upon the 
 proceeds of the labor of his industrious and virtu- 
 ous fellow-citizen. 
 
 We have, already, accepted in this paper the 
 postulate that the community should save every 
 one of its members from starvation, no matter how 
 low or depraved such member may be, but we 
 contend that the necessary relief should be sur- 
 rounded by circumstances that shall not only repel 
 every one, not in extremity, from accepting it, but 
 which shall also insure a distinct moral and phys- 
 ical improvement on the part of all those who are 
 forced to have recourse to it — that is, discipline 
 
68 PUBLIC RELIEF AXD PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 and education should be inseparably associated 
 with any system of public relief. 
 
 And there is still another point to be insisted on ; 
 while the acknowledgment is made that every 
 person born into a civilized community has a right 
 to live, yet the community has the right to say 
 that incompetent and dangerous persons shall not, 
 so far as can be helped, be born to acquire this 
 right to live upon others. To prevent a constant 
 and alarming increase of these two classes of per- 
 sons, the only way is for the community to refuse 
 to support any except those whom it can control — 
 that is, except those who will submit themselves 
 to discipline and education. It is certainly an 
 anomaly, for a man and woman who have proved 
 themselves incapable of supplying their own daily 
 needs, to bring into the world other helpless 
 beings, to be also maintained by a tax upon the 
 community. 
 
 If, then, out-door relief is proved to be not only 
 useless, as a means of relieving actual, existing 
 suffering, but an active means of increasing present 
 and future want and vice, the only other means of 
 giving public relief is within an institution, and 
 this will be found to render possible the attain- 
 ment of all the objects which should be aimed at 
 by public relief. 
 
 It is easy to provide that all the inmates shall 
 have the necessaries of life, and besides bein^ fed 
 
CONCL USIONS. 69 
 
 and clothed, they can be subjected to the best san- 
 itary regulations, they can be kept clean and be 
 required to live regularly, to work, to exercise, to 
 sleep, as much or as little as is good for them, and 
 this brings us to the second object, for in an in- 
 stitution the inmates besides being prevented from 
 receiving moral harm, can be brought under such 
 physical, moral, mental and industrial training as 
 will render them far better members of society 
 than they ever were before, and will eventually 
 make them self-supporting, and so attain the third 
 object. 
 
 The fourth object (saving money to the workers 
 of the community) will, of course, follow from the 
 measures enumerated above. To cure paupers 
 and make them self-supporting, however costly 
 the process, must always be economical as com- 
 pared with a smaller but constantly increasing and 
 continual outlay for their maintenance. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 Public Relief, 
 principles. 
 
 To accomplish the objects set forth in the last 
 chapter as desirable, it is not sufficient simply to 
 shelter, feed and clothe the public dependents in- 
 side of institutions supported by taxation. Such 
 institutions may, and unhappily do, often, become 
 the means of still further degrading the miserable 
 beings who crowd into them. 
 
 To make them useful at all, it is necessary that 
 they should be governed by those who recognize 
 that the prevention and permanent cure of pau- 
 perism, vice and disease are the objects to be 
 sought, and the whole system of public relief must 
 be based upon that principle. 
 
 In every city or county there should be three 
 Departments, to be named respectively: 
 
 The Department for the Care of Children ; 
 
 The Department for the Care of Public Depend- 
 ents ; 
 
 The Department for the Reduction of Crime. 
 
 These Departments should each be governed 
 by a separate Board, the members to be men and 
 
PRINCIPLES. 
 
 71 
 
 women, appointed by the Mayor of the city and 
 to be removed only for incompetence or for viola- 
 tion or neglect of duty, and required to give their 
 whole time to their office, receiving a sufficient 
 salary to justify this demand. 
 
 I. With the Department for the Care of Chil- 
 dren would rest the duty of so dealing with the 
 little ones entrusted to it, that they may gradually 
 but surely be cut off from the influences which 
 have brought their parents to a condition of de- 
 pendence, and be absorbed into the bulk of the 
 population, with no memory even, if it can be 
 avoided, of any thing suggestive of pauperism or 
 crime. No child should ever for a moment be al- 
 lowed to associate with paupers and criminals, and 
 the States of New York and Massachusetts and 
 Pennsylvania have been wise in forbidding the 
 sending of children to poorhouses and jails for 
 destitution and vagrancy. They should go fur- 
 ther, however, and provide that no official who has 
 charge of paupers or criminals should have author- 
 ity of any sort over a dependent child. The crea- 
 tion of a separate department for their care I be- 
 lieve to be a necessity, but not for the purpose of 
 housing them in public institutions ; this depart- 
 ment should have but one institution (apart from 
 schools, to be spoken of further on) under its con- 
 trol — a central temporary home, into which should 
 be received all children who have any claim upon 
 
72 PUBLIC RELIEF AND PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 public support, pending the examination of that 
 claim. From this temporary home, those found 
 to be really destitute should be quickly transferred 
 to suitable private institutions and until some 
 other disposition could be made of them, the public 
 should pay for their support in such institutions. 
 
 In a measure this is the present practice in New 
 York City and in many other cities of New York 
 State, but there is nowhere, so far as I know, a 
 separate department created to have the care of 
 these children, and most unfortunately, in New 
 York City at least, the custom has grown up of 
 requiring that judges shall commit children to 
 private institutions, as a necessary condition of 
 obtaining payment from the city for their support. 
 This undoubtedly is a dangerous proceeding, since 
 the familiarization with a court of law tends to de- 
 stroy the dread of arrest, which should be fostered 
 as one of the stronQ[-est deterrent influences against 
 crime. To bring a child before a judge in a crim- 
 inal court in order to secure his entrance into an 
 institution of charity is a most unwise measure. 
 
 How to care for the children of the very poor, 
 and often depraved, part of the population of 
 cities, is one of the most serious of public ques- 
 tions ; and, in discussing it, it is necessary to con- 
 sider the effect to be produced not only upon the 
 child, but upon its parents and upon the public at 
 large. 
 
PRINCIPLES. 73 
 
 The first and instinctive impulse is to collect all 
 children who are subject even to occasional suffer- 
 ings, neglect, or evil example, and to surround them 
 with bright and good influences, guarding them 
 from danger and trial through their tender youth. 
 This seems to many to be the duty of the com- 
 munity both to itself and to the children of mis- 
 fortune, but is it so in reality ? Is the child itself 
 to be saved by thus removing it from its natural 
 surroundings ? Such removals often unfit it for 
 the battle of life. Again, shall we relieve the par- 
 ent of the responsibility which God has imposed 
 upon him ? In seeking to save the child by this 
 means, the parent is too often sacrificed and de- 
 prived of the strongest incentive he can possibly 
 have to exertion and right living. 
 
 The effect upon the tax-payer and upon the hard 
 working poor man, struggling to bring up his chil- 
 dren to be honest, industrious and healthy, must 
 not be ignored. The tax-payer should not be re- 
 quired to give what he needs for his own family to 
 support the family of his dissolute neighbor, unless 
 that family threatens to be a public injury ; nor 
 should the honest laborer see the children of the 
 drunkard enjoying advantages which his own may 
 not hope for. There can never be any hard and 
 fast lines laid down in regard to this question, for 
 while, on the one hand, children must be protected 
 from cruelty and from evil training, on the other, 
 
74 PUBLIC RELIEF AXD PRIVATE CHARITY. 
 
 a constant watch must be kept that parents who 
 are capable of rightly bringing up their children 
 are not tempted to give up that duty because it is 
 a hard one, and it is to be remembered that the 
 poorest home, unless it be a degraded one, is bet- 
 ter than the best institution. 
 
 There can be no question that public institutions 
 and institutions maintained by the public money, 
 should not be sectarian in character, and that all 
 children dependentupon the public funds for support 
 should be required to attend the public schools. 
 There should moreover be a constant pressure 
 brought to bear on parents to contribute toward 
 the support of their children, and as soon as they 
 are able, they should be required to take them 
 back, or if unable or unfit to do this after a given 
 number of years, they should forfeit all claim to 
 them. No child should be held as a public charge 
 for an indefinite time, and the parent have the 
 right to reclaim it at any moment. A parent who 
 will not perform the duties of a parent should not 
 have the rights of a parent. All this field of labor 
 should belong to the Department for the Care of 
 Children,, which should periodically examine into 
 the circumstances of all parents whose children are 
 a public charge, decide whether payment should 
 be exacted or not, whether the child should return 
 to its home or be entirely removed from its 
 parents, find permanent places for all children 
 
PRINCIPLES. 75 
 
 who remain a charge upon the pubHc after three 
 years, and watch over them in their new homes. 
 This department should also be required to draw 
 up rules and by-laws for all institutions receiving 
 children to board at public expense, and see that 
 they are carried out to the letter. 
 
 Besides these duties in regard to children who 
 are fit subjects for public support, the Department 
 for the Care of Children should have the control 
 and management of Industrial Day Schools for the 
 children of persons who, though able to support 
 them, neglect, or do not know how, to train them 
 to be useful, industrious, and honest. These 
 schools should be especially designed to supply 
 the wants of their home training, and attendance 
 should be made compulsory on all vagrant and 
 truant children. By such means, the Department 
 for the Care of Children would be a potent factor 
 in the work of diminishing crime and pauperism. 
 
 II. The Department for the Care of Public 
 Dependents should have charge of the public 
 hospital, insane asylum, almshouse and workhouse, 
 the last to receive only persons committed as des- 
 titute. There are two means of reducing pau- 
 perism : ist, by preventing accessions to the ranks 
 of paupers from without, which can be accomplish- 
 ed by rendering pauperism unattractive and by the 
 general enlightenment of the people, and 2nd, by 
 restoring individual paupers to manhood and 
 
76 P UBL IC RELIEF A XD PRI VA TE CI! A RI T V. 
 
 I independence. The aim being to C2i7'e the indivi- 
 ( dual, whether of sickness, insanity, intemperance. 
 or simply of the tendency to be shiftless and lazy, 
 the same system should be enforced in all the vari- 
 ous buildings under the charge of the department ; 
 strict discipline should be enforced, absolute clean- 
 liness demanded, industry be inculcated, not for 
 the purpose of saving money, but to teach the 
 individual. To train the mental and moral nature 
 should be the first object, and no other should be 
 / allowed to take precedence of it. 
 
 Thus, in the hospitals, the classification of cases 
 
 should not be made with regard to the convenience 
 
 of the physicians, but with a view to preventing 
 
 I contamination. Men and women who have become 
 
 I ill by intemperance or vice should not be treated 
 
 I as ordinary patients, or allowed to associate with 
 
 the latter. The convalescents, especially the 
 
 young, should be taught and employed so far as 
 
 possible. 
 
 In the insane asylums, teachirrg, moral instruc- 
 tion and employment would usually be found the 
 most efficacious means for the cure of disease, and 
 thus even here the attempt to raise the individual 
 and mould his character vrould result in the dimi- 
 nution of the expense of supporting the asylum. 
 I I do not think that we sufficiently recognize the 
 ; fact that, in public asylums at any rate, insanity in 
 the majority of cases is due to excessive indulgence 
 
PRIXCIPLES. 77 
 
 in one form or other of vice, and that frequently 
 the insane are persons who have so long neglected 
 self-control that they finally lose all power of self- 
 control. I am sure, however, that this is so, and 
 I believe that there is as much room for reforma- 
 tory treatment in an insane asylum as in any other 
 institution. 
 
 The fact that a large part of the population of 
 all public institutions are driven to them through 
 their own folly and sin, renders it an imperative 
 duty to seek to elevate these unfortunates so far 
 as possible, and, still more, to prevent their con- 
 taminating others less degraded than themselves. 
 Whatever may be the temptations that beset the 
 weak and wicked outside the walls of an institution 
 not one evil influence should be allowed to ap- 
 proach those who are under the charge of a great 
 city. A wrong that is done by the authority of 
 law is an outrage against humanity, and no wrong 
 is so black as one that hurts the soul. 
 
 III. The Department for the Reduction of Crime 
 would have, as its name imports, a wide field of 
 labor — to my mind it would be the most important 
 of the three departments which I propose — and I 
 have chosen this name for it, in order that every 
 one, inside of it and outside of it, may fully recog- 
 nize what is the main end of its creation, and that 
 the care of criminals and the supervision of prisons 
 may. be put in their proper subordinate places, as 
 
IS PUBLIC RELIEF AND PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 one means only of accomplishing the real work of 
 the department. I would place under the charge 
 of this branch of the government not only the re- 
 formatory institutions in the city or county (in- 
 cluding those for juvenile offenders), but the 
 station-houses and the police force, which latter 
 should be its agents to prevent, as well as to detect 
 crime, to protect the weak who cannot resist temp- 
 tation unaided, to watch habitual criminals when 
 at large, and to guard those undergoing sentence. 
 This department should also have the entire control 
 of licensing the liquor business, that most potent 
 of the causes of crime. 
 
 If it were possible, it would be well that the 
 judges should in some way be connected with this 
 department, and, in any event, the management of 
 the courts should be a part of its business. The 
 harm done by our courts, as at present governed, 
 is not at all recognized. The publicity to which 
 all persons on trial are exposed is in itself a serious 
 evil, especially in the case of children and young 
 women, breaking down and destroying all natural 
 modesty and making them in very deed "brazen 
 faced," while it also fosters the love of notoriety 
 which is so common in weak natures as to be ac- 
 knowledged as a very strong incentive to crime 
 among a certain class. 
 
 The trials of women and children, at least, should 
 be conducted in comparative privacy — only certain 
 
PRINCIPLES. 79 
 
 persons being allowed to be present. We have 
 passed the time when we need a public trial to in- 
 sure justice for the accused. 
 
 There is no doubt also that the station-houses 
 are, in many cities, places of contamination and 
 degradation. There should be special buildings 
 for the temporary imprisonment of women, and 
 women-officers should be employed to guard them ; 
 and here, as well as in conveying prisoners to and 
 from the Reformatories, they should be protected 
 from contamination by every known means. I 
 speak only of Reformatories, for there should be 
 no prison which is not a reformatory. All sen- 
 tences, also, should be for an indeterminate period, 
 leaving the authorities power to place the prisoners 
 out on probation, and to discharge them finally. 
 
 If the object be, as it should be, to protect so- 
 ciety, why should not an irresponsible criminal be 
 treated as an irresponsible insane patient is dealt 
 with ? the superintendent in charge of each decid- 
 ing when he may safely be trusted at large. With 
 proper regulations and efficient supervision by the 
 police to save them from their own weakness, un- 
 doubtedly a large number of criminals who are now 
 shut up, in demoralizing idleness and vile com- 
 panionship, might be safely allowed at liberty; 
 thus saving them from debasing influences, and the 
 State from the necessity of supporting them. ^ But 
 there is a smaller number, who now are periodically 
 
8o PUBLIC RELIEF AND PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 turned loose to prey upon their fellows, who are as 
 dangerous as any madman, and who ought to be 
 always kept under control. Thus our folly is ap- 
 parent in both directions — we keep masses of men 
 shut up under a system Vvhich destroys both soul 
 and body, who are quite capable of being useful 
 and valuable members of society, while we con- 
 stantly unchain wild beasts, knowing them to be 
 such, waiting for some overt act before we dare to 
 lay our hands upon them again. 
 
 Under the rule of the Department for the Re- 
 duction of Crime, the number of criminals im- 
 prisoned would surely be greatly diminished, and 
 the training of all actually in restraint would be 
 such as to teach them the lessons they failed to 
 learn from the influences of a natural life ; while 
 those who could not learn would never be allowed 
 the opportunity to injure themselves and their fel- 
 low-men. Our present system of treating prisoners 
 is generally the exact opposite of this and of the 
 practice in Gloucestershire, England, where crime 
 has diminished most remarkably during the past 
 forty years. Mr. T. B. LI. Baker, the man who 
 has been mainly instrumental in bringing about 
 the great change, thus describes the means adopt- 
 ed, in a paper written in 1S78 : 
 
 "In 1783, Sir George Paul, one of the Justices of this 
 county, brought before the Grand Jury his scheme for 
 bringing Howard's suggestions into practice, and in 17S5 
 
PRINCIPLES. 
 
 8i 
 
 he obtained an Act of Parliament for building a new gaol 
 on what was then called the Solitary System. . . . 
 In 1843 it became necessary to enlarge our accommoda- 
 tion. . . . We were urged to pull down all our old 
 prisons and to build one large prison, at a cost of about 
 ;^ 140,000; while it was estimated that the number of com- 
 mitments would be doubled in about every sixteen years. 
 We did not do this, but we added largely to all our five 
 prisons, and at an expense of ^0,585 we raised the num- 
 ber of cells to 720. . . . We were told we had not 
 built enough, and we should, in ten years' time, be re- 
 quired to add to it. But, instead of this, our police was 
 organized, and preventive measures adopted — raising, in- 
 dexed, at first, the number committed, but reducing them 
 after a few years. By 1861 we were enabled to close four 
 of our five gaols, and our average number in prison for 
 the la^t ten years has been under 200 for a population of 
 352,000. . . . Our number in prison has diminished, 
 notwithstanding the increase of population, from between 
 500 and 600 in 1840, to 166 in 1876, and I have no doubt 
 that a considerable portion of this decrease may be at- 
 tributed to the fact that, until 1846, we were not allowed 
 to keep the accused in individual confinement by day, 
 though by night they were always separated. The men, 
 indeed, were divided into two day rooms, presumed to be 
 for greater or lesser crimes, and the boys were kept in a 
 third room ; but what was even then spoken of as ' the in- 
 conceivable abomination of the habit of indiscriminate 
 association,' especially among the boys, was very sad. 
 Still, so many other good influences commenced work at 
 nearly the same time, viz : the establishment of a police 
 (endeavoring still more to prevent than to detect crime), 
 of reformatories for juveniles, . . . and more lately 
 
82 PUBLIC RELIEF AND PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 theadoptionof cumulative punishment fortheheavierclass 
 of crimes (we have not yet obtained the power of thus 
 deahng with the minor offenses), and all have no doubt 
 contributed so much to the result, that we can not assign 
 the share of each. . . . 
 
 " I hold strongly that our great object is not that of 
 having the most perfectly planned and ordered goals ; our 
 object is the reduction of crime to the greatest degree 
 that we can effect. Goals and prisons are one means to 
 that end, but only one means, and so far as my experience 
 goes, not the most efficacious, nor the least objectionable. 
 Our means to reduce crime are : 
 
 1st. A well-arranged system of sentences. 
 
 2d. A trustworthy and reasoning police, and 
 
 3dly. The goal." 
 
 In a letter dated April, iSSo, Mr. Baker, writing 
 to an American, says : 
 
 " I feel quite certain that, with the same amount of 
 crime we now have, we might have less than half of our 
 present proportion in prison, and that the lessening of our 
 regular average in prison would lessen our crime. But I 
 cannot believe that in America generally you have nearly 
 the amount of crime that we have ; and if so, far less than 
 half the average in prison ought to suffice for you. Cer- 
 tainly the common prisons arc a terrible evil, but I can 
 not believe that the country which gave, not only so m.uch 
 money, but so many noble lives, to the cause of extirpat- 
 ing slavery, can continue much longer not only to im- 
 prison the bodies, but also to ruin the souls of its own 
 citizens, when a great improvement might, as I believe, be 
 made with very slight expenditure in the first place, and 
 with actually considerable saving in the end. Perhaps I 
 
PRINCIPLES. 83 
 
 am more cheered in this belief at the present moment by 
 a letter that I yesterday received from the Governor of 
 the prison at Gloucester. Our average number in prison 
 in 1870 was 279; in 1875 it was 209. Since then it has 
 gradually lowered to 170, 160, etc., but for the last three 
 months the average of prisoners belonging to our county 
 has been 131, and yesterday it was just 100 — a smaller 
 number than, I think, it has been during the present cen- 
 tury. Of course we must not consider this a permanent 
 lowering, but only a pleasant omen." 
 
PART II. 
 PRIVATE CHARITY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INSTITUTIONS, 
 
 It is very desirable that the official and volun- 
 teer efforts to lift up the degraded part of the 
 population of any town or city should supple- 
 ment each other and mutually supply the deficien- 
 cies inherent in each. 
 
 The public institutions should always be under 
 the constant oversight of volunteer visitors, who 
 should not only represent the people at large and 
 seek to discover and make public all wanton 
 abuses and official neglect and carelessness, but 
 who should also supply the precious element of 
 human sympathy and tender personal interest 
 which must often be lacking where the care of 
 dependence is a business and the common every- 
 day work the means of livelihood of overtaxed 
 officials. The more entirely, however, these 
 volunteer visitors will receive these same officers 
 within the pale of human sympathy, and the more 
 
INSTITUTIONS. 85 
 
 frequently they will accord a thought to their 
 troubles and difficulties, the more sure will they 
 be of benefiting also the dependent patients and 
 inmates of the institutions they visit. It is a great 
 mistake on the part of those who wish to accom- 
 plish any good to assume an attitude of antagon- 
 ism toward the officials in public institutions — a 
 mistake in policy and in fact, for the amount of 
 unselfishness and devotion often to be found 
 among those who spend their lives in the distaste- 
 ful ministry to ungrateful and degraded pauper 
 insane and sick, can scarcely be imagined. 
 
 On the other hand, private charitable institutions 
 need regular and severe official inspection. The 
 tendency to slackness, extravagance, and even 
 more serious abuses can scarcely be resisted, unless 
 the standard is kept up by constant criticism from 
 persons who know what they are talking about, 
 and who have no interest in making matters appear 
 better than they are. Those who undertake the 
 care of dependents of any class, children, the sick, 
 old people or insane, have assumed a quasi-public 
 trust, and they must be helped to a conscientious 
 discharge of it. It is not their own private affair 
 whether those whom they have taken under their 
 protection are well or ill cared for; it is a public 
 concern and good care should be insured by public 
 inspection. 
 
 This is still more the case when public funds are 
 
86 PUBLIC RELIEF AND PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 placed in the hands of private individuals to spend 
 for the care of dependents, and here, besides the 
 inspection required in other institutions, a rigid 
 financial supervision should be maintained. 
 
 As to the policy of granting public funds to pri- 
 vate charities, it is scarcely a question that it is a 
 grave error to supply the entire support of public 
 dependents in private institutions, or to provide 
 by law, as is done in New York, for a per capita 
 allowance for each inmate admitted, sufficient for 
 his support, for this must act as an encouragement 
 to increase the number of inmates unduly, since 
 a larger number can be proportionally more 
 cheaply supported than a small number, and con- 
 sequently a direct pecuniary gain follows upon the 
 increased size of these institutions. 
 
 The correct rule would appear to be to furnish 
 from the public funds to any established private 
 institutions, a certain proportion (never more than 
 half) of the cost of maintaining the inmates, pro- 
 vided that the official inspectors report favorably 
 each year upon the condition of the institution 
 and the inmates, and that some proper test as to 
 the wisdom of admissions is devised, and a limit 
 is placed upon the time during which the payments 
 are to continue. The Government grants made 
 to the certified schools of England seem to be 
 guarded by proper restrictions. 
 
 There is, moreover, a serious moral objection to 
 
INSTITUTIONS. ^7 
 
 private Institutions supported entirely by public 
 funds, because they hold out more of a temptation 
 to the struggling poor than are offered by public in- 
 stitutions— many persons who would turn with hor- 
 ror from a poorhouse would willingly enter a"Home" 
 —the disgrace of dependence is thought to be less 
 in the latter case. And while this may be so, if 
 the " Home " is really supported by private cliarity, 
 it is most certainly not so if the " Home" is m 
 fact an almshouse, maintained by money raised by 
 taxation, and it is desirable that its true character 
 should not be cloaked. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 PRINCIPLES AND RULES. 
 
 Before we can speak of Charity to the poor, we 
 must find out what it is — that is, we must ao;ree 
 upon some definition of the word. 
 
 ist. It must be voluntary. No benefit conferred 
 because it could not be avoided could be called 
 charitable. Were the poor to take by force the pos- 
 sessions of the rich, although they might benefit by 
 them, neither of the parties to the transaction 
 would delude themselves with the idea that charity 
 had been bestowed or received. 
 
 2nd. It must be free in another sense. The 
 person to whom we exercise charity cannot have 
 an acknowledged personal claim upon us. The ful- 
 filling of the duties of parent or child would not 
 be spoken of as " charity" whatever might be the 
 suffering on the one hand and the devotion on the 
 other, nor can a master be charitable to his serv- 
 ants or work-people, unless he does for them more 
 than it is his duty to do. He can be kind, just, 
 fair, and considerate, but not charitable unless 
 they fall into distress and he voluntarily helps 
 them out of it, and even then the distress must 
 
PRINCIPLES AND RULES. 89 
 
 not have arisen for his sake or in his service — if a 
 man were killed in the service of his employer and 
 the latter were to undertake to provide for his 
 family, the act would scarcely be called charitable 
 — it would be merely discharging a debt. 
 
 3rd. Charity must go further than kind feeling 
 — it must be kind action — it must accomplish good 
 to the object of it. No amount of good feeling 
 could convert an injurious act into a charitable 
 one. 
 
 4th. Charity must be exercised toward a person 
 in inferior circumstances to those of his benefactor. 
 We cannot be charitable to our equals — in the 
 sense of the word with which we are dealing. 
 
 Charity, then, as I define it, must be a voluntary, 
 free, beneficent action performed toward those who 
 are in more destitute circumstances and inferior in 
 worldly position. 
 
 By this definition, of course, all official and pub- 
 lic relief is put outside the pale of charity, since it 
 lacks the voluntary element. 
 
 By this definition, moreover, I contend, that all 
 indiscriminate almsgiving and all systematic dole- 
 giving is proved not to be charitable. 
 
 Charity must be a good — a good forever, to him ^ 
 who receives it — but however benevolent may be 
 the motive, if the action be not beneficent, there is 
 no charity. Almsgiving and dolegiving are hurt- 
 ful — therefore they are not charitable. 
 
go PUBLIC RELIEF AND PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 Almsgiving and dolegiving are hurtful even to 
 those who do not receive them, because they help 
 to keep down wages by enabling those who do 
 receive them to work for less than fair pay. No 
 greater wrong can be done, not only to those who 
 receive the miserable pittance, but to all working 
 people. Wages at the best are low enough, with- 
 out being reduced by the action of the benevolent. 
 
 Almsgiving and dolegiving are hurtful to those 
 who receive them because they lead men to remit 
 their own exertions and depend on others, upon 
 whom they have no real claim, for the necessaries 
 of life, luliich they do not receive aftei' all. 
 
 In this last fact lies one secret of the injury 
 done — false hopes are excited, the unhappy recip- 
 ients of alms become dependent, lose their 
 energy, are rendered incapable of self-support, 
 and what they receive in return for their lost char- 
 acter is quite inadequate to supply their needs ; 
 thus they are kept on the verge almost of death by 
 the very persons who think they are relieving 
 them, by the kindly souls who are benevolent, but 
 who will not take the trouble to be beneficent, too. 
 
 The nature of doles is to be insufficient and to 
 be uncertain. They would cease to be doles and 
 would become pensions were they to assume a 
 regular character and to be sufficient to meet the 
 ascertained wants of the recipient, and in certain 
 cases pensions are an excellent manner of bestow- 
 
PRINCIPLES AND RULES. 9 1 
 
 ing charity. Indeed, where it is possible for char- 
 itable societies to support entirely such people as 
 they decide to help, the effect on the latter indi- 
 viduals may not be any worse than if they had 
 fallen heir to an adequate income in any other 
 way, although it is of course a fact that sudden 
 inheritances often do destroy good habits both 
 among the rich and the poor ; but even under 
 these circumstances, the effect on others would 
 have to be considered. The extraordinary and 
 fearful result of assuring every family, however 
 improvident and however vicious, a comfortable 
 support, has been shown in the quotation from the 
 Report of the English Poor Law Commission, 
 given in Part First of this book. The terrifying 
 decay of industry, temperance, providence and 
 natural affection not only among what are techni- 
 cally called " the poor" in England during the fifty 
 years preceding 1835 but also among a large pro- 
 portion of all the men and women who labored for 
 their daily bread, is a warning that must not be 
 overlooked. 
 
 The great point to be considered is what is 
 possible. Could all men be made comfortable and 
 happy by. a charity so extended that it would 
 amount to an equal division of the wealth of any 
 criven community, I should welcome the measure 
 with my whole heart; but it has been proved, and 
 surely it scarcely needed proving, that no amount 
 
92 P UBLIC RELIEF A XD PRI VA TE CHA RITY. 
 
 of money scattered among- people who are without 
 character and virtue, will insure even physical 
 comfort. 
 
 It is for this reason that nothing should be done 
 under the guise of charity, which tends to break 
 down character. It is the cfreatest wrone that can 
 be done to him to undermine the character of a 
 poor man — for it is his all. The struggle is hard, 
 he needs all his determination and strength of will 
 to fight his way, and nothing that deprives him of 
 these qualities can be "charitable." 
 
 The proof that dolegiving and almsgiving do 
 break down independence, do destroy energy, do 
 undermine character, may be found in the grow- 
 ing ranks of pauperism in every city, in the fact 
 that the larger the funds given in relief in any 
 community, the more pressing is the demand for 
 them, and in the experience and testimony of all 
 practical workers among the poor. 
 
 Before entering on any explanation of how the 
 poor may be raised and helped, we must form 
 some idea of who the poor are. There is a mis- 
 taken and dangerous, but I fear not uncommon, 
 impression, that in every community there exists a 
 given and constant number of individuals who 
 may be classed under that name, who are abso- 
 lutely helpless, and whom it is somebody's duty to 
 feed, clothe, and generally care for. 
 
 The line of division between this mass of suffer- 
 
PRINCIPLES AND RULES. 93 
 
 ing people and every body else is supposed to be 
 clearly defined, and the former are to be treated 
 on quite different principles from the rest of the 
 world. Thus, while it is thought to be a good 
 thing to drive a hard bargain with the widow who 
 does the family washing, and to make her earn 
 her dollar by a hard day's work, it is also thought 
 to be a good thing to give a dollar without inquiry 
 or equivalent to the widow who passes her days 
 in idleness and her nights in debauchery. The 
 fact that the first widow may in time come to 
 contrast her lot with that of the second widow, 
 and may prefer the latter, seldom occurs to the 
 almsgiver, nor does he know how desperate a 
 temptation he is presenting daily to his fellow 
 
 men. 
 
 As a fact we have the miserable company of 
 hopeless paupers that is imagined by the common 
 mind, but it is most unfortunately not fixed in 
 quantity ; it is perpetually being augmented by the 
 weak and foolish and wicked who have watched the 
 course of benevolent persons and societies, and 
 who can no longer resist the temptation constantly 
 held out to them to give up the unpleasant 
 struggle and accept the gift so freely offered of a 
 living'' without labor. Therefore the problem 
 before those who would be charitable, is not how 
 to deal with a given number of poor ; it is how to 
 help those who are poor, without adding to their 
 
94 PUBLIC RELIEF AXD PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 numbers and constantly Increasing the evils they 
 seek to cure. 
 
 Whatever the circumstances, whether in a 
 sparsely settled neighborhood or in a crowded 
 city, the principle adopted must be the same, 
 although the action will have to be different. 
 
 The fundamental principle is that all charity 
 must tend to raise the character and elevate the 
 moral nature, and so improve the condition of 
 those toward whom it is exercised, and must not 
 tend to injure the character or condition of others. 
 
 Clinging to this principle as a guide, there are 
 several rules which it is well to follow in practical 
 work. I will mention some of the most important 
 only. 
 
 The first is that each case is to be radically 
 dealt with ; that is, finding fellow beings in want 
 and suffering, the cause of the want and suffering 
 are to be removed if possible, even if the process 
 be as painful as plucking out an eye or cutting 
 off a limb. 
 
 The cause of distress is to be sought out and 
 dealt with, or the distressed ones to be let alone, 
 for only harm will result from unwise and ignorant 
 meddling. Better leave people to the hard work- 
 ing of natural laws than to run the risk of 
 interfering with those laws in a mischievous 
 manner. This first rule, that each case must be 
 radically dealt with and finally disposed of, shows 
 
PRINCIPLES AND RULES. 95 
 
 one fundamental difference in the mental attitude 
 of those who believe and who disbelieve in 
 "dolegiving." The former regard it as a natural 
 condition of things that a certain part of the 
 community should not be self-supporting, they 
 think it even desirable that there should be " the 
 poor" to look after, they accept the degradation 
 and suffering of other people with calmness, as 
 inevitable facts, and' to satisfy their own feelings 
 of pity they offer their inadequate doles, never 
 casting a thought beyond the present day, or even 
 inquiring whether permanent and efficient help 
 might not be almost as easy to give. 
 
 The other class, on the other hand, regard each 
 case of poverty as a wrong, an unnatural evil and 
 one W'hich they should use every effort to eradicate ; 
 it shocks them that men should be unable to live 
 by their labor ; but they do not give doles, know- 
 ing that this will often retard or entirely prevent 
 the energetic action required on the part of the 
 sufferers themselves to lift themselves out of their 
 difficulties. 
 
 The dole-giving acts upon the receiver as insuf- 
 ficient watering in dry weather acts upon plants — 
 they die because they are watered and are tempted 
 to keep their roots near the surface, instead of 
 plunging them deep down where they will find 
 nourishment. With plants, you must either water 
 thoroughly or not at all — with the human beings 
 
96 PUBLIC RELIEF AND PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 you must either care for them entirely or let them 
 depend on themselves — to tempt them with a false 
 hope that you will supply them with what they 
 need, and then fail them, is cruelty. 
 
 The second rule is, that the best help of all is to 
 help people to help themselves. That is, that 
 instead of receiving the means of living, men 
 should receive from the benevolent the means of 
 earning a living — that the poor man or woman 
 should have the road cleared so that they may 
 themselves march on to success — that their brains 
 should be released from ignorance, their hands 
 freed from the shackles of incompetence, their 
 bodies saved from the pains of sickness, and their 
 souls delivered from the bonds of sin. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 METHODS IN COUNTRY AND CITY. 
 
 To be charitable in any degree, the first neces- 
 sity is knowledge of the facts, not only of those 
 connected with a special case of suffering, but of 
 the surroundings and antecedents, character and 
 possibilities of the people to be helped. No wise 
 course, no radical measures, no permanent help 
 are possible without this. 
 
 In the country or even in a village this knowl- 
 edo-e exists— it is not necessary to adopt any 
 special means to acquire it. In fact this naturally 
 obtained knowledge makes the whole problem of 
 dealing with the one or two poor families so easy, 
 that the danger (or certainty) is, that it will not 
 be thought worth while to adopt the right prmci- 
 ples, orlndeed any principle. It seems most easy 
 and natural and right in one's own neighborhood, 
 where one knows every one, to step into the house 
 of a poor friend and give him the help he requires 
 in his unexpected distress, and it is natural and 
 right, provided one does know every one ; but 
 gradually there come strangers, both rich and poor, 
 to live in the village ; suddenly the knowing every- 
 one is discovered to have become a thing of the 
 
98 PUBLIC RELIEF AXD PRIVATE CHARITY. 
 
 past, and the new rich neighbors upset the well 
 considered plans that have been formed for the 
 old poor neighbors, and the poor neighbors, 
 hearincr how much kindness there is in the town, 
 ask also to share it, and suddenly the community 
 awakes to the fact that they have a pauper class 
 in their midst, and that some of their old inhabit- 
 ants belong to it, and the painful suspicion forces 
 itself upon the benevolent that they have perhaps 
 helped to drive them into it. 
 
 The only way to undo the harm is to regain by 
 some means the advantage that the small com- 
 munity had without effort. The same intimate 
 knowledge of those who have to be helped must 
 be got in some way, and the only possible means 
 of getting this knowledge, and of making it avail- 
 able to others, is that recommended by Dr. Chal- 
 mers and carried out in Glasgow and in Elberfeld, 
 that is, of subdividing the labor among many 
 willing hands. 
 
 A small association of men and women should 
 be formed and a special territory assigned to each, 
 so that he may become thoroughly acquainted 
 with all who live within its limits. It will be far 
 better if such an association does not call itself a 
 Relief Society or an Employment Society, or any 
 sort of society that will tempt people to begin to 
 consider their own needs and whether a little help 
 would not be very convenient to them also. Such 
 
ME THOD S I.V CO UN TR V A ND CITY. 99 
 
 Societies as these last are a standing advertise- 
 ment for applicants, and the supply is always 
 equal to the demand. Let this new association 
 merely be a Friendly Society and let its objects 
 be to work for the good of the whole town, to 
 create a neighborly good feeling, to help forward 
 all good objects and put down all bad ones, to see 
 that the laws are enforced, sanitary regulations 
 complied with, that the children attend school, and 
 nuisances are abated. Such a society, acquainted 
 with the town and all its people, would in great 
 measure prevent the growth of pauperism, and it 
 could give the wisest advice to private almsgivers 
 were any almsgivers necessary, and it should make 
 itself and its influence so prominent that all who 
 wished to help others would come to it first for 
 information and advice. Such an association 
 formed when the town contained but a few inhab- 
 itants, would grow with its growth and would be- 
 come the center and instigator of all good works, 
 educational and elevating, that might be under- 
 taken either by individuals or by the town itself. 
 The main point in regard to the association is that 
 each member should have but a small section of 
 the town, the one directly in his own neighbor- 
 hood, to study, and it is by means of this subdi- 
 vision that the town may be assimilated to the 
 country village. 
 
 In a city no such simple means will suffice — for 
 
lOO PUBLIC RELIEF AND PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 in every city the large multitudes of inhabitants 
 and the complications of living make imposture 
 easy, and unknown suffering a possibility, and a 
 more complicated machinery is needed to defeat 
 the one and discover the other. I believe a 
 "Charity Organization Society" to be a necessity 
 in order to check the growth of pauperism in cities, 
 and to guide charity toward wise measures. In a 
 country village, the mountain springs supply the 
 water that is a necessity of life, and from the kind 
 hearts of neighbors flows, also, a living stream of 
 charity blessing those who receive it ; but in the 
 city, unhappily, we need reservoirs and pipes, 
 ramifying through all the streets, and branching 
 up into every house to bring us even the water we 
 drink, while in like manner even our love to our 
 neighbor must be guided through organized chan- 
 nels, or it will lose its life-giving powers and be- 
 come a source of moral disease and death.* 
 
 * The consiitutioa and by-laws of the New York Charity Organization 
 Society are recommended as a model. 
 
CHAPTER IV, 
 
 PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS. 
 
 The ways of putting the rules of true charitable 
 work into practice are as many as are the human 
 beings who need help, but there are certain classes 
 of sufferers, the members of each of which may 
 be dealt with by very much the same means and 
 these it seems worth while to describe. 
 
 The classes of cases where direct money help 
 may be given are confined to those where, the nat- 
 ural breadwinner is dead, or disabled by physical 
 ailment, and these may be divided into permanent, 
 long continued, and temporary disability. In all 
 these cases, before any such help is decided on, it 
 must be clearly understood that it is better, in the 
 long run, better morally, better for themselves and 
 the community, that the family should be held to- 
 gether ; otherwise, whatever the suffering, enter- 
 ino- an institution public or private, is the remedy 
 for their trouble. 
 
 Old people, who through no fault of their own, 
 have come to poverty, and who have no children 
 who ought to help them, may be made recipients 
 of a weekly or monthly pension, but it should be 
 
I02 PUBLIC RELIEF AND PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 sufficient for a comfortable living and should be 
 given by individuals, if possible, upon whom they 
 have some claim. Each oase must be judged on 
 its own merits. These I call cases requiring per- 
 manent relief. 
 
 Widows with young children require long con- 
 tinued relief, and this should be given, but w^ith 
 the greatest care ; no regular pension paid out 
 week by week, without individual supervision, will 
 suffice— such can not fail to injure both the mother 
 and children especially if it is supplied from pub- 
 lic funds. 
 
 The position of a widow with small children 
 whom she must support is most pitiful — she has 
 to perform both the duties of father and mother, 
 and in the nature of things she can not do it. If 
 she devotes herself to earning a living for her chil- 
 dren, they suffer for her care, and if she gives them 
 the care they need, she and they have not food 
 sufficient. Under these circumstances, it is not 
 onlyaninjury to herand to her children, but to the 
 public, to leave her unaided, and to break up the 
 family and scatter the children may be an unneces- 
 sary and unwise cruelty. Each case must be de- 
 cided on its own merits, but if the mother is all 
 she should be and can earn the support of the 
 family, it is the office of true charity to pay some 
 one else to do a mother's part to the children, and 
 to care for the house. In the case of two widows 
 
PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS. 103 
 
 with children, they may be encouraged to help 
 each other by living together, the one doing the 
 inside work, the other earning the living of both 
 families so far as possible, supplemented by a cer- 
 tain sum from outside, which may be given as pay 
 for the services of the one woman in taking care 
 of the other's children. Constant oversight, how- 
 ever, is necessary in such arrangements, to see 
 that all goes well, that the children are cared for 
 and go to school, and to decide when, as the lat- 
 ter become able to help their mothers, the outside 
 help shall gradually be discontinued. 
 
 I know that many wise persons believe that 
 such a mode of dealing with widows encourages 
 improvidence in men ; but we must not demand 
 too much of human nature, and it is not natural 
 that a young man should look forward to dying, 
 and he is scarcely more likely to insure his life, 
 or to lay by money, for fear that his children will 
 be sent to an institution after his death, than for 
 fear they will have to depend partly on outside 
 charity. We may encourage foresight and provi- 
 dence in other ways that bring less suffering to 
 the innocent and less injury to the community. 
 
 Temporary help may sometimes be given in 
 cases of sickness, especially if there are peculiarly 
 difificult and painful circumstances, but usually the 
 hospital is the best resort for the sick, for the cure 
 is more rapid and the habit of dependence is not 
 
I04 PUBLIC RELIEF AN'D PRIVATE CHARITY. 
 
 developed, which is far too often the case where 
 direct money help is given, even with great care. 
 
 To help convalescents, with special diet, or by 
 giving them change of air, are legitimate ways of 
 administering charity, but in all and every case, it 
 is necessary to know it thoroughly in order not to 
 do harm, and it is infinitely better if the help given 
 can come from an individual to an individual, from 
 a friend to a friend, rather than from a Society to 
 " a case. 
 
 The above classes of sufferers are all compara- 
 tively easy to deal with — help may be given if 
 only care is exercised — and they are a great ele- 
 ment of happiness to those who have charge of 
 them, for thev are allowed to relieve the suffering 
 they see and their relations with those they help 
 may be of a very close and tender character, rich 
 in blessings to both. 
 
 We come now, however, to the most painful of 
 all cases, those where the cause of suffering is 
 moral, where the innocent suffer with the guilty, 
 and where there seems almost nothing to be done. 
 Often it is found that a whole family is suffering 
 from the fault of the one man in all the world to 
 whom they have a right to look for support and 
 protection, and here the process of cure, if cure be 
 possible, will be painful to all alike. The first 
 thing to be understood, however, is that the wife 
 and children of a drunkard vitist suffer, no power 
 
PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS. lOS 
 
 can prevent that ; the only question presented is 
 as to the kind of suffering. Shall the man be en- 
 couraged in his vileness, shall his children be ex- 
 posed to the almost unimaginable horrors, moral 
 and physical, which are inevitable so long as they 
 live in the same house with him, shall there be 
 children born yearly who will inherit broken health 
 and depraved minds and bodies, and all this fos- 
 tered by benevolence? Or shall the mother be 
 forced, by her desire to see her children fed, to 
 save them from this fate ? Many good people call 
 it a cruelty to refuse help to the family of a drunk- 
 ard, but where the father and mother are cruel, 
 no outside help will save the children from suffer- 
 ing, while to refuse outside help may do so. 
 
 l' have not the slightest doubt that it \<=>^wrong, 
 and a great wrong, to give help to the family of a 
 drunkard or an immoral man who will not support 
 them. Unless the woman will remove her children 
 from his influence, it should be understood that no 
 public or private charity, and no charitable indi- 
 vidual, has the right to help perpetuate and main- 
 tain such families as are brought forth by drunkards 
 and vicious men and women. 
 
 The answer to objections on moral grounds that 
 a woman has a duty to her husband which she must 
 perform, is conclusive. She has no right to sacri- 
 fice her children to her husband— they are helpless 
 and dependent upon her— he can reform if he 
 
Io6 PUBLIC RELIEF AND PRIVATE CHARITY. 
 
 chooses, or can at least voluntarily enter an institu- 
 tion where he will be helped to reform, and the 
 strongest possible motive that he can have to re- 
 form is that his wife and children will suffer if he 
 does not, or will leave him. 
 
 In case a woman does leave her husband from 
 principle, she should be protected from him and 
 should be treated as though she were a widow. In 
 the case of drinking women, the rules should be 
 the same, and every effort be made to save the 
 husband and children from the discomforts and 
 suffering consequent on her vice. 
 \ Deserted wives with children must not be treat- 
 ed as widows, for it has been found that to deal as 
 tenderly with them as sympathy would dictate, 
 leads other men to desert their families, trusting 
 them to charitable care, and even induces husbands 
 and wives to play upon the sympathies of the be- 
 ] nevolent by pretended desertions. Therefore, in 
 these sad cases, even when most pitiful, it is neces- 
 sary for the general good, to be more severe than 
 seems best sometimes for the individual. 
 
 Of course, where it is possible, the man should 
 be dealt with by law and forced to support his 
 family, but where he has escaped entirely, the 
 mother and children should be left to be maintain- 
 ed by the constituted authorities, and the family 
 broken up and distributed In different Institutions, 
 unless they can support themselves. It ought to 
 
PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS. 107 
 
 be understood in every community that where a 
 man deserts his wife and children and neglects his 
 most pressing duties to them and to the public, 
 that they will be left to suffer the fate he has pre- 
 pared for them. 
 
 It can not be too often repeated that all these 
 directions are general — that every case must be con- 
 sidered separately, and individually, and that every 
 proposed plan must be scrutinized and its merits 
 judged by the light of the first rule that the object 
 of all charitable action must be permanent benefit. 
 
 Help by means of employment is one of the 
 natural devices of those who wish to aid the poor 
 without demoralizing them, but unfortunately, this 
 method, like many other good things is open to 
 abuse, and can not be carelessly resorted to. In 
 order to judge of the wisdom of supplying artificial 
 work as a permanent means of relieving the poor, 
 the whole question of poverty must be looked at 
 broadly. We have to go so far back as to ask, 
 " What does the poverty of the worthy poor mean ? " 
 It can mean nothing else than that there are too 
 many people in the community where the poverty 
 exists. Sober, industrious men and women are 
 poor only because their wages are low. If they 
 can not o-et work it is because no one needs them, 
 and if wages are low it is because there is such 
 competition among the workers that they underbid 
 each other. There is a congestion of workers 
 
Io8 PUBLIC RELIEF AND PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 wherever the " worthy poor " are suffering. For 
 this state of things there seem but two remedies, 
 one to create a genuine demand for their work on 
 the spot where they are, and the other to send them 
 to some place where a demand already exists. If 
 a new industry can be created, a factory opened, or 
 new land be brought into cultivation, the indus- 
 trious and sober poor will cease to suffer for the 
 time, or if they can all be colonized at some near 
 or distant point where work at good wages is of- 
 fered, the difficulty will be met. To undertake, 
 however, to make artificial work for them, to supply 
 charity sewing, or open a charity woodyard, is only 
 to make matters worse than they were before, for 
 the original poor people still remain where they 
 were, and others, moreover, will probably come 
 also to ask for employment, attracted by the offer 
 of work, which is a great inducement to many who 
 would scorn to ask or accept open charity. 
 
 A labor-test is a necessity, if able bodied men 
 and women are to be helped, but it must be a 
 labor-test only and the preliminary to finding them 
 regular employment, and it must be disagreeable 
 and under paid, or it will be no test. 
 
 Before leaving the question of work, it is well to 
 call attention to the following facts : That, where 
 there is an able-bodied man in the family, it is his 
 duty to support himself, his wife and his children, 
 and that onlv harm can result if efforts are made 
 
PRACTICAL SUGGESTIOXS. 109 
 
 to induce the woman to leave her house daily for 
 work. Her whole time is not too much to give to 
 their care and that of the house, and what she 
 earns can not compensate for the loss occasioned by 
 her absence. Young children should also be kept 
 from work. It injures them, and moreover, wher- 
 ever women and children work as a rule, all wages, 
 even the men's are reduced. 
 
 The second rule is that the best help of all is to 
 help people to help themselves, and it follows that 
 no amount of thought or time or money can be too 
 much to spend on such help as this, and that all 
 plans for starting provident schemes, for encourag- 
 ing thrift, for teaching providence and self-control, 
 for establishing schools for industrial training and 
 the teaching of skill, especially such as will help 
 not only that residuum which we technically call 
 "the poor" but the whole community, are the 
 best manifestations of true charity. 
 
 It is seldom remembered that the great scheme 
 of Savings Banks was originally conceived and put 
 into operation as a means of helping the poor. 
 
 The two first savings banks were started in 
 Hamburg in 1778 and in Berne in 1787, and both 
 were more or less closely restricted to the use of 
 domestic servants, handicraftsmen and the like. 
 The Hamburg bank was part of the general ad- 
 ministration of the poor funds. In Tottenham, 
 near London, the first British savings bank was 
 
I lo PUBLIC RELIEF AXD PRIVA TE CHARITY. 
 
 started In 1798 by Priscilla Wakefield for children, 
 and In 1804 It was extended to adults. In 1808 
 Lady Isabella Douglas founded a bank for servants 
 In Bath. In 1810 Dr. Henry Duncan, a minister 
 In Dumfriesshire, opened a bank, and In 1813 the 
 first Edinburgh savings bank was started by the 
 "Society for the Suppression of Beggars." 
 
 These examples are not often remembered or 
 quoted. Savings banks have grown to be such 
 immense business enterprises, and are so necessary 
 a part of the life of every nation, that they are 
 never thought of as a "charity" — but they should 
 be constantly pointed to as an example of what 
 true charity can do. Imagine the infinite dif- 
 ference between the results of that charity and 
 any common soup-house or dole-giving charity. 
 Sunday Schools are another example of the same 
 sort of charity. Any and every scheme of real 
 charity will have in it a germ of life that will cause 
 It to live and grow and bless ever increasing thou- 
 sands year by year, while the unhappy and demor- 
 alizing methods of trying to help the poor by 
 encouraging them to rely on others will have to 
 struggle on amidst an ever-growing crowd of mis- 
 erable beings whom it creates and whom its efforts 
 not only fail to bless, but whom it becomes yearly 
 less able to cope with. 
 
 We have, then, our guiding principle : 
 
 That charity must tend to develop the moral 
 
PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS. in 
 
 nature of those it helps, and must not tend to injure 
 others ; and our two rules : 
 
 That each case must be dealt with radically, 
 and a permanent means of helping it be found, 
 and that the best way to help people is to help 
 them to help themselves — and these seem simple 
 enough, but to carry them out requires an amount 
 of principle and character, of work and devotion, 
 which it sometimes seems almost impossible to 
 find. Besides the intimate knowledge of the suf-~7 
 fering people which I have mentioned already as ( 
 the necessary preliminary to all efficient help, the 
 main instrument to be depended on to raise the 
 standard of decency, cleanliness, providence and 
 morality among them must be personal influence, 
 which means that a constant and continued inter- f 
 course must be kept up between those who have a i' 
 high standard and those who have it not, and 
 that the educated and happy and good are to give 
 some of their time regularly and as a duty, year 
 in and year out, to the ignorant, the miserable \ 
 and the vicious. In a Christian community it J 
 ought not to be difficult to find those ready to 
 undertake such a task, and unless they are found 
 (men and women both), vice and crime will con- 
 tinue to grow b}- the side of poverty and wretched- 
 ness in the rich cities of our favored land. 
 
Mv WiNTKR Gardkw, by Kingsley. 
 
 Work, by Kuskin. 
 
 On a CtRTAiN Condescension in For- 
 
 EiGNEKs, by Lowell. 
 On History, by Carlyle. 
 History, by Macaulay. 
 The Science of History, by Froude. 
 Race and Language, by Freeman. 
 Kin Beyond the Sea, by Gladstone. 
 1'rivate Juogmpnt, by Newman. 
 An Apology for Plain Speaking, by 
 
 :PROSE _ " -'^ . ESSAY 
 
 ISTS : comprising .^ .gie spec . Hunt ' 
 
 De Quincey, Landor, Sydn-" 'uu^ .. mold, Moruy, 
 
 Helps, Kingsley, Ruskin, Loweh. v., ide, Freeman. 
 
 Gladstone, Newman, Leslie Stephen. Tn^ been selected 
 
 with reference to presenting specimens of the method of thought and the 
 
 literary style of their several wn* ...^ an'' a' o for the purpose of putting 
 
 into convenient shape for direct comparison the treatment given by such 
 
 writers to similar subjects. 
 
 The Mutability of Literaturk, by 
 
 Irving. 
 The Wokld of Books, by Hunt. 
 Imperfect Sympathies, by Lamb. 
 Conversation, by De Quincev. 
 Petition ok the Thugs, by Landor. 
 Bfjjefits of Parliament, by Landor. 
 Fallacies, by Smith. 
 Nil Nisi Bonum, by Thackeray. 
 Compensation, by Emerson. 
 Sweetness and Light, by Arnold. 
 
 Popular Culture, by Morley. I Stephen. 
 
 Art of Living with Others, by Helps, j 
 
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