the most upright and honest man; but all men are not honest and upright. Surely it is Pharisaism to preach to such men 'Go in peace; be you warmed and filled; yet give them not those things that are necessary for the body.' It is both injustice and hardness of heart. to denounce almsgiving, to defeat the giving of work, and to offer nothing but the break-up of home as the condition of food necessary for life. If such a man begs, he may be taken up. If he can bear his miseries no longer and steals, his moral rectitude is broken down ; and once destroyed, all boundaries are gone. They must know little of life who do not know what ruin of men and of women comes from the straits of poverty. Forgery, embezzlement, prostitution are brought on gradually, and after long resistance to temptation, even in the educated, by the desperation of want. Will anyone say: Yes, but they imply vice as the motive. I answer: And are the poor free from vice? But again, vice is in such cases the consequence as well as the companion of crime. The moral nature has given way. The misery of want destroyed it before vice or crime was perpetrated. There was a time when forgers and prostitutes were as far from their fall as those who moralise about them when fallen. And if this be true of all men, how much more true of the worthless for whom I am pleading! A student of crime the other day thought that he had disproved the proposition that poverty leads to crime by showing that in times of distress the prisons have fewer inmates; and that the statistics of crime show a diminution of prisoners in the ten years from 1877 to 1886, which was a period of depression. A little more thought would show that this is no disproof. For, first of all, Sir Lyon Playfair some years ago exhibited in a tabular form, resulting from official inquiry, conclusive evidence to show that when wages are low drunkenness decreases, when wages are high drunkenness increases. Shall we then say that prosperity leads to crime? If so, blessed indeed are the poor. Surely no man will maintain that prosperity is to be checked and deprecated, and that the duty of legislators and political economists is to reduce the prosperity of the country in order to check the crime. Moreover, the proposition that poverty leads to crime, does not mean that poverty on Monday leads to crime on Tuesday, but that poverty leads to all manner of temptations. Sometimes the misery of innocent children will drive a man to do what his conscience condemns. Sometimes a daughter, to support an aged mother, will do what her whole soul abhors. They who live among statistics, and have seldom, if ever, lived among the poor, little know how poverty brings temptation, and temptation both vice and crime. But as we have statistics, let us go to them, though they are like the quadrants and compasses by which the tailors in Laputa measured their customers. The moral life of men cannot be measured by mere numbers. Nevertheless they are pointers. And, first, it is beyond contention that the majority of our prisoners are of the poor. This fact alone proves at least the close relation of poverty and crime. It would be an affectation of scepticism to say that this close relation is not by way of cause and effect. Secondly, the official statistics show this both directly and indirectly. At page xxxix. of the Judicial Statistics for England and Wales in 1886-87, it is stated that, of the people committed for crime, 27.5 per cent. could neither read nor write, 700 could only read or write imperfectly, only 2.8 could read and write well, and only 0.1, or one in a thousand, had superior instruction. If it be said that this proves ignorance to be the cause of crime, I answer that poverty was the main cause of this ignorance. Thirdly, the occupation of prisoners gives the same indication. Of no occupation there were 10.5 per cent.; labourers, charwomen, and needlewomen, 52.0; factory workers, 6-0; skilled mechanics, 14.1; professional employment, 0·2 (1) prostitutes, 3.3; domestic servants, 2.5. These statistics prove beyond doubt that, in proportion as the criminals are further from poverty, the smaller the number; in proportion as they are nearer the greater the number; and that the vast majority are those who are absolutely poor, and live in all the vicissitudes of poverty. It is an old-world saw that half our virtues are from the absence of temptation. But, lastly, the statistics of increase in indoor paupers and decrease in prisoners, in the years between 1877 and 1886, prove nothing. There are many explanations of this fact. I have it on high authority that thousands of adults who used to be imprisoned are now fined under the Amended Summary Jurisdiction Act of 1879; and thousands of children who used to be sent to prison are now sent to reformatory or industrial schools, or let off with a reprimand. The Report of 1887 shows for Great Britain the number of children in industrial schools as follows1: These two facts fall precisely into the ten years from 1877 to 1886, and prove that a change both in the treatment of persons charged and in the tables of statistics had been made, which accounts for the decrease of prisoners. 1 Report for 1886, p. 9. III. From the change in the administration of the Poor Law two consequences have followed. First, a profuse almsgiving. We have been told with great confidence that five millions of money were spent in a year in alms in London alone. Without doubt much was imprudently spent; and this imprudence caused many accidental evils of mendicity, mendacity, indolent dependence upon help, neglect of duty, wastefulness, and refusal to work for bread. But to affirm that this is the inevitable result of almsgiving is to condemn what the Author of Christianity enjoins. And there have not been wanting men of note and name who have censured His teaching as erroneous. The effect of these excesses is to provoke a reaction which is somewhat strong and vivid in certain minds. Again, to tell us that almsgiving springs from selfish indulgence of emotion, or of self-contemplation, is as shallow as the Hutchinsonian philosophy, which tells us that men do right only because it makes them happy; or the Benthamite, that they do so because it is expedient. Compassion has suffering for its proper object, as hunger has bread. These philosophies of the second syllogism are credible to those who know of no Divine commandments, but to those who know a higher law and a nobler lore they would be simply ridiculous if they were not mischievous. Nevertheless there can be no doubt that the charity and generosity of individuals and of societies were profusely abused; and that the accidental evils of good things when abused were many. But it is to be borne in mind that this large almsgiving of five millions of money arose, not only from the promptings of charity, but from the constant sight of suffering unrelieved by the Poor Law. If it had been more compassionately administered, these five millions would in all likelihood have never been given. They rose to this vast sum by the daily sight of unrelieved want. It was so far a spontaneous return to the profusion of old days. And here it may be well to call to mind the recommendations of the Poor Law Commissioners in 1834. They provided for loans to deserving men in time of distress, attaching the wages of the same on the return of work. And, further, the Commissioners continued as follows: We recommend, therefore, that the Central Board be empowered to incorporate parishes for the purpose of appointing and paying permanent officers, and for the execution of works of public labour.❜ Under the Executive Commission afterwards appointed, road work was provided for the outdoor relief of the Spitalfields weavers, which they largely undertook. At the time of the cotton famine in Lancashire outdoor relief 2 Report of Commissioners, &c., p. 337. Fellowes, 1834. was provided in the form of earth-works, as sanitary works, for the relief of 40,000 men. A million and a half of money was lent to the local authorities by the Government for the execution of remunerative sanitary work. Seven thousand took the work; and the rest, with the assistance of friends and relations, were otherwise provided for. A large part of sanitary drainage work is earth-work; and but for a change in the administration, such work to the amount of a million and a half of money would have been provided, and might now be provided by a return to the administrative principles formerly recommended. A great amount of almsgiving, then, manifestly resulted from the refusal or discontinuance of such employment of labour. But, further, there was a second consequence from the changed administration of the Poor Law. As the large return to almsgiving sprang from this change, so the existence of the Charity Organisation Society sprang from the profuse giving of alms. It was said that, of the five millions, two were devoured by the administrators or distributors; there was constant overlapping, so that money was given by several persons or societies to the same person or case, and to the most undeserving. The Charity Organisation Society arose with these chief attributes. First, to promote correspondence and co-operation among the many beneficent societies, so that their alms should not be wasted by overlapping and relieving the same case twice over. Secondly, for the detection of impostors who were obtaining help under false pretences; living as paupers and refusing to work for their bread. Thirdly, to assist the deserving in time of transient distress, either by gift or by loan. This part of the Society's work is most wise and charitable. It is in the spirit of the Acts of Elizabeth and of the recommendations of the Commission in 1834. Fourthly, to oversee the cases of poverty brought before them, and to aid both by help and by advice those who were striving to maintain or to retrieve their state. All these are excellent offices, of true and prudent charity. There may be others unknown to me, but these were the motives which induced me to become a member of the Society at its outset. So long as it is coextensive with the whole field of poverty, and adequately supplied with means, large-hearted in promoting all prudent agencies of relief, and free from the narrowness of doctrinaires, it must be regarded as a valuable supplement of the legal and mechanical operation of the Poor Law. They are both needed, and neither without the other could cover the whole area of poverty. Moreover, it is necessary that voluntary and personal service without hire or reward should be added to the legal administration of relief. In point of education, intelligence, and perseverance, the members of the Charity Organisation Society are of the highest efficiency. The words 'I am a man, and everything human to me is as my own,' ran through the old Latin world like an electric spark. They were written by an emancipated slave who had known sorrow. Love your neighbour as yourself,' was spoken by One who made Himself a servant and the man of sorrows for our sakes. Compassion is fellowfeeling, and a share in the sufferings of others. If the commonwealth of Israel was pervaded by pity for poverty and compassion for sorrow, what ought to be the large and watchful compassion of England for its people? It is a Christian people. It believes in Him who said 'I have compassion on the multitude.' There is no doubt that in every great city there will be a refuse of the population who, through their own perverse will, blind conscience, and evil passions, gather together into a demoralised and dangerous horde. But it is also certain that each was once an innocent child. The bloated and brutal man, if he had been nurtured by à loving mother in a pure home fit for man to live in; if he had grown up in the consciousness of a Divine law and presence; if he had lived in honest labour, found as a rule in the labour market, or as an exception, in times of distress, provided by the compassion of a wise charity, or of a law wisely and charitably administered-he would not have become the wreck in body, mind, and speech, which we may see in our streets every day. If parents, teachers, pastors, had been faithful, if the legislation and administration of public and social law had been conceived and carried out, not with a view to money, or to enrichment, or to retrenchment, but for the moral and domestic life of the people, though some men will always wreck themselves, society would not be guilty of the ruin of its offspring. When society is sound, it sustains individuals who are falling. When society declines, it pulls down individuals in its fall. commonwealth in which domestic life is perishing has a settlement in its foundations. A If, then, the worthless are what they are because the society of to-day has wrecked them, what is society doing or willing to do, to redeem and to save the worthless? None are so bad that there is not still a hope. But the class of men and youths who came into open day some weeks ago are not to be bettered by neglect, much less by defiance. Goodness will overcome evil, and kindness will break the hardest hearts. If the confidence of the worthless and dangerous could be won, it would be like the warmth of the sun breaking up a frost. The poor youths of eighteen and nineteen may be bad, but they are not yet hardened in evil. Are they to be left to become hopeless criminals? Surely there are men and women ready to go among them. Human sympathy, kind care, personal |