seek to administer justice. In no unpitying sternness, but with humane, considerate, wide-seeing wisdom, we must adapt our methods to the claims of society, as well to the claims of the individual. If a man comes into court and tells his story, the court does not say at once, in a gush of tenderness, "Your case is a hard one; you shall have judgment in your favor;" but rather, "There shall be an inquiry; this matter shall be probed." Is not an undiscriminating charity almost as injurious and quite as absurd, as an undiscriminating justice? We must refuse to act at all till we are enlightened by evidence: that is, till we are reasonably satisfied of what is due to private right and public welfare. Obviously several other things are implied in such a judicial administration of charity.

2. This judicial spirit must be guided by some fixed principles; it must apply rational laws to discovered facts.

(1) It must appear that the object of charity is incapable of selfhelp. We surely owe no relief to these who can get along without it. But that is a question of fact, and calls for evidence. (2) We must discriminate between those whose helplessness arises from external misfortune and those whose helplessness arises from internal defect, or personal fault. For even if in both cases some help is due, they should be helped by different methods.

(3) We must distinguish temporary from permanent helplessness. As a general rule, the chronic and incurable cases should soon be sent to the overseers. Without great caution many cases of temporary helplessness will slip into a habit of dependence.

(4) An offer of some employment, not too tempting, is generally the best and only test of the applicant's disposition. A charitable agency ought therefore to have some employment to offer. When the managers of a Boston soup-house attached thereto a a wood-yard, and announced that the daily ration would be issued to no able-bodied man who would not saw a certain amount of wood, the number fell off at once from 160 to 49. They were not so hungry as they thought! But many persons of moderate intelligence and force do not know how to find or make work for themselves; and no charity is so noble, because none is so helpful, as that which puts them in the way of earning honest bread, preserving selfrespect and cultivating the habit of industry. In English cities, where the overseers have tried this work-test, the poor women especially have shown their real quality; and many have earned

such honorable recommendation as secured them situations in shops. or families. That vein will bear working.

(5) The highest benefit of charity is in the mental and moral impression made; therefore every word and act should tend to produce and confirm in the mind of the receiver the idea that he is only being helped toward self-help-that dependence is itself misfortune, and that willing dependence is dishonor. Without humiliating or reproaching the unfortunate, I think we should never hesitate to express our natural feeling of surprise and regret when any human creature comes before us as a suppliant. The unwilling beggar will accept our regret as a sign of wise sympathy; the willing beggar may be helped to see himself as others see him. There are two classes: one man is so spiritless that, if he stumbles, he will lie sprawling and calling for help, without trying to rise. Another, who is in trouble up to his chin, will decline any offer of help so long as he can keep his nose above the waves. Plainly, these two classes must not be treated alike.

(6) If the evidence shows that idle and wasteful habits are the cause of distress, and that one is habitually and by preference a beggar, it is not charity to the applicant, nor justice to society, to extend any relief whatever, except in "extreme extremities," as to rescue one from despair and death. Both justice and charity to such an one command that we let hunger write on his heart and stomach this lesson of St. Paul: "If any will not work, neither shall he eat." Even if there is no work to be had, one who is proved to be a shirk, from habit and choice, will only be confirmed therein by being put on the list of common charity; let him try the overseers.

If

(7) When it appears that the applicant is not only an idler, or a bummer, but also an impostor-inventing lies to gain assistance, and giving false accounts of himself or his family-he should be promptly turned over to the magistrate, and charged with attempting to procure money or goods on false pretenses. prisons are not for such, prisons are of little use. A very few prosecutions for this form of fraud would soon relieve any community of a pest and a peril. The chief constable of Westmoreland, England, is Greenwood's authority for saying that "ninetynine out of every hundred professional mendicants are likewise professional thieves, and practice either trade as occasion serves." To men of this character, he attributes "the greater number of

burglaries, highway robberies and petty larcenies that take place; and gives it as his opinion that if the present system of permitting professional tramps to wander about the country were done. away with, a great deal of crime would be prevented."

When we fairly settle down to the administration of charity on a judicial system, it will be seen that nearly all cases naturally distribute themselves into a few leading classes, and the application of a just law to each case would soon be obvious. and easy.

The most serious difficulty turns on finding the evidence by which each case is to be adjudicated. Since neither you nor I can spend the time or the means necessary for conducting an inquiry into the merits of one in a score of the applications made to us by strangers, and since "what is everybody's business is nobody's," the facts of the situation push us to this:

3. Every community needs a court or tribunal of charity, that is, an organization through which we can all avail ourselves of the services of skilled agents to whom we can send all cases not otherwise provided for, with confidence that they will be fairly examined and wisely determined. For hundreds of years, when whole nations were subdivided into parishes, each with its priest, there could hardly be a better provision than to put the whole business and resources of charity into his hands. An act of Parliament, under Henry VIII., made it illegal for any to give to the poor, except through the priest of the parish; the irregularity was punished with a ten-fold fine. But the conditions of modern society have made this method of distribution both impolitic and impossible.

So far as each one of us knows his suffering neighbors, we shall certainly feel free to help them directly and privately. Probably, also, every church and benevolent fraternity can care for cases of need within its own constituency more considerately and delicately than would be possible for outsiders. But these institutions, and private citizens also, are bound to act in the judicial spirit, and to guard against waste and harm, even in helping fellow-members and acquaintances. There are plentiful facts to warrant this caution; and it has become a matter of grave public concern.

But outside of all these limited provisions, outside also of the fair scope of the present poor laws, there exists a constant and sore need of some charitable organization which shall represent

and serve the whole community, as its eye and its hand, and which shall do, under adequate guards and limitations, what we all know ought to be done, with courageous thoroughness.

4. This requires the intelligent co-operation of all classes of inhabitants. The wisest and best method would be partly defeated and nullified, if several rival methods and organizations were in operation at the same time and in the same territory. To what purpose is it that you or your agent should spend half a day looking up the case of a poor family, that you may not too carelessly answer their plea for help, if the same family can depend on half a dozen other sources of supply, and no questions asked? Unless the whole community will work together on one plan, well-matured and well-understood, the local administration of charity breaks down into all the old confusions.

The larger the territory to which this system is applied, the more complete will be its results; for the best endeavors of a small district, like those of a single person, will be embarrassed, if not wholly neutralized by the folly of the neighbors.

A very little candor and justice, along with a very little acquaintance with the mixed and jealous conditions of society, will make it plain that no such broad and general system-no true and acceptable Court of Charity--can be called into existence by any political party, any "ring" of reformers, any single religious sect, or any combination of sects: it must be neither Protestant nor Catholic; neither Jew nor Gentile: it must spring from the community, (noble word!) it must unite all classes of citizens, and command their cordial confidence and co-operation. Intelligent representatives of the various interests, schools of thought, moral and religious activities, must confer together at the outset, and must invite all the people to follow their leading into an organiza-. tion as free from the suspicion of sectarian influence as are the courts of justice and the stock exchange.

An experiment in the way of judicial charity has been tried for the last three winters in Germantown-the 22d Ward of the city of Philadelphia. The Relief Society is composed of all citizens who sign its constitution and pay a dollar a year. It has a Managing Board of seven discreet and public-spirited gentlemen, who care enough about the business to give it the necessary attention. An auxiliary society of women, (irrespective of sect,) is a co-ordinate part of the same machinery, and works in happy harmony with the

Managers. The territory is divided into districts; and the Visitors, selected by the women from their own number, report all cases to the Superintendent, (the only paid official,) who follows up their information with careful inquiries of his own; so that every case is put on trial, and disposed of according to its ascertained merits. Both the Superintendent and many of the Visitors have become experts: their discernment and practical judgment are invaluable, though it may well be that in a body of forty or fifty persons, all will not be equally wise, and some will act in the old traditional spirit. The value of the system must depend on its being in the hands of those who understand it.

Premising that the Germantown experiment has been carried forward in a community which imperfectly comprehends its principles, and which therefore extends to it only inadequate moral support, let me sum up what has been accomplished, in spite of these embarrassments:

1. The amount of promiscuous begging has been greatly reduced, especially during the severe season, when alone the agency is active. All householders who use the reference cards and send beggars to the office for examination, have been delivered from much outward annoyance and inward misgiving.

2. It has been demonstrated that the real destitution within the 22d Ward is limited and easily manageable. But little is given, and that with caution. Last winter, or from December to April, relief was granted to six hundred persons in a population of over 25,000; but the average to each person was only $2.36, and to each family, $10.14. Not much encouragement to lie idle through the summer in the hope of being cared for through the winter! Contrast this with the London charities, which spend a hundred dollars a head upon the poor, one-fourth of which is used up by the machinery of dispensing it.

3. The society has detailed knowledge of nearly every poor family and person likely to need or ask assistance. The causes and circumstances of each case are observed and studied.

4. A little employment and small distribution of supplies, for a short time, has prevented the breaking up of families.

5. A large body of intelligent and excellent women, irrespective of sect, have opened lines of friendly communication with the poorest classes, giving sympathy and counsel, quickening self-respect, encouraging habits of household economy, and cheering them through dark passages of sickness and trial. Neglected children.