encouraging knaves. Look before you leap. Never you trust to statements, however plausible, without some inquiry. Never you rise like a silly though benevolent salmon to the bait of a begging fly. Just feel if there is not a hook in it somewhere when one comes to you and declares that he must have his railway fare at once, or he must have £I, otherwise he would be sold up that night. Perhaps you are taken in by such an appeal. 155. The other day Lord Coleridge, at Winchester, said the more sudden the calamity was, the more he was certain it was a case of imposture. I am not saying there are no such things as sudden calamities, but I say the "sudden calamity people" are a well-known class, and they are robbers; if they are not, then justify them. What means do you take to find them out? I am not saying that any one who accosts you in the street is necessarily an impostor; but you relieve nineteen impostors and one honest man in twenty. You are doing nineteen-fold to increase pauperism, and onefold to stop up the gap of pauperism, when you trust without inquiry. 156. If you are so moved, and if you are certain it is a real case, then I don't say you should not give. I am not in favour of hard and fast rules. I think every rule may have an exception, and you may come across the exception. Then give your shilling; but when you have given your shilling, be sure to take the name and address of the person and make further inquiry, or let further inquiries be made for you, and I think you will soon be cured of giving your shilling. Meanwhile give your shillings. It is a capital education for you all. Give your shillings out of the fulness of your hearts, and then take the name and address down; and if, in nine cases out of ten, the persons ever live where they say they live, my experience is worth little. majority give false addresses. The enormous No, that is not the way the honest poor are reached. 157. Unwise almsgiving is one of the great curses of the country. Alas! it is the good charitable people who are thrusting the poor, for whom Christ died, down into hell. But note the truth that is to balance all this reprèssion of unwholesome waste of alms. It is this: Preventive alms and remedial help. There is a noble but neglected sphere for private charity and Christian benevolence. The great thing is to help people before they are down. Find them out, if you can, and encourage honest folks to make you their confidant. Employ any kind of machinery which will acquaint you with cases worthy of relief. Then help, and help effectually. But instead of giving twenty shillings to twenty beggars, why not rather give the 1 to one man? 158. We are enamoured of doles. We don't like to give in lumps. Popular charity may be defined as the art of making that useless to many which might have been useful to some one. You give a shilling to a man out of work: you might just as well give a man one boot. No, spend a little more, and get him a place or give him an outfit. If it is a real case of temporary calamity, then pour out your money. Let us have a fivepound note. It is better to help one real case than half a dozen that are utterly hopeless, untrustworthy, or about which you can give no satisfactory information. 159. Well, you must not suppose in this hard weather, with the snow out on the ground, when we feel cold ourselves and we are going back to our dinners and domestic firesides, that I want to be hard at all. I only want to be kind in the truest and deepest sense. Though I am not going to inveigh entirely against coal-tickets, soup-kitchens, and blanket-clubs in winter, I still affirm that, as at present managed, these are pauperising institutions. I want you to think how it is the poor people come to want coals and soup-tickets and blanket-clubs; and that brings me to this further point and sixth cause of pauperism—the wonderful improvidence of the poor. 160. To meet this sixth cause of pauperism -improvidence-spend a little more money in teaching the poor, in showing them how they may save in summer. Give them cheap books, cheap lectures, counsel and help in time, and you will supersede the winter doles now so fashionable. The improvidence of the poor is no mystery, for you put a steady premium on it. The man who drinks his money away, instead of saving a little and putting it by for the winter, knows that in the winter you, or the parish, or both, will take care of his wife and family, and there-. fore he likes to enjoy himself; it is not his thought to get any enjoyment for his family, he enjoys himself, and you provide coal and souptickets and blankets for his family, and they are all the warmer, not at his expense, but at yours. 161. Now you cannot stop coal-tickets and blankets all at once. Just as the poor-law, giving a man an admitted claim to the alms of his country, is an element of pauperism, so are these other doles; but they are at present necessary evils, and you don't want to cut them off suddenly, because it would not be fair after teaching people to depend upon them. You must teach people better first. You may do this by introducing better methods, which will teach them more self-dependence. 162. Work out this problem in your towns and in your villages. If you want any practical knowledge, any details, go to the Provident Knowledge Society, get a set of the Provident Knowledge papers, one penny each (at 193, Piccadilly). Look over these cheap tracts, and |