" PUBLIC ASSISTANCE."
[To the Editor -of the• SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—As the sympathy of the readers of the Spectator is asked- in the effort to improve -the administration of " Public Assistance," I should like to express , my willingness to do, anything in my power to help. I have had exceptional opportunities of getting into individual touch with the new poor, and my heart has-been wrung to see them suffering and drooping- in quiet- patience, and doing without; not only all- the luxuries of life, but' even its necessities. The heavy rates and taxes-and` high cost of living have-robbed them of the little dependence which formerly gave them comfort and a margin, often cut disproportionately large, wherewith to help their poorer brethren, which help was given in the Scriptural sense of "charity." All they can do now is pain- fully to bear their own burden in dignified silence. Many of them are old people who have done a hard life's work, and the money, which has now dwindled away, was- gathered by thrift and self-denial. The best and surest way of giving them back 'their own is by exerting the same thrift and self- denial in the administration of national expenditure and so reducing the burden so unfairly augmented for them now in the narneof " National Relief."—I am, Sir, &c.,
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