Mr. Llewelyn Davies and the Salvation Army have re- newed
their engagem-ent during the week, with much the same result as before. The Salvation Army can produce plenty of members who live in or near Lisson Grove ; but they cannot show that these members are taken for the most part from a class of people who were before in the condition of social outcasts. Mr. Davies, on the other hand, shows that the Salvation Army officers are easily taken in, and have got up quite a sensation about the marriage of persons who were certainly more anxious to be married because without marriage they would not be entitled to "outdoor relief," than because they had repented of their illicit connection. Mr. Railton and " General " Booth have both given replies to Mr. Llewelyn Davies which evade the main points ; and "General" Booth especially misses the paint that indis- criminate charity does a great deal more harm than good, and that the relief operations of the Salvation Army often partake of the character of indiscriminate charity. Still, the mischief done by even indiscriminate charity administered by a volunteer Association is as nothing compared with the mischief of indiscriminate charity secured by the subventions of the State. That would indeed be the letting-out of great waters. " General " Booth's observation that if the Home Secretary had not been so busy, he (the General) might have succeeded, in his interview with him, in getting at his soul, was very characteristic. Doubtless he would have liked to produce Mr. Matthews on the platform of St. James's Hall, ejaculating. "We have one Home Secretary on our roll, And he quite happy in his soul." But " General " Booth had to be con- tented short of that. Probably it would have been a sore pitfall for his own soul, if he could have registered such a triumph as that.
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