METHOD IN ALMSGIVING.* To the thoughtful, the kindly, the rich,
or the otherwise ins finential, we commend the digest of facts and suggestions to be found in the pages before us. It may seem strange, but we- think on strict investigation it will be found true, that with all' its boasted philanthropy and with its undoubted, if limited, spirit of earnest helpfulness, this is not an age of large giving. " I have so many claims upon me, some one is always begging," grumbles the well-to-do, possibly wealthy man, as he sips his coffee, and throws the begging letter into the waste-paper basket ; probably a rigid examination of his yearly expenditure would show, to his own surprise, hardly a ten-pound note expended on any one• not directly connected with himself. We think it might be broadly stated that, if every man in England with an income over a thousand a year gave a tenth of his surplus to the corn-
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* Method in Almsgiving. By M. W. Moggridgo. London : Julia Murray. 1882. Chart hi Organisation Reports, 1851. London: Moos of the Clounoil. 1862. monweal, not a child need remain uneducated or unappren- -ticed. Workhouses would cease to be a necessity, and the Poor- law soon be obsolete; but these things are Utopian ; we have to deal with things as they are, not with what might be done, if funds that would rebuild London and endow five Oxfords were at our disposal.
To-day, the grave question before us is—Are those of us who -are awake to perceive the terrible condition of semi-pauperism, more than semi-barbarism, and terrible physical suffering in which a great mass of our population is•plunged, doing wisely and well in our methods of dealing with these evils ? It is now about twelve years (the flash of an instant in the life of a nation) since a few amongst us woke up to a sense that the in- discriminate giving of shillings for the relief of life-long distress was not only an inadequate but an utterly evil mode of dealing with the question of human suffering ; the loudest beggar got -the most, but even he remained a beggar still ; our giving had no healing, no remedial virtue in it. But the tale needs no telling; most of our readers are well aware how the Society for Organ- ising Charity and Repressing Mendicity took its rise, and not a few have watched and helped its widening growth. We have now its thirteenth annual report before us, and would earnestly commend its pages to all who have or can make the leisure to master its details ; but seeing that life for most of us is busy, and this volume bulky, we would still more earnestly recom- mend to those anxious to help, Mr. Moggridge's little work, which is really a complete digest of the bigger book. In the few remarks we have to make on the general principles and working of the Society we shall help ourselves from the two books in- discriminately. And first, we would call attention to one main explanatory statement in the general report. The compiler observes. To organise is to bring into working relations with one another forces which, aiming at an identical object, have been up to that time acting more or less independently. The identical object in the matter before us is right relief of the poor. The forces in independent action to effect this object have been as many as five : the Poor-law, the Magistrate, ecclesiastical bodies, benevolent institutions, private aid, These five sources of aid, says the compiler, were formerly hopelessly independent, and he gives as an illustration the possibility of a poor widow, say, in Marylebone, who, under such hopelessly independent action, might be the recipient of three-and-sixpence a week from the parish, a gift of .10s. from the Magistracy, be a pensioner of at least one church or chapel, be having free treatment at a hospital, soup-tickets at a kitchen, needlework from a society, and be at the same time in receipt of any amount of doles from private individuals;whose charities were unknown to each other. The present writer has known one case where an invalid was receiving dinners from seventeen different sources, while, pro- bably, sixteen neighbour invalids went supperless to bed. The action of the Charity Organisation Society, wherever it has been allowed fair-play, has changed all that, and done far more. It might seem at first glance that the typical widow in the hands of the Society's Committee would not be as well off as formerly ; but, if worthy, she would be more permanently helped, by being placed in the way of getting her own livelihood. We give another typical case :—The father of a family, consisting of five children, two of them boys able to work, falls ill of some terrible and dangerous form of disease; he is unable to work, his wife's time and strength are taken up in nursing, his savings spent in find- ing the means for the small luxuries which become necessaries in the hour of sickness. Under the old conditions, some clergy- man gives doles of charity in the hour of extreme sickness, the charitable who happen to know send temporari relief ; but slowly and surely the whole case ends with parish aid, and the pauper- isation, which means too often the degradation, of a worthy family. Under the action of organised charity, such a case as this is otherwise met ; temporary, but stieicient, assistance would be given ; it would be the /nosiness of the agent to obtain, if pos- sible, good work for the boys, who in their turn could supply efficient help ; medical aid would be procured, the aid of the right people to watch such a case through would be secured, and a whole worthy family be saved some of the most terrible mental as well as physical suffering which comes upon the poor.
In his little manual for helpers, Mr. Moggridge mentions one difficulty which requires all the free-play of thought which can be brought to bear upon it. He says,—" All institutions concerned with men and women in a state of compulsory idle- ness, whether penally or accidentally excluded from labour, have to consider whether it is possible and desirable to provide work for these people. To the inexperienced philanthropist, there seems no possible question as to the distinct advantages to be gained by giving employment of some kind, wherever employ- ment is needed ; but longer and wider experience shows the subject to be one beset with difficulties, which need careful and accurate solution."
Among the many valuable practical suggestions given by Mr.
Moggridge is one which may not, at first sight, seem as im- portant as it really is, It is to the effect that, although nothing should be spent unnecessarily on the mere machinery of the work, and though it is well that the whole work of the Com- mittee should, as far as possible, be without paid salaries, yet that the Committee must work with good instruments, and that for these the necessary price should not be grudged. Por instance, one essential condition for the thorough usefulness Of an organised Charity Committee is that their offices should con- sist of at least three rooms, so that there may always be a pos- sibility of securing for an applicant's case that privacy of hearing which, in many instances, is so essential to the very life of help. One of the most perplexing questions which can come before the attention of any committee, or of any thought- ful human mind, is—What is to be done with " chronic cases," with forms of suffering, either from disease, wrong- doing, or any other circumstances which are in their nature hopeless, incurable ? Large sums are at the disposal of the Central Committee. Is it justified in using them for cases such as these ? If any one thinks that question easy to answer, he is gifted with very small powers of imagination, We take it to be, on the whole, the most perplexing and most painful problem with which we can have to cope. It is one concerning which we are at least thankful to see the Charity Organisation Committees, when called upon to treat it as a practical question, take the most undeniably humane view. But organised charity means far more than has been yet attained. Machinery for the careful sifting of oases of distress it has (though we should like to see its paid. agents for this work more often efficient, clear- headed gentlewomen ; the post is one not easy to fill, but it is one for which son: women are peculiarly fitted). Machinery for obtaining and supplying aid. in cases of grievous need it has, —its whole system, for instance, for supplying loans appears to us admirable, and the work clone in relation to convalescent homes, improved dwellings for the poor, and the exposure of imposture is extensive ; but no one, perhaps, would say more readily than the Central Committee,
" The little done, cloth vanish from the mind That forward sees how much remains to do." •
To us it appears that it remains to bring into united or organ- ised action all the existing charities of the kingdom. Broadly speaking, such charities, properly administered, would probably meet three-fourths of the needs of our indigent population, affording, if rightly used, the means, not of pauperising, but of raising it into a position of comparative independence. Organ- ised charity has already established relations with the Poor- law Guardians. This is greatly owing to Mr. Goschen's able suggestions on the subject. The report before us states that at present the relieving officer brings [we imagine this is far from sufficiently universal] to the notice of the Committee such applicants as he thinks a little temporary charity will keep from tasting the bread of pauperism." " We (the Committee) refer to the Board such applicants as, after due investigation, seem to come specially within their province."
In many parishes the incumbents of church or chapel are working harmoniously and effectively with the Organised Charity Committee, themselves hardworking members of the same, but ecclesiastical fear of interference with patronage is not yet dead, and parochial doles still hinder the larger work; but it is into a closer relation with the working of the great charities of the country that we desire to see the central committees of organised charities brought. In the administration of such chari- ties,—of those great bequests (made between the suppression of the Monasteries and the end of the reign of Elizabeth), which have, in the increased value of land. or through other causes, taken such unthought-of proportions ; these are abuses, or at best non-uses, upon which we have no space to dwell, but which might, and, we think, should rightly come within the scope of the work we are commending. The seventh rule of the Charity Organisation Society is, "To afford the public at large informa- tion regarding the objects and mode of working of existing charities." In this direction much remains to be done. Too white a light cannot be thrown on the subject, and the wider the interest excited, the better. It remains, to meet the common objection with which the pages before us not inadequately deal, but which is one those who would commend organised charity meet at every turn. The man who cannot refuse sixpence to a beggar, but who never gave half an hour's thought to the beggar's home in his life, invariably suggests that all this organised charity is "hard," has "no bowels of compassion in it." Why not P Is the surgeon less tender in proportion as his skill is great, his knowledge accurate ? Or, under subtler conditions, is any being less tender to the man or to the woman for whom he takes trouble ? The whole notion is a popular fallacy ; all systems, as systems, however perfect, are lifeless, till worked out by human agency. The agents, being human, will differ, whether they be members of an organised charity committee or the almoners of parochial gifts. In either case, they may or may not have the divine gift of insight and sympathy which alone can really reach another human heart, which alone does permanent work; but such gift, yoked to the powers conferred by a really able organisation, can accomplish far more definite, extensive, and extending good, than any isolated effort can possibly effect.
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