Mr. Goschen has published an able Minute on the necessity
for co-operation between the London Boards of Guardians and the London Charities. He wants them to combine, and to institute registry offices in which lists of all persons relieved either by the State or by the Charities may be kept, with the amounts paid to them, and all other useful information. With such lists he thinks the two agencies need not "overlap," or give away so much as to pauperize the poor. Moreover, he wishes to secure a division of labour, the Guardians taking care of the totally destitute, and the Charities helping people in the previous stage, when a little aid may keep them off the rates. The Charities ought not to assist the Boards' clients with food or money, but only with bedding or clothes. All that is most excellent, but who is to make either Guardians or Charities see that ? The right of anybody to give an order instead of a piece of advice seems to be decaying out of our system.
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