stantially recognised, may not, in a future time, pass the wit of man. In the meantime, might not much be done by employers, by the benevolent, by society in general, towards the encouragement of self-help through co-operative and trades unions, savings banks, and friendly societies ? The Friendly societies have wonderfully developed in their operations and in their resources.1 They are registered, and are under careful supervision. They have enormous funds. Some of them-especially the Oddfellows and the Foresters have special pension funds, whereby a young man, beginning at twenty years of age, can ensure 5s. a-week at the age of sixty-five for the payment of 44d. a-week.2 Unfortunately, the facilities thus offered are not taken advantage of so extensively as is to be desired; but no way more educative of self-respect and of a wise forethought could be found than that of offering inducements to the working classes partially to provide, by means of them, for the liabilities of loss of health, or loss of power to serve, when the envious years write their mark on the frame of the workman.

So long as the only mode of relief is that of

1 Mr Chamberlain has recently advocated a new beginning, with

the co-operation of the Friendly societies.

2 This rate is taken from the tables of the Foresters' Society.

L

the Poor Law, the old who, through no fault of their own, are obliged to drop out of the ranks. of the army of toilers should be treated with all possible consideration. Homes for such, apart from the ordinary poorhouse, might be provided, if not by law, at least by benevolence.

There is much connected with the administration of statutory relief that cannot be regarded as satisfactory. The blame may be divided between the system, and the unsatisfactory social states to which it is related. But Christian wisdom can do much to elevate even the sunken mass of pauperism; and, though the Church in its corporate capacity no longer directs the machinery, it can complement or supplement the machinery that is operative. A poorhouse, as now ordered, is a melancholy place: vitality feeble, low-toned, much of it vicious; but human souls are there, precious to Him who sees with other and larger eyes than ours. There is room in it for the exercise of sympathy, and for the blessings of Christian ordinances. The writer of these pages has no more pleasant recollection of his service in Glasgow than that which is associated with worship, and the celebration of the Holy Communion, in the Poorhouses of the Barony and the City of Glasgow. And there is an ample opportunity for the

The Two Organisations of Relief. 163

exercise of judicious benevolence in connexion with parochial relief. "The two organisations of relief," it has rightly been said, "should be, indeed, as it were twin-sisters, and should act as completely in union with one another as twin sisters generally are supposed to do. Without this action, the greatest amount of good cannot be done either by the guardians on the one hand or the clergy, ministers, and other charitable agencies on the other."1

1 Handy-Book for Guardians of the Poor, pp. 179, 180.

164

CHAPTER IX.

PRESENT-DAY PROBLEMS: POVERTY AND ITS

CIRCUMSTANCES.

66

THE pauperism with which the State deals through a special legal machinery indicates a worm gnawing at the core of England's rose." But the poverty which prevails is not to be measured by the number of persons who are recipients of relief and their dependants; the zone is much wider: it is a zone of darkness which presses against all that is most attractive in the outer aspects of our civilisation. stranger surveying the chief thoroughfares, the terraces and villas and parks of our cities, or the towns and smiling homesteads in the neighbourhood of our railways, might suppose that the death of poverty had been swallowed up in an abundance of comfort. But he would soon find that he had looked on only one side of the picture. Even in rural districts, there are "in

A

Estimates of Poverty.

165

sanitary cottages with bad water and starvation food"; and, assuming that poverty means a scanty supply of the things which are necessary to maintain healthy vitality, the condition of masses congregated in the great centres of population would remind him of grim spectres that are ever flitting through our Vanity Fairs. The statistics of Mr Charles Booth have been often quoted. Sometimes their entire reliability is questioned. But they have not been disproved; they have not been shown to be exaggerated by observations and inductions as painstaking as those on which he builds. What are the results that he claims to have established? Taking only a general summary, they are the following. In London, the proportion of persons in the middle and upper classes is only 17 per cent of the inhabitants, whilst the proportion of persons shading from poverty down to absolute want (exclusive of all fairly employed and regular labour) over the whole city is 30 per cent. In thirty-seven districts, each of which contains more than 30,000 souls, and the total population of which is 1,719,000, the latter proportion varies from 40 per cent to 60 per cent.1 No doubt, London is exceptional; but it is exceptional in its heights 1 Life and Labour of the People in London.