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 ON THE 
 
 SYSTEMATIC VISITATION OF THE POOR IN 
 
 THEIR OWN HOMES AN INDISPENSAELE 
 
 BASIS OF AN EFFECTIVE SYSTEM 
 
 OF CHARITY 
 
 DKLIVRRET) BY 
 
 SIR CHARLES TREVELYAN 
 
 On the 27th of June 
 
 AT A CONFERENCE OF THE SOCIETY FOR ORGANISING 
 CHARITABLE RELIEF AND REPRESSING MENDICITY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE & CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE, LONDON 
 
 1870
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED ON JUNE 27 AT A 
 
 CONFERENCE OF THE SOCIETY FOR ORGANISING 
 
 CHARITABLE RELIEF AND SUPPRESSING 
 
 MENDICITY. 
 
 In approaehing this subject I feel unaffected anxiety. After 
 many extremely useful and interesting discussions, we have 
 at last arrived at the 7'oot of the matter. The outworks 
 have been carried, and we find ourselves committed to a final 
 struggle face to face with the stronghold of the enemy. 
 
 We have heard to satiety of the evil effects of profuse, in- 
 discriminate charity ; how it has attracted to the metropolis 
 all who prefer to live at the cost of others rather than by 
 their own labour ; how it has created an army of profes- 
 sional mendicants — not merely, or principally, street beggars 
 — but a demoralised multitude who spend their lives in going, 
 with artfully devised tales of woe, from one charitable society 
 and individual to another ; and how, after all, the accom- 
 plished cheat is filled with good things while the deserving- 
 poor are sent empty away. 
 
 The Poor Law is eating still deeper into the vitals of our 
 country. It does not even 'profess to improve the condition 
 of the poor, so as to hold out a hope, however distant, of the 
 ultimate extinction of pauperism, or at least of its reduction 
 to a minimum. In its character the Poor Law is essentially
 
 4 THE SYSTEMATIC VISITATION OF THE POOR. 
 
 mechanical ; disregarding the infinitely varied circumstances 
 and feelings of the individual man ; taking no note of anything 
 but the mere fact of destitution ; imposing the workhouse 
 test on the able-bodied, and thereby breaking up the home, 
 and breaking down the elevating and refining influences 
 which emanate from it ; prescribing for widows and orphans, 
 for the aged and infirm, a scale of outdoor relief barely suffi- 
 cient to keep body and soul together, exhausting the 
 strength, and precluding all hope of a return to a self-sup- 
 porting state — a scale which is at once insufficient and in- 
 discriminate, and so imperfectly checked that the idleness 
 of the country is maintained at the expense of its struggling 
 industry. No distinction is made between the deserving 
 and undeserving; no attempt to discover and remove the 
 causes of distress ; no appeal to children or other near rela- 
 tions. Sons and daughters who are doing well in the world 
 deliberately neglect their parents in order to force them into 
 the workhouse, and when they are there they hold no com- 
 munication with them lest they should be charged with their 
 keep. On the other hand, the actual or collusive desertion 
 of families in order to throw them on the rates is becoming 
 more and more a national habit. A reign of universal self- 
 ishness has been inaugurated ; to a fearful extent banishing 
 forethought and self-denial, relaxing industry and self- 
 respect, and extinguishing those relative family affections 
 which sweeten and bind together human society. Can we 
 wonder that the number of paupers in England has increased 
 since 1860 from 844,633 to 1,032,300, and the expense 
 of relief from 5,454,764^. to 7,673,100L ; while in the 
 Metropolis the increase in numbers has been from 85,368 to 
 120,827, and the increase in expense from 796,423L to 
 1,415,233L for 1869, and it has since still further increased? 
 The increase of the Poor Law expenditure in the Metropolis 
 from 1864-5 to 1868-9 was 509,000L, or 56 per cent. The 
 largest increase in any other part of England was in the 
 South-eastern counties, where it was 23 per cent. Even the 
 Poor Law officials are forced to admit that this system is
 
 THE SYSTEMATIC VISITATION OF THE POOE. 5 
 
 corrupting the morals and swallowing up the resources of 
 the country. Our brethren the Scotch have had the unusual 
 advantage of seeing the development of two opposite 
 systems in a single lifetime, and what they think of the 
 Poor Law will be seen from the following summary of this 
 branch of the subject in a report made in 1868 by a Com- 
 mittee, which included many of the ablest men in Scotland, 
 on the ' Condition of the Poorer Classes of Edinburgh and 
 of their Dwellings, Neighbourhoods, and Families ' : — 
 
 Operation of the Poor Law as at present administered opposed to 
 natural laws, and to the soundest principles of political economy, for 
 it — 
 
 Makes the Industrious support the Idle, 
 
 Makes no distinction between poverty resulting from misfortune, 
 
 and from vice. 
 Diminishes Industry. 
 
 Diminishes frugality, and provident habits. 
 Destroys the Ties of Relationship. 
 
 Lessens the Sympathy of the Wealthier for the Poorer Classes. 
 Destroys Sympathy between the Poor. 
 Destroys Moral Training of Children. 
 Tends to remove Working-Classes from the Country into the 
 
 Town Districts, and to overcrowd the latter. 
 Tends to increase enormously the Number and Expense of the 
 Poor. * 
 These facts indicate a radical defect in our system of 
 managing the poor. In what quarter, then, are we to look 
 for a remedy for this gigantic, growing evil of pauperism ? 
 Let us, first of all, try the question by applying to it the test 
 of a priori reasoning. 
 
 * I am surprised at the decided opinion of the bad effects of the Poor Law to 
 which I have been led by an attentive study of the subject, including a review of 
 the miscellaneous experience of a long and busy life. But it is better that the 
 truth should be spoken. Every moral and social evil has its appropriate remedy. 
 As this malady is of a complex character, it requires a varied treatment ; but a 
 wise application of Christian charity in the mode recommended by the Founder of 
 our religion, offers the best prospect of a restoration to health. ' Pure religion and 
 undefiled before God and the Father' is not merely to keep ourselves 'unspotted 
 from the world,' but also to ' visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction ;' 
 and our Saviour Christ ' went about,' not only ' teaching and preaching the gospel 
 of the Kingdom,' but also ' healing all manner of sickness and all manner of 
 disease among the people.'
 
 6 THE SYSTEMATIC VISITATION OF THE POOE. 
 
 In this, as in other things, knowledge is power. Before a 
 physician determines upon a remedy, he makes a careful dia- 
 gnosis of the disease. Is this malingering, or a genuine case 
 for relief; and, if it is a genuine case, what treatment will 
 soonest restore, and most permanently maintain, the health 
 of the patient ? These questions must be answered before 
 any real good can be done. 
 
 Money and money's worth are only a part, and by no 
 means the most important part, of what is required for the 
 restoration of the patient. A sympathetic pressure of the 
 hand; kind words of encouragement and advice; the very 
 knowledge that a benevolent and influential friend is watch- 
 ing the case, to do any service in his power, have a reviving 
 effect. We were all struck by the work done by Miss Octavia 
 Hill in the poor neighbourhood taken in hand by her. How 
 would it be, if, instead of a single unassisted lady, volunteers 
 were systematically organised from the entire upper, and 
 middle, and Avorkiog class of the Metropolis, for the purpose 
 of improving the condition of the lower class ? The business 
 habits of our merchants and bankers, the trained intelligence 
 of our lawyers, the habits of command and administration 
 of our civil and military of&cers, and the high qualities of 
 the large body of retired public servants, who have acquired 
 reputation in various parts of the world, would then all be 
 brought to bear upon the reduction of the pauperism of 
 London. 
 
 It is time that we should cease to do all our charity by 
 proxy, and to think that we have discharged our duty to 
 society when we have subscribed a five-pound note to a public 
 institution. Who are to enquire into the individual cases of 
 the swarm of neglected children who are the seed plot of 
 future pauperism and crime ? There are nearly 57,000 on 
 the London out-door relief list alone, besides those maintained 
 by charity, and the large street Arab class. It is idle to talk 
 about national education, if no machinery is arranged for 
 bringing this young proletaire rabble under proper training, 
 before they qualify for the Reformatory or Prison, by breaking 
 the law in so marked a manner as to become objects of interest.
 
 THE SYSTEMATIC VISITATION OF THE TOOK. 7 
 
 How is overcrowding, with its degrading* effect upon health 
 and character, to be prevented ; or proper drainage, ventila- 
 tion, light, and water to be secured ; or legal authority to be 
 invoked for the removal of physical and moral nuisances, 
 if attention is directed to these vital subjects only by fits and 
 starts by a few uninfluential individuals ? 
 
 Since the beginning of this century the gulf between rich 
 and poor has become fearfully wide. The rich have become 
 richer and the poor poorer. The proposal is to close this 
 gulf, and to bring back the rich into such close relation with 
 the poor as cannot fail to have a civilising and healing in- 
 fluence, and to knit all classes together in the bonds of 
 mutual help and good will. Everything else would follow 
 from this. There would be no necessity for pressing the 
 adoption of remedial measures on the attention of the en- 
 lightened, public-spirited upper and middle class of London, 
 when they were once made to understand the real evil and 
 danger of the existing state of things by being brought into 
 close contact with it. A thorough system of house to house 
 visitation is not only an indispensable basis of every other 
 improvement, but it must inevitably lead to those improve- 
 ments. 
 
 To proceed from a priori reasoning to actual experiment, 
 what do we find? The parochial system gave the first idea 
 to Dr. Chalmers of the true mode of managing the poor of 
 great towns. His aim was to make St. John's, Glasgow, 
 like his old country parish of Kilmany. Many of us can 
 speak from experience of the happy influence of the upper 
 upon the lower class in rural parishes, where everybody 
 is known, and everybody's welfare is consulted according to 
 his special circumstances. But in towns the poor are so 
 massed, that, in order to make an impression upon them, 
 they must be subdivided into manageable sections under 
 responsible visitors. This was Dr. Chalmers' plan, and 
 it has been repeated wherever a serious effort has since 
 been made to bring urban pauperism under control. It 
 has been so at New York, Boston, Edinburgh, Elberfeld.
 
 8 THE SYSTEMATIC VISITATION OP THE POOR. 
 
 No plan of managing the poor has been better devised, or 
 been more successful, than that which has been organised by 
 the Jewish community in London, and has resulted in a 
 marked improvement of the entire class of late years. The 
 nature of the system will be understood from the following 
 extract from Dr. Stallard's book upon London pauperism : — 
 
 Very early in their history, the Jewish Board of Guai-dians dis- 
 covered the impossibility of treating their poor by pure officialism. Ic 
 was easy to attend the Board, to hear the statements of the poor and 
 the reports of the enquiry officers, and to administer relief on a scale 
 to be determined by some arbitrary rule, or by the state of the exche- 
 quer ; but they found that these operations were totally inadequate to 
 make any real impression on the habits and character of the poor, and 
 that a practical interest in their welfare must be shown, not only to 
 elucidate the nature of the distress, too often concealed from official 
 ears, but to administer the kind of assistance which was likely to 
 relieve them best. 
 
 In the year 1861, therefore, the Board appointed twenty-five (now 
 increased to thirty) gentlemen as a visiting committee, and in the first 
 year of its existence 300 cases were confided to one or other of its 
 members for special visitation. These gentlemen, having discovered 
 that cases occur in which female investigation and advice are very 
 necessary, invited the co-operation of some ladies of intelligence and 
 experience, who kindly undertook to visit and report upon such cases 
 when required to do so. 
 
 This visiting committee, although acting in complete harmony with 
 the Board, does not usurp the power of relief ; it informs and suggests, 
 and, when deputed by the Board, it carries out that Avhich is deter- 
 mined upon. Its first duty is to become intimate with the state and 
 requirements of the poor committed to its charge. There are many 
 cases of a complicated character which are much better investigated by 
 private per.^ons than by officials. The sliamefaced poor — and it is 
 significant that there are many amongst the Jews — have thus an 
 opportunity of explaining misfortunes in secrecy and confidence, which 
 it would be impossible to reveal in public to the officials and the Board; 
 they appear, as it were, by counsel trusted by the court ; their self- 
 respect is preserved, and they are not necessarily humiliated by contact 
 with the line of hardened poor who stand waiting at the doors. The 
 counsel suggests the most appropriate treatment, which is rejected, 
 modified, or adoj)ted, as experience may dictate. And, lastlv, the
 
 THE SYSTEMATIC VISITATION OF THE POOR. 9 
 
 visitor becomes the almoner of the Board, that the public bounty may 
 be carried to the heart as well as the home of the recipient with a 
 loving hand. 
 
 Each visitor takes a certain number of pauper families under his 
 special care. He is required to visit them from time to time ; he 
 is to see that the applicant makes the most of his own resources ; that 
 his friends help him, and that no demand is made upon the funds of 
 the Board until all the fountains of private charity have been opened 
 up and exhausted. If employment only is wanted, the visitor is ex- 
 pected to help the applicant, by advice and influence, to obtain work. 
 If emigration is desirable, he is to recommend it in the proper quarter, 
 and see it carried out. If sickness be the cause of distress, the visitor 
 must see that the patient is duly attended by the medical officers, or 
 sent to the hospital where he is likely to obtain the advice and aid 
 most suitable to his case. During the absence of the sick parent, he is 
 to charge himself with the support of the mother and children, lest the 
 home be broken up. And when the patient comes out of hospital, he 
 is to see that he returns to his employment, withdrawing the assistance 
 judiciously, that idle habits may not be fostered. 
 
 If the applicant be a widow, he is to see that she does not starve ; he 
 is to enlist sympathy on her behalf ; he is to take care that her children 
 be fed and sent to school, or to one of the asylums dogtined for their 
 support. If of proper age, they are to be apprenticed to a trade ; and 
 it is his duty to see that the master also performs his duty towards 
 them. And if the applicant be aged and worn-out, the visitor is to 
 use his influence to get him admitted into a fitting almshouse, and to 
 take care of him until he gets there. In this way, the visitor pledges 
 himself to carry the poor person through his difficulties, whatever they 
 may be, restoring the unfortunate to independence where it is possible to 
 do so, and doing all he can to improve the physical and moral state of 
 those who are confided to his care. 
 
 Edinburgh has been divided by the Association for Im- 
 proving the Condition of the Poor into twenty-eight Sec- 
 tions, under as many Local Committees. Their plan is 
 recapitulated in their last Annual Report as follows : — 
 
 Each Local Committee of a section shall consist of not less than 
 five members, including the Chairman and Secretary. 
 
 Each Section shall be subdivided into Divisions, a member of the 
 Local Committee acting as Special Visitor of each, in charge of the 
 Division.
 
 10 THE SYSTExMATlC VISITATION OF THE I'OOR. 
 
 Each Division shall be parcelled out into Districts, each of which 
 shall, if possible, contain not more than twelve families requiring re- 
 gular visitation, having a Visitor assigned to each. 
 
 The Local Committee shall inform the Visitors as to their powers 
 and duties, and the limitation of these, and shall supply them with 
 Schedules, and give any assistance, advice, and information that may 
 render their duties easy to themselves and useful to the Association. 
 
 The Special Visitor shall act along with the Ordinary Visitors in his 
 Division in all difficult or doubtful cases, and in every case where 
 relief is applied for, or appears to be required. In cases where he may 
 consider it necessary to give relief before it is possible for him to con- 
 sult his Local Committee, he is authorised to do so ; but it will be his 
 duty to report such cases, and every other case, on an Office Schedule 
 or otherwise, at the earliest meeting of the Local Committee. 
 
 The Local Committee shall, through the Superintendent or otherwise, 
 take the necessary steps for bringing before the Parochial (local Poor- 
 Law) Board, or any of the existing Benevolent Institutions, the cases 
 that seem to belong to them. As a rule, admitting of very few excep- 
 tions, persons in receipt of Parochial allowances are not objects for 
 relief by the Association ; neither are the permanently poor, for whom 
 the Parochial rates are specially designed. When the allowances are 
 obviously insufficient, the Local Committee ought to make application 
 to have them increased. The sources from which information as to 
 the character and antecedents of the families in the Section may be 
 derived, are the Inspectors and Medical Officers of the Poor-Law 
 Boards, the Superintendents of Police, the Parochial and all other 
 Clergymen connected with the Section, all Missionaries, Bible- Women, 
 Visitors of the Destitute Sick Society, and any other persons engaged 
 in philanthropic efforts. 
 
 The Local Committee will consider the cases of those reported as 
 out of employment, do what it can to obtain work for such, and, if un- 
 successful, will report them to the Superintendent at the Central Office. 
 
 As a general rule, it will be the duty of the Local Committee to 
 decide whether in any case material help should be given, and, if so, to 
 fix its kind and quantity. In doing so, it will bear in mind — 
 
 (1.) That the object of the Association is not to give relief to the 
 idle or the vicious, or to any whose poverty is due to their own 
 wilful and sustained misconduct. 
 (2.) That the relief administered should be given in kind, and not 
 in money — in articles least liable to abuse, in small quantities, 
 proportioned to the immediate need — and should be discontinued 
 as soon as the need cea^^es.
 
 THE SYSTEMATIC VISITATION OF THE POOK. 11 
 
 Each Local Committee shall be represented at the Acting (or general 
 superintending) Committee by one of its Members, who shall be the 
 regular medium of communication between his Section and the Acting 
 Committee, and who shall be expected to keep himself informed regard- 
 ing the condition and procedure of the Section which he represents. 
 
 Elberfeld and Barmen 
 
 are divided into eighteen districts, and in each of these districts there 
 are fourteen fathers, or armenpflegers, who each have five or six indivi- 
 duals allotted to them, whom they visit once in fourteen days. The 
 armenpflegers are called to office by the community for a term of three 
 years. They are not obliged to serve, but they consider it an honour 
 to be called to such a duty ; and I am informed that they scarcely, if 
 ever, refuse to comply. 
 
 Of late this principle has begun to be applied to the Poor Law 
 administration of London. The old, which is still unhappily 
 the ordinary mode, is to make the relieving officers' districts 
 so large that it is impossible for them to investigate all the 
 applications for relief in detail, and to bring the whole of the 
 cases before the entire Board of Guardians, so that only the 
 most superficial and perfunctory attention can be given to 
 them. Time will not admit of any real examination of the 
 applicants for relief, and they are therefore dismissed almost 
 as soon as they have been presented. But of late years, in 
 the Poplar Union, the cases under the supervision of each 
 relieving officer have been reduced from the average of 350 to 
 about 150, and the Union itself has been subdivided into 
 districts, each of which has been placed under the special 
 responsibility of a committee, consisting of two or three 
 Guardians. It has thus become possible to give individual 
 attention to each case of application for relief. The relieving 
 officer has time to investigate all the circumstances, and the 
 Guardians themselves visit the poor in their homes. A minor 
 advantage of this division of labour is that, instead of the 
 whole body of Guardians sitting a whole day to make a very 
 imperfect revision of the relieving officer's reports, they get 
 through the work in a much more satisfactory manner in little 
 more than an hour. The poor are better provided for ; and 
 it will be seen from the following statement that, instead of
 
 12 
 
 THE SYSTEMATIC VISITATION OF THE POOR. 
 
 the large increase in the number of paupers which has taken 
 place in other metropolitan unions, there has been a decided 
 decrease in the Poplar Union. 
 
 POPLAR UNION. 
 
 Number of Paupers in Receipt of Relief on the last day of the last 
 
 Week in each Quarter of the following Years — 
 
 18G7, 18G8, 1869 and 1870. 
 
 I ! I I ' ! 
 
 I Christmaa Quarter \ Lady-day Quarter Midsummer Quarter Michaelmas Quarter 
 Parochial | __ ! I 
 
 Years Number of Paupers I Number of Paupers ' Number of Paupers ' Number of Paupers 
 
 1866-7 
 1867-8 
 1868-9 
 1869-70 
 
 6,954 
 9,612 
 7,333 
 5,903 
 
 10,172 
 8,977 
 7,541 
 6,703 
 
 7,858 
 7,917 
 5,870 
 5,168* 
 
 5,974 
 6,833 
 5,477 
 
 It may perhaj^s be said that the number of poor is so 
 vast in London as to be totally unmanageable. But large 
 regions of the metropolis are inhabited by the upper and 
 middle classes, and do not require to be visited ; and, if the 
 poor are numerous, the rich are at least in equal proportion. 
 There is a vast fund of stray benevolence in London, seeking 
 for investment. If the principle of house to house visitation 
 is resolved upon, the six or seven Metropolitan Relief Asso- 
 ciations must close their ranks and concentrate their forces ; 
 and an enormous amount of voluntary agency, which is now 
 frittered away on miscellaneous small societies, obstructing 
 each other and causing infinite waste, would find a more 
 beneficent employment in this common organisation. Then 
 two great and influential classes would come to our aid. 
 Besides many cases in which female investigation and advice 
 are indispensable, the entire work of charitable visitation is, 
 with some exceptions, suited to the feminine character and 
 qualifications ; and the assistance of respectable working men 
 
 * For the eleventh week of the auarter,
 
 THE SYSTEMATIC VISITATION OF THE POOR. 13 
 
 and women, with their practical knowledge of the poor, and 
 their just influence over the classes below them, would be 
 invaluable. The constitution of English society is highly 
 favourable to an organisation of this sort. We are a people 
 of unbroken traditions. We have never undergone a cata- 
 clysm like the French Eevolution; and the feudal feeling, 
 under the modern form of ' the respect due to the position 
 of a gentleman,' is still strong among us. English society is 
 built in successive layers, each of which exercises great 
 influence over the one below it ; and every class above the 
 lowest shares in this power and responsibility. 
 
 All who are now employed as visitors under the clergy of 
 every persuasion would take their places in the new organi- 
 sation ; while the clergy themselves would enter into intimate 
 relations with the district committees, aiding them by their 
 advice and influence, and by the material assistance they 
 would procure for them from their congregations, and refer- 
 ring to them every case which appeared to require attention. 
 The advantages of this arrangement are described as follows 
 by the large and able Committee which reported in 1868 on 
 the condition of the poorer classes of Edinburgh : — 
 
 1st. Every man, whatever his religious opinions may be, is free to 
 unite with others in prosecuting this great work of charity, which can 
 only be successflii when promoted by that systematic and thorough 
 co-operation by which such great results have been achieved in other 
 departments of human labour. 
 
 2nd. It sets free ministers of religion, missionaries, and Bible-women, 
 whose peculiar duty it is to attend to the spiritual wants of the poor, 
 from stimulating that tendency to hypocrisy and dissimulation which 
 is sure to follow the footsteps even of the most discerning minister of 
 religion, when he seeks to act also as the distributor of his own or 
 others' charity.* 
 
 * To strengthen the opinion of the impolicy and danger to the poor of the 
 same agents being employed to minister both in temporal and in spiritual things, 
 your Committee request special attention to the three following extracts : — 
 
 J)r. Chalmers said — ' Your ladies go about among the poor with a tract in one 
 hand and a shilling in the other. How can their eye be single ? It just keeps 
 veering from the tract to the shilling.' And again — 
 
 ' It has never been enough adverted to, that a process for Christianising the 
 people is sure to be tainted and enfeebled when there is allied with it a process
 
 14 THE SYSTE^fATIC VISITATIOX OF THE POOR. 
 
 Srd. In so far as the efforts of ]ay agencies are snccessful in alleviat- 
 ing the temporal condition of the poor, they remove many obstacles to 
 the reception of the Gospel, and open the way for the ministers of 
 religion to exercise their more peculiar functions ; for, to whatever 
 extent the sense of neglect and the pressure of severe want is removed, 
 to that extent will the ground be the better prepared for the reception 
 of the precious seed, which it is the privilege of the clergy to sow. 
 
 When the irregular levies of charity have thus been con- 
 verted into an organised army, there will be two, and only 
 two, forces in the field moving on parallel lines against 
 pauperism ; one supported by a compulsory tax, and acting 
 according to rules prescribed by law or official authority, 
 and the other instinct with the vigour and varied applica- 
 bility which belong to voluntary action. Cordial and effective 
 co-operation would thus become possible. But for this 
 purpose it is absolutely necessary that there should be 
 no supplementing of Poor-Law relief by charity, or of 
 charity by Poor-Law relief. Each of the two agencies 
 must be exclusively responsible for its own portion of the 
 field of action. There should be unlimited exchange of in- 
 formation ; and the cases themselves should be freely trans- 
 ferred from one to the other, accordingly as they appear 
 to be better suited to Poor-Law or charitable relief. Possibly, 
 as Poor-Law Guardians become sensible of the necessity of 
 scrutinising the cases which lie on the border line of legal 
 and charitable relief, and of preventing, as well as relieving, 
 pauperism, they may allow their officers to act in the same 
 cadres with the Yisitors, so as to combine, for the benefit of 
 
 for alimenting the people ; there lies a moral impossibility in the way of accom- 
 plishing these two objects, by the working of one and the same machinery.' 
 
 Dr. Guthrie, in his address delivered in London in December 1867. thus en- 
 dorses the same sentiment : — ' Experience has taught me, and many besides, that 
 when the minister of religion is known as an almoner of charity, it leads to an 
 extraordinary amount of pretence and hypocrisy, to something no better than 
 prison religion ; and of all religions that which prisons foster is the worsts 
 
 Mrs. Ranyard, the founder of the Bible-Women's Mission, says : — ' We never 
 think it right to dispense relief by the hand of a Bible-woman, if we can help it. 
 It is not that we do not trust her, but it hinders her true usefulness.' 
 
 It may be further noted, that the 'Scripture Headers' Society,' and other 
 societies in England, have been forced, by experience, rigorously to adhere to tliis 
 principle.
 
 THE SYSTEMATIC VISITATION OF THE POOR. 15 
 
 both, the qualities of a regular, with those of a volunteer esta- 
 blishment. This arrangement would be especially applicable 
 to the East-End, St. Giles's, and other poor districts, where, 
 if anywhere, there might be a deficiency of unpaid Visitors. 
 
 The entire organisation must be the work of the District 
 Committees. This Council may inform and advise, but the 
 District Committees alone possess the local knowledge and 
 influence required for the task. To them it belongs, both 
 to construct the machine, and to work it after it has been 
 constructed. Their first duty will be to make themselves 
 acquainted with the ample information on record on the 
 subject ; and then to arrange, with the clergy of every per- 
 suasion, with the Guardians, and with other influential 
 inhabitants, the particular model best suited to their respec- 
 tive districts. There is one point on which the utmost 
 caution will be necessary. At the commencement of the 
 system inexperienced Visitors will be brought into connection 
 with a population which has extensively graduated in the 
 arts of mendicancy ; and, in order to prevent the reproduc- 
 tion of old abuses under a new form, the common rule of 
 all these organisations should be strictly enforced — that 
 the duty of the Visitor is to report the circumstances of each 
 case to his or her Committee, for their decision, and afterwards 
 to give such relief as may he authorised hy the Committee, 
 hut, except in extreme cases, on no account to give, even at his 
 or her expense, any relief ivithout the previous sanction of the 
 Committee. This rule cannot be too soon or too decidedly 
 promulgated. The comfort of all concerned, and especially 
 of the female Visitors — indeed, the success of the whole plan — 
 depends upon it. One of the advantages of the varied 
 agency of which our Society consists, is, that the same ex- 
 periment may be made in difierent ways, according to local 
 facilities and aptitudes. Among so many District Com- 
 mittees some will be in advance on one point and some on 
 another, and all will profit by the experience of each. By 
 fully considering this subject, and working it out in all its 
 parts, any single Committee might at the present time confer 
 a signal benefit on the whole metropolis.
 
 LONnOjr: PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODB AND CO., NKW-STFTfET HQVAI 
 
 AND PAKLTAHfENT STEEKT
 
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