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the system of jurisprudence here, but after the estab-equity will see the use executed by the appointment of a
lishment of their independence some States entirely trustee for that purpose. In Massachusetts the statute law
abolished the operation of the principles of mortmain, bestows upon the supreme court all the authority of a
and others of whose system the statute was a recog-hearing and determining questions of devises for chari-
court of general chancery jurisdiction for the purposes of
nized part modified its operation by endowing their table purposes, or to permit such alterations in the mode
courts with extraordinary chancery powers over char- prescribed by the donor as will best promote the general
ities; and now, with but a few exceptions, the laws interest of the charity. In this State a gift designated to
of the States permit property to pass by will or deed promote the public good by the encouragement of learning,
for charitable uses, whether it be real or personal; and science, and the useful arts, without any particular refer-
these laws have settled the vexed question whether ence to the poor, is a charity, as also a gift or bequest to
the poor of a particular church is a public charity. These
a religious purpose was a charitable purpose by em- trusts or charitable uses may be perpetuated in their
ploying both terms, "religious and charitable uses.
duration, and may leave the mode of application and
Their courts are vested, by legislative enactment or in- the selection of particular objects to the discretion of the
herent common-law jurisdiction, with authority to see trustees; also, a corporation established for the support of
such devises properly executed and the intention of the poor and old women, which devotes all the funds to the
donor carried into effect. As the States have the ex- support of such women in its home, and is no source of in-
clusive power of making and interpreting laws governing it requires a payment of money as a requisite for admitting
come to its members, is a charitable corporation, although
their own citizens, it becomes necessary, in order to treat a woman to its home. In New Hampshire a gift of real or
fully the subject of charity, to view each State wherein personal estate to promote education is a charity, and the
that subject is the matter of jurisprudence by itself, and laws give and allow such charities. This principle of the
consider its peculiar application of the law to the subject. law governing charitable uses was most emphatically laid
down by the Supreme Court of the United States in the
In the State of Alabama the courts of chancery have great case of "The Trustees of Dartmouth College vs.
jurisdiction over bequests for charitable uses by virtue Woodward." This case was an action of trover brought in
of their original common-law powers, and in recognizing the State court, in which the plaintiff, Woodward, declared
the validity of such, without invoking the aid of the Eng- for two books purporting to contain the records of all
lish statute, hold that dedication to religious or public uses the doings and proceedings of the trustees of the college
may be sustained, though it be limited only by the wants from the establishment of the corporation until Oct. 7,
of the community or during the pleasure of the person 1816, the original charter or letters patent constituting the
making it. In Connecticut the legislature has the power college, the common seal, and four volumes purporting to
of an English court of chancery over charitable devises, contain the charges and accounts in favor of the college.
and may direct the sale of the real estate, though the The college was founded by a charter granted by the British
devisee may have directed that the estate should never be Crown dated Dec. 13, 1769. After the college had been
sold, and in cases where the lapse of time or change in the fully established for the period of fifty years the leg-
condition of the property makes it prudent and beneficial islature of New Hampshire passed two acts which in point
to the charity to alien the specific lands and invest the of fact abolished the old corporation and established a new
proceeds in other securities, providing, however, that no one. The first of these acts made the twelve trustees under
deviation from the gift be made; and so absolute is this the charter, and nine other individuals to be appointed by
power that the courts of the United States have no right the governor and council, a corporation by a new name
to revise the facts upon which the legislature has seen fit (Dartmouth University), and to this new corporation
to exercise such power. Here a devise to a town directing transferred all the property, rights, liberties, powers, and
that all the interest of the devise shall be laid out in repair- privileges of the old corporation, with further power to
ing the highways and bridges of the town is a valid char- establish new colleges and an institute, and to apply all or
itable use under the statute, as is also a devise for school part of the funds to these purposes, subject to the power
purposes. In Georgia the principles of the statute of and control of a board of twenty-five overseers to be ap-
Elizabeth have been adopted and constitute a part of the pointed by the governor and council. The second act
law of the State, departing from it only, however, by not makes further provisions for executing the objects of the
suffering an equitable interest to fail for want of a trustee first, and authorizes the treasurer of the trustees of the
to support it; and the superior courts have an inherent college to retain and hold their property against their will.
jurisdiction over bequests to all charitable uses and trusts Daniel Webster, for the college, raised the question before
where the same are definite and specific in their objects the court of the validity and constitutionality of these
and capable of being executed. In Illinois the courts have statutes, and Chief-Justice Marshall, in delivering the
adopted and administered charities upon cy-pres principles, opinion of the court, sustained his view, holding "that the
only with the view of sustaining and carrying into effect college was a private eleemosynary institution whose funds
the intention of the donor, but without authority to change consisted entirely of private donations; that the corpora-
the same; and the charity must be accepted upon the terms tion was not invested with any portion of political power,
proposed; but if the intention of the donor becomes im- and did not partake in any degree in the administration
practicable, it may be altered cy pres. In Maryland the of the civil government. It was the institution of a private
statute of Elizabeth is not in force, but the third section corporation for general charity. The charter was a con-
of the declaration of rights prefixed to the constitution of tract to which the donors, the trustees of the corporation,
the State goes so far as to render valid a dedication of lands and the Crown were the original parties, and it was made
to public and pious uses, though there be no specific grantee on a valuable consideration for the security and disposition
or trustee. It is held that a bequest of the income of prop- of property. Contracts of this kind, creating these char-
erty to be applied towards feeding, clothing, and educating itable institutions, are most reasonably within the purview
the poor orphans belonging to a certain congregation, and and protection of the Constitution. That the college was
of a certain county attending school at a certain place, is not liable to the control of the legislature, and that the
void, being too indefinite to be carried into effect. In Iowa acts of the legislature of New Hampshire altering the
the courts of chancery have no other than judicial power, charter in a material respect without the consent of the
and cannot give effect to gifts and devises in those cases corporation was an act impairing the obligation of the
where no particular object is designated and no trustee charter, and consequently unconstitutional and void."
named or person appointed to select the object, and which This decision, according to Kent, did more than any other
is administered by the chancellor of England as parens single act proceeding from the authority of the United
patriæ; and if a testator ineffectually dedicates his prop- States to throw an impregnable barrier around all rights
erty to charity or in such manner that the devise is void, and franchises derived from the grant of government, and
the State possesses no prerogative to interfere and dispose to give solidity and inviolability to the literary, charitable,
of the property. In Maine the general provisions of the religious, and commercial institutions of our country.
statute of Elizabeth are in force, but as the jurisdiction of In North Carolina the statute of 43 Elizabeth is in force,
the supreme court over such cases of trust is not derived and by virtue of it the court of chancery has jurisdiction
exclusively from that statute, it is not restricted by it. of all charities; but a charity under this statute must be
When a trust is created by a bequest for charitable pur- so described in the will that the law will at once acknow-
poses, if the charity is definite in its objects, is lawful, and ledge it to be such; for otherwise it reverts to the heir-at-
is to be regulated by trustees specially appointed for that law or next of kin. The constitution of this Stace does
purpose, the supreme court of the State has jurisdiction not prohibit the creation of a permanent fund for charitable
over it independently of the statute of Elizabeth, and will purposes. In Ohio the doctrines founded upon the statute
cause it to be executed whether the uses designated are or of Elizabeth, ch. 4, in relation to charitable trusts to cor-
are not within the terms of that statute; and in cases porations, either municipal or private, have been adopted
where there is no trustee to execute the trust the court of by the courts of equity, but not by express legislation, and

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dedications of lands to charitable and religious purposes are valid without any grantee to whom the fee could be conveyed; such gifts to charitable uses receive the most liberal construction. In Tennessee a charity is a gift to a general public use and the maintenance of universities, colleges, academies, and common schools and other lawful institutions are charitable uses. Such provisions of the statute of Elizabeth as were the law before the enactment of that statute, and are applicable to our institutions, are in force here as a part of the common law. In Virginia the statute of Elizabeth in regard to charitable uses was repealed in 1792, but the code declares that conveyances and devises to charitable use are void. In New York the statute of Elizabeth was repealed in 1788, and the power to enforce charities is now in the court of chancery by virtue of its original constitution; but charities within the definition of that statute will be enforced even where the beneficiaries are too vaguely designated to be able to claim for themselves.

sense of the common lr.w; and, finally, that the exclusion
of all ecclesiastics, missionaries, and ministers of any sort
from holding or exercising any station or duty in a college,
or even visiting the same, or the limitation of the instruc-
tion to be given to the scholars to pure morality, general
benevolence, a love of truth, sobriety, and industry, is
not so derogatory and hostile to the Christian religion as
to make a devise for the foundation of such a college void
according to the constitution and laws of Pennsylvania.
Some years after this another attempt was made by the
heirs of Mr. Girard to have the trusts declared void on the
ground that the act of consolidation of the city of Phila-
delphia was a merger of the old city in the new, and there-
fore the city was incapable of executing the trusts beyond
that of the college. The Supreme Court, however, decided
that the estate was vested by will in the city on valid legal
trusts, and it was fully competent to execute; that the
Consolidation Act did not destroy the identity of the city
as a corporation, and it has every capacity under its new
charter to hold, and authority necessary to execute, the
trusts of the will. Under these plenary rulings the col-
lege, under the careful care of the city, has grown to those
magnificent proportions that render it a lasting glory of
philanthropy and an undying evidence of the beneficial
results of charity.
(F. H.)

from the title of the "London Society for OrganCHARITY ORGANIZATION. This phrase, deizing Charitable Relief and Repressing Mendicity by popular abbreviation, has come into recent use to denote a new phase of bringing the benevolent energies of the community to bear upon the social problems of pauperism and indigence.

There are three systems of relief existing in Europe: first, spontaneous and voluntary; second, sequestered endowments and voluntary contributions supervised and assisted by the civil authority; third, a poor-rate levied by taxation and administered by the officials of the state. In each case this description is more theoretical than actual, since in countries where voluntary private action is left free there are old endowments, the management of which is assumed or supervised by the civil power, and in both the other cases the state has noc suppressed independent relief, and in some instances has not even sought to do so. Italy may be taken as an example of unhindered voluntary charity; state su

This jurisdiction rests on the understanding that such charities are trusts, and the specific intent of the donor will be enforced if it can be ascertained and does not come under the provisions of the statutes abolishing all uses and trusts except such as are authorized and modified. The prohibitions of the statute extends only to private trusts and accumulations for remote posterity. A bequest for the use of the poor of a town is not prohibited by those stat-rived utes, nor a bequest for the use of the poor ministers of an incorporated religious society. Nor do the provisions of the revised statutes concerning "expectant estates" apply to property given in perpetuity to religious or charitable corporations, as the cy-pres doctrine, where applied to charitable uses, has never been held in this State. A bequest for accumulation for the purpose of the erection of a church cannot be supported as an absolute gift to take effect immediately. In Pennsylvania the statute of Elizabeth concerning charitable uses does not extend, but its principles, as applied by chancery in England, obtain here by force of our own common law, and relief may be given so far as the powers of the court extend. The peculiar equities commonly ascribed to the operation of the statute are fully administered here when means are found adequate to the purpose; and in this respect the competency has been much enlarged by the laws extending the equitable powers of the tribunals; but a court of equity will not interfere with the exercise of the discretion vested in the trustee of a charity in the distribution of the fund if exercised in good faith. In the administration of a charity unreasonable or impracticable directions in the will in regard to the management of the property will be desig-pervision of voluntary contributions, with aid from the nated, on the doctrine of cy pres, which to that extent is recognized in Pennsylvania. The most important case establishing the doctrine of charitable uses in this country is that which came under the will of Stephen Girard, which, with that of the Dartmouth College, are the leading cases on that subject. Stephen Girard died in Philadelphia in the year 1831, leaving an estate of some $7,000,000. After sundry bequests he left by his will the real and personal residue of his estate to "the mayor, aldermen, and citizens of Philadelphia " for the purpose of constructing and furnishing a college and outbuildings for the education and maintenance of not less than 300 orphans, who might come from any part of the State of Pennsylvania (those from the city of Philadelphia to have a preference) or from the cities of New York and New Orleans, said residuary estate amounting to the sum of $2,000,000. The heirs of Mr. Girard contested the validity of the trusts by reason of the uncertainty of the designation of the beneficiaries of the legacy. They also contended that the corporation of the city of Philadelphia was not authorized by its charter to administer the trusts of this legacy, and that the intentions of the testator would be defeated by the substitution of any other trustee, and that the plan of education proposed is anti-Christian, because in said will the testator forbids a minister of any creed to preach or teach in the college; it is therefore repugnant to the constitution and laws of Pennsylvania. The provisions of the will were defended in a most masterly argument by Horace Binney of Philadelphia, and his views were sustained by the Supreme Court of the United States. It was decided that the trusts created by the will were valid, and that the city of Philadelphia under its charter is invested with powers and rights to take property upon trust for charitable purposes which are not otherwise obnoxious to legal animadversion; that the trusts mentioned in the will of Stephen Girard are of an eleemosy

nary nature and charitable uses in a judicial sense; that donations for the establishment of colleges, schools, and seminaries of learning, and especially such as are for the education of orphans and poor scholars, are charities in the

public treasury, is characteristic of the French empire and of those provinces attached directly to the administration of the First Napoleon; Great Britain and Prussia, with the Scandinavian nations, are instances of the third system, or a poor-tax. As a rule, the United States of America have followed with general fidelity the example of Great Britain. In Prussia, Denmark, Sweden, and in Norway until 1863, the right of a pauper to claim relief from the state is distinctly affirmed by statute. While there is no legislative direction to the same effect in Great Britain, yet a poor-guardian refusing to render the prescribed legal aid to an applicant is liable to penalties for such neglect, and in some instances the pauper can enforce his claim at law.

In

In 1572, Parliament enacted that "rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars" for the first offence were "to be grievously whipped" and seared in the right ear "with a hot iron of the compass of an inch about;" for the second, they were to be adjudged felons; and for the third, to suffer death without the benefit of clergy. The executions under Elizabeth were from 300 to 400 annually. Such severity characterized most countries of Europe until the close of the last century. Repression so stern demanded as its justification some adequate provision for meritorious destitution. 1601 the poor-law system of England began in an act of Parliament which, while forbidding vagrancy and begging, also defined the settlement of the poor in parishes, made these responsible for the relief of their impotent and indigent, ordered the establishment of poor-houses, and authorized the levy of a poor-rate upon real and personal property. The responsibility of the parish for its own destitution and the poor-tax are the germinal elements in the law. They remained unchanged until 1834, save that in 1796 an act was

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passed giving color to the administration of relief,
directing that it should be adequate to the support of
From this time,
the pauper "in a state of comfort."
and simultaneously with the phenomenal increase of
modern mechanical inventions, bringing with it a re-
distribution of population and a concentration of
capital and manufactures in great towns, the burden
of the taxpayer grew more onerous, until it reached
£7,890,000, paid by 11,500,000 inhabitants, in 1818.
In some instances the tax amounted to the con-
fiscation of property. A commission appointed to
investigate the operation of the poor-laws in 1832
reported that the magistrates were wont to have a
scale of maintenance up to which they brought the
income of ill-requited labor by supplementing wages
with allowance from the parish, arguing that it was
better to provide partial than complete support for the
poor. This allowance became an element in the
It served to depress it and to
market-price of labor.
bring the families of workingmen into deplorable
wretchedness. The report led to the Poor-Laws
Amendment Bill of Earl Grey's Government in 1834.
Its leading provisions were the creation of a board of
commissioners to inspect and regulate relief through-
out England and Wales; the suppression of the
authority of justices to order out-door relief; the
erection of work-houses, within which work should be
given according to their strength to the impotent and
destitute. In these institutions husbands and wives,
parents and children, were to be separated, a pauper
dress to be provided. The infirm, the young, and the
vicious were under the same system of discipline and
disgrace. Neighboring parishes might unite under
the authority of the commissioners in building a work-

house.

The commercial distress which followed almost at once made it impossible to carry the amendment act into complete execution, although the agitation attending its passage so improved the administration of the poor-fund that the expenditure fell from £6,317,255 The history of this to £4,044,731 in three years. law was thus epitomized by Mr. Edward Denison in 1869: The principle of its framers was to offer board and lodging in the work-house to all who would take it, the only further consideration being how to make the recipient's condition so uncomfortable that he would avoid it as long as he could, and get out of it on the first opportunity. Possibly, this system, thoroughly and universally enforced by able administrators, might have stamped out pauperism altogether, to the infinite advantage of the laboring class. But the law never was in harmony with public opinion, and it was very partially or negligently executed, and of course broke down. The Poor-Law of 1834 has practically been Its relation to family ties may be repealed long ago.' illustrated with a single instance. Prof. Fawcett of Cambridge, England, in his book on Pauperism, has shown how the provision of the state for a parish child exceeds, in the amount allowed for board, clothing, and medical care to those to whom it is indentured, the sum which an agricultural laborer could grant to a single member of an average family, and in its schooling and visitation by two ladies of the neighborhood the intellectual and moral resources of his home. He observes that the law holds out inducements to him, addressed to the most unselfish parental impulses, to abandon his offspring.

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The Scotch law was assimilated to the English in 1845. Under the ancient statute of 1579 no provision was made for the able-bodied. It constituted the provosts, bailiffs, and justices of any burgh or town a commission to register the aged, impotent, and other poor in every parish, to impose a tax upon the substance of the people for their sustenance, to put them at work according to their strength, to indenture children, to license the poor to gather alms at the doors of parishioners, so as always it be speedely appoynted and aggried how the poore of that parochin sall be

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By subsequent susteined within the same, and not be chargeable to uthers nor troublesome to strangers." proclamations of the Privy Council the assessment of rates and the management of the poor-fund was committed to the magistrates of the towns and to the proprietors and kirk-sessions in rural parishes. Under this authority what destitution exceeded the liberality of cotters to each other fell under the oversight of the kirk. The custom arose of taking a collection at the church-door at the Sunday morning service, and in the poor from cities of turning it in to the town hospital, whence outand in-door relief was distributed among all the parishes. According to Dr. Chalmers, compulsory assessment did not exist in more than eight Scotch parishes prior to 1740. But in the southern counties, and especially in their cities, the influence of England led to the increase of assessments, so that in 1820 it existed in 192 out of 885 parishes, and in 1839 in more than one-fourth, comprising half the population of Scotland. The disruption of the Kirk impaired the competency of the sessions to administer the poorfunds, and the influx of Irish emigrants, with the depression following Earl Grey's administration, carried pauperism to an appalling height, one-sixth of the population of Glasgow being at one time on the relieflist. In 1845, to promote similarity of method and adequate assistance, Parliament made the Scotch law conform to the English in respect to a general board of commissioners and the work-house test of destitution. As an illustration of the effect of the new system there may be instanced a proprietor who prior to 1845 gave £5 a year to the church-door collection, Our and was thought liberal, but in 1869 paid in rates £407 17s., and his tenants an equal amount. authority adds, "That whereas a more happy, contented set of paupers could hardly be found before 1845, a more discontented set than they are in 1869 and 1870 can hardly be found, notwithstanding a constant system of begging for additional help from the charitable.

While the poor-rates have diminished the kindnesses of the poor to each other, the rich have grown more lavish as their enormous concentration of The charitable foundations of wealth has removed them from contact with their lowlier neighbors. Great Britain also have increased rapidly in value, Of this great mass of until their expenditure in London is estimated to exceed that of the parish unions. private charity there is no authentic computation. Many parochial, municipal, and trust corporations make no accounting to the public. The London City companies are believed to control an annual income "Certain from trust funds of over $500,000. Edward Denison wrote not long before his death in 1870, calculations put the London charities at a total of £7,000,000-enough to give £17 a head to 400,000 -an estimate which reckons every seventh persouls son in that city a recipient of alms, and allows $400 to Private charities, when an average-sized family, or more than an unskilled laborer can earn in England. done without personal acquaintance with the poor or executed by the official almoners of some board of directors, have the same effect as public relief. Their evil influence has been accelerated by the changes in the distribution of population arising from industrial reorganization. Great cities have grown up where the poor are pressed into obscure streets and uncleanly outskirts. Thither labor migrates for employment, leaving the restraints and ties of home; thither the predatory come to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by unorganized charity and by the obscurity which a man can have in a crowd. For these provision is made in the casual wards of the work-house or police-station, in night-refuges, in soup and clothing societies, and in the thoughtless alms of the street or the back-door. Acting without concert, the uncounted and irresponsible private agencies of relief strip away the dread of being penniless in a great city and facili tate the practices of the impostor. In all the systems

now passed in review the same features are apparent: | for each 300 to 500 of the population. They volunpauperism grows with the provision made for its teered from other parishes, as St. John's was too relief; public, corporate, or indiscriminate personal "plebeian," to use Dr. Chalmers's term, to furnish relief deranges the natural laws of economy, weakens enough men qualified by education, experience, and the ties of kindred, dries up the fountains of personal station. These deacons were to attend to every applikindness, facilitates living among strangers, attracts cation referred to them or arising in their district; they the depraved and dissolute, extinguishes gratitude were to act with tact, friendliness, and judgment, noting under its indifference or mechanical administration, the circumstances of the applicant, the causes of his impairs the motives to thrift and frugality, envelops distress, and the available means of putting him beyond and discourages beneficence with its fruitlessness, or, dependence on public charity. The means placed at worse, with its imposture, invades the self-respect of the disposal of the deacons were the proceeds of a the pauper, degrades the condition of the laborer. church-door collection taken at the evening service, They have opened a wide avenue from honorable inde- which the doctor conducted for his poor parishioners, pendence to the inveterate and unsocial vices of self- his morning congregation being largely composed of abandonment, intemperance, squalor, deception, and proprietors and wealthy people from other districts of licentiousness. the city. This fund amounted annually to about £80 ; the morning collection was devoted to parochial schools. During the four years of Dr. Chalmers's charge, so far from driving the poor from the parish, they came in double numbers, and but twenty new cases of pauperism were found, of which five were the result of crime, either illegitimacy or desertion of the family. The evening penny-collection proved more than adequate. His testimony before a committee of the House of Commons was that the poor of his parish were in no worse economic condition than those of any other parish in Glasgow, and that he attributed their comfort to these four causes: "A certain stimulus to their industry and economy when loosened from their dependence on a large compulsory fund; an increased aid and support from relations to each other; an increased kindness among the contiguous families of that neighborhood; and, lastly, a stimulated benevolence on the part of the wealthy to the poorer classes.' These conclusions are sustained by a number of instances related in the testimony. Dr. Chalmers's scheme continued in operation at St. John's under successive ministers until the agitation of the Kirk attending its disruption put an end to it. It was imitated in a few other parishes.

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Such is the problem charity organizations had to encounter. Fortunately, there was experience to guide its promoters. Dr. Chalmers's administration of St. John's Church, though it was but temporary, remained as more than a reminiscence; it was a demonstration. In 1819 the parish of St. John's, recently organized on the outskirts of Glasgow, was offered by the magistrates to Dr. Chalmers, then settled in the Iron parish of the same city. He says: "The great inducement to the acceptance of that parish was my hope to obtain a separate and independent management of the poor." He stipulated with the magistrates for the withdrawal of St. John's from connection with the town hospital, which was the general agent of the city for relief. The parish was to retain its church-door collection, amounting to £400 a year, and, on the other hand, was to care for all new applicants for aid arising in its limits. Eventually, it offered to take off the hospital lists the paupers previously sent thither from its territory. The parish comprised a population of about 10,000, and was the largest and poorest of any in the city. Dr. Chalmers's writings show that he regarded the Scotch poor-laws as not essentially different from the English, but that the habit and practice of the two countries had been in great contrast until the close of Attention has been widely attracted to the methods the last century; that the poor-house and compulsory adopted in Elberfeld, and copied in Barmen and Crerelief had made but slow progress in Scotland, notwith-feld. In 1823 the Prussian Government authorized standing law and royal proclamations; that when there each commune in the Düsseldorf circle to take charge was no assessment or available relief-fund the poor pre- of its own poor-relief, but until 1850 the old system, served their habits of economy and frugality, were founded upon that of the French empire, remained in donors of halfpence to the church-collections, main-vogue. Then Elberfeld employed its liberty to set on tained an affectionate family solicitude one for another, foot its own plan. The town was divided into sixty relieved the distress among themselves with a bounty visiting districts, but the Lutherans, the wealthiest which, while made up of small benefactions, was community of the city, were permitted to take charge greater in the aggregate than the administrators of of their own paupers. The visitors were too few, their any relief-fund could allow, awakened the interest and duties were neglected, expenditure increased, and the enjoyed the intercourse of their wealthier and more prospect was alarming. Every twelfth person was a influential neighbors, were soothed and animated by a pauper, and the cost of the relief in 1852 was £8932, personal friendliness permeating the community which while in the Lutheran community it was 30 per cent. fostered a pure and noble social unity and morality. higher than in the rest of the city. At the instigation Public relief he regarded as an extravagant and cor- of Daniel von der Heydt, a banker of Elberfeld and a rupting system which reversed these conditions. It brother of the Prussian minister of finance, the existawakened by its apparent magnificence expectations ing scheme was authorized. It comprises an ordinance in the poor which it could not gratify; it created in and an instruction. The ordinance provides for a centhem a sense of right to aid in distress, and thus re- tral board consisting of a president, four councillors, and laxed their thrift and self-reliance: it extinguished four citizens, all chosen by the town council. The gratitude, for compulsory relief was destitute of that official term is three years, and rotates in such a manspontaneous personal interest which reaches the heart; ner as always to preserve an experienced majority. it separated the rich from the poor, offering its own Under this board are eighteen overseers, each with mechanism to satisfy the conscience of the benevolent; fourteen visitors, all of whom are unpaid. They are it broke down the generosity of the individual in all recommended for appointment to the town council by classes of society; it hindered the circulation of those the citizens of the several districts, and are bound by influences which flow from example, personal sympathy, law to serve. The visitors of each district meet fortcounsel, and reciprocal esteem. Dissolving so many nightly under the presidency of the overseer, and subsocial ties, it opened advantageous scope and license mit a report of each application for and each disburseto the dexterity" of a people whom it rapidly rendered ment of relief. Each case is decided in accordance criminal by sapping their moral and social resources. with minute rules by a majority vote, subject to appeal Dr. Chalmers wished to return to the earlier practice by the overseer. The records of these meetings are of the Kirk, and by preventing the rise of new cases all transmitted to the Verwaltung, or general adminisof pauperism to extinguish the whole evil through the trative body above described. It meets on alternate operation of death upon the old list of dependants. weeks to the district committees, and the overseers are His mode was to create a large body of deacons, one present, with the committees in charge of the poor.

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house, the orphanage, and the hospital. The duties of
the Verwaltung are to investigate the condition of the
poor and the special causes of pauperism, as well as
the means not only of relieving but of preventing it,
to hear reports of the overseers and appeals from the
district meetings, to receive estimates and make
priations for each district. The overseer must hand
over the appropriations to the several visitors. Funds
are raised by special and general taxation imposed by
the town council. Visitors are well-conditioned and
respected citizens, who are to act as friends and advisers
to the poor, and to this end are limited to the charge
of not more than four cases of relief at a time.

of law or science, and their general knowledge of life, at the disposal of the poor; that, instead of only taking them some little material relief, they should strive to win their confidence, learn all about their affairs, and then see how they could best help them to help themIts conferences were in every Catholic parish selves." approof England. District-visiting societies had been formed in London as early as 1828 and 1844 to prompt local effort to administer counsel and aid in the homes of the poor-to Older still were societies for repressing menconnect isolated parochial beneficence in concert of action. dicity, which distributed investigation-tickets to be given in place of alms to beggars. Immediately before them lay the work of Octavia Hill and Edward Denison, which was peculiarly conspicuous as successfully carried on in the poorest and most abject parts of London at a time when they were visited by severe and protracted distress. Others had preceded Miss Hill in the improvement of tenements for the poor, but she aimed at the reformation of the degraded and their apartments together. Acting as the almoner of John Ruskin, she went into unsightly courts in the east end of London, beginning in 1864, and purchased dilapidated and filthy tenements, which she placed in sanitary condition. She enforced strict regulations of cleanliness upon her tenants, and punctually collected her rents in full with her own hand. The influence of her courage, patience, firmness, and justness availed to induce some of the most squalid families of London to exchange their filthy and dissolute habits for a course of life suited to their improved tenements. Alms were not given; probably they would have marred her moral miracle.

The instruction is very elaborate. It excludes from relief persons who have relatives bound in law to assist them, and this obligation extends to connections by marriage. It excludes those in receipt of private charity, but in practice private may be supplemented by town aid up to a fixed standard. Those hiring domestic servants must maintain them four weeks after they become destitute from sickness. An applicant must pass through an examination even more scrutinizing than the Leipsic Fragebogen, and this is the only test of destitution. In accepting aid he passes under the surveillance of the visitor, who visits him frequently, notes changes in his circumstances, urges him to find work, and in case of failure to do so assigns him employment. If the pauper refuse his allotted task, waste the relief granted him, or is idle, drunken, or dissolute, his maintenance may be reduced, and until recently he was liable to imprisonment. The relief granted is medical attendance at home or in hospital, a support graduated to a scale of bare sustenance, and schooling. The income of the able-bodied who cannot procure employment may be brought up to this scale by the poor-relief. The poor-house is really a refuge for the aged and infirm, and these go out to work as their strength will permit, and may claim such part of their earnings as exceeds the cost of their maintenance. The result of this system has been that while from 1852 to 1869 population increased from 50,000 to 71,000, the number of paupers declined from 8 to 15 per cent., or from 4000 to 1062, and the expenditures At the same time there was a from £8932 to £3860. steady increase in the membership of provident clubs. In 1870 there were reported 822 new cases to the fortnightly meetings, but these were discharged at the rate of 60 each month.

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as it was called, During "the East-End Distress, He young Edward Denison volunteered to act as the almoner for the Society for the Relief of Distress. was the son of the bishop of Salisbury and nephew of the Speaker of the House of Commons, was a graduate Disappointed of Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, and was at this time but twenty-seven years of age. with the results of doling out alms, he resolved to locate among the poor and by personal daily contact with them discover the secrets of their wretchedness. In 1868 he removed to Philpot Street, Stepney, and resided there, teaching and visiting, for eight months. Thence he wrote: "I am beginning seriously to believe that all bodily aid to the poor is a mistake; whereas The German plans now adduced agree in these points: by giving alms you keep them permanently crooked. in each city the whole field is occupied and virtually con- Build school-houses, pay teachers, give prizes, frame Denison and trolled by one organization; voluntary effort is joined workmen's clubs, help them to help themselves, lend with official; each society aims not at expending its them your brains, but give them no money, except resources, but at making a resort to them the last re- what you sink in such undertakings." source of the poor; it individualizes each case and ad- his associates had entered upon schemes to unite the justs the treatment to its circumstances; it employs a charities of London in some system of co-operation, large number of friendly visitors to be the counsellors and they were the pioneers of the London Society for of the unfortunate, and by their means to make the Organizing Charity, and participants in its earliest acexperience and character of the respected available for tion. In 1869, Lord Lichfield, Sir Charles Trevelyan, the depressed; it enforces education; it stimulates the and others, who had joined for some less defined entersense of family responsibility; it compels the pauper prise, resolved to call their association The London to work; it insists that the acceptance of relief carries Society for Organizing Charity and Repressing Menwith it the obligation of complete confidence and of dicity. Their purpose was much advanced by a mincompliance with the judgment of its grantors; it avow-ute of the poor-law commissioners passed Nov. 20th, edly seeks to understand and remove the causes of pauperism, not by general social reformation, but specifically and individually. In each city success depends largely upon enlisting the services of competent, faithful visitors, and upon the frequency and thoroughness of their conferences and harmony of action.

The causes which led to the formation of the London Charity Organization Society were many and intricate. Its promoters had all the foregoing experience of failure and of success before them. They had seen the Society of St. Vincent de Paul spread itself over nearly all Europe and America, carrying with it the spirit of its founders, who were advised by M. Bailly, the editor of the Tribune catholique in Paris, to place "their education, their intelligence, their special knowledge

recognizing private charity as an element to be reck-
oned in the distribution of public relief. The pro-
moters of the new plan aimed at no less than bringing
all the charitable relief of London, whether legal, cor-
porate, or individual, into correspondence and concert
of administration. They offered their own organization
as a device by which this could be achieved without
The society is under the
violation of charters, surrender of independence, or
wounded amour propre.
The council consists of
presidency of the bishop of London; the chairman of
its council is Prince Leopold.
the chairman, vice-chairmen, and treasurers; of annu
ally-elected representatives from each district commit-
tee, with its chairman and secretaries not exceeding
two; of additional members in the proportion of one

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