BLANKETS.
A large stock of blankets is annually distributed on loan to deserving persons, who are considered by the Visitors in want of such a boon, and not likely to abuse it. For several years, and with an experience of many hundred blankets, but few cases have occurred in which their judgment has been deceived. Some half dozen blankets may have been pawned, and as many lost; more are fairly worn out. A replenishment took place at Christmas, 1851, and above three hundred were given out in November last. For each of these sixpence is paid by the woman to whom it is lent, which, being devoted to cover the expence of its washing when brought back in summer, is either returned as the price of ablution to the holder herself, or given to the best laundress in the district where she lives, in remuneration for this necessary work.
But the most industrious persons cannot always obtain occupation. Breaks in employment perpetually occur, especially in the case of females. Servants out of place, laundresses and charwomen, milliners and sempstresses, alike dependent on families visiting London only for the season, all may be included in this list; simply to relieve them in distress would be to increase the evil; it is a different thing to find them work, hence the formation of the