SECOND ANNUAL REPORT.
The Committee of the District Visiting Society, in presenting the Second Annual Report of their proceedings, feel that they have every ground for renewing the congratulations which they were last year able to offer to the Society, on the advantages which have accrued to the parish through its instrumentality, and also, on the prospects of continually increasing benefits, as its plans become more fully matured, and its operations more clearly developed and in consequence more completely effective.
Since the last Annual Meeting changes have taken place in the ECCLESIASTICAL ARRANGEMENTS of the parish, which, having the effect of removing the Northern Districts from the superintendence of the Clergy of St. Mary Abbot’s, render necessary an alteration in the Seventh General Rule of the Society. The Committee accordingly recommend that the Rule be now modified, so as to confine the future operations of the Society to that portion of Kensington which is under the ecclesiastical charge of the Vicar. It is right to mention that arrangements made by the Clergy of St. John’s and St. James’s are expected to provide for the requisite attention being paid to the wants of the poor within their respective localities.
Having now had two years’ EXPERIENCE of the DIFFICULTIES which must beset every endeavour to produce a substantial and permanent improvement in the condition of so extensive a mass of population, whose individual elements are so unsettled and fugitive;—the Committee have had a fair opportunity of judging of the practical working of the Rules that were originally adopted, and of the plan and operations which has from the first outset been acted upon. The result, they are prepared to say, amply justifies the discretion by which those Rules and that plan were dictated. It is a sufficient confirmation of the opinion they hold, that throughout the whole of the Metropolitan portion of the Diocese the same general system of District Visiting, the same active co-operation of Laity with Clergy in the work of charity, and the same general course of action, have been acknowledged as the only effectual means of coping successfully with the pressing evils arising from an overflowing population, from ignorance, improvidence, and vice; and that, under the sanction and direction of the Bishop, they have been almost universally brought into action. [10]
There is one point bearing strongly upon the difficulties the Committee have had to encounter, to which they are desirous of directing especial attention; namely, how much the endeavours of the Society to ameliorate the condition of the poor would be facilitated, if greater care were taken by the donors of charity to make full inquiry into the CHARACTER and CIRCUMSTANCES of APPLICANTS, before administering relief.
It is found that applicants at the doors of residents belong in general to one of three classes:—
The first class consists of PERMANENT MENDICANTS; who have a more or less constant residence in this or other parishes, and are supported exclusively by the donations of charitably disposed, but undiscriminating, individuals. Instances can be pointed out, of persons who it is believed have lived in Kensington for years, professing for the most part to have some nominal occupation, yet in fact subsisting entirely upon means obtained by such systematic mendicancy. As they readily state their trade and abode when interrogated, their tale—which is but too commonly a tissue of mere invention, or at best only partially correct—is at once assumed to be true. In the event of further inquiry being instituted at their abode, the same story of course is told; and probably supported by the interested evidence of the other dwellers in the same house, who generally derive their subsistence by similar means. Relief is given; the idle and the impostor encouraged; and by so much the industrious and respectable labourer discouraged and injured, the suffering and the unfortunate deprived of their due.
The second class is that of VAGRANTS, or TRAMPERS. These have no settled home, [11a] but sleeping at the nightly lodging houses, at some of the various Refuges in London or elsewhere, or in the vagrant-ward at the workhouses, wander about from parish to parish and from town to town continually; frequenting the various watering-places in their respective seasons, and succeeding ordinarily in reaping a rich harvest from the ready liberality of visitants. The tale that is now most commonly and most effectually pleaded by them is that of distress from want of work. But though unquestionably there are cases of this description, it is yet certain that whatever their assertions, a small proportion only of such applicants are willing to work, even if the opportunity be offered them. [11b]
To those wanderers, whose cases are really those of sickness or urgent destitution, the humane consideration of the Board of Guardians of this parish has provided that every care and attention shall be paid immediately upon proper application being made to the Master of the work-house.
The third class, which may be designated as that of OCCASIONAL MENDICANTS, is composed of persons included in the permanent population of the parish; who, having always been accustomed to rely for their chief or sole support during the winter upon the bounty they can obtain by begging at the houses of benevolent individuals, are not, while still encouraged to do so, to be diverted by any exertions of the Society from a course which experience has proved to be so profitable. They feel, for the most part, a very natural aversion from any system of discriminating charity. They have, they appear to think, a kind of prescriptive right to an equal portion with their neighbours of all relief administered, irrespectively of their own moral or social character, and of their circumstances and wants as compared with those of others. They are urgent in their importunity to the Visitor, and instead of being thankful for what assistance he has it in his power to afford them with justice to more deserving and pressing cases, become loud in their murmurings and expressions of anger; and in some instances have gone so far, after insulting conduct to the Visitor, as to carry their complaints to various residents, who, unaware of the true facts, have perhaps been led by their statement to form very erroneous and unjust opinions of the working of the Society. [12] The Committee, with accounts of the whole expenditure of the Visitors, and the particular circumstances of the various cases before them, together with many independent sources of information respecting the character and habits of such applicants, have it in their power to bear most ample testimony to the discretion and discrimination with which the funds at their disposal have been administered. And they confidently call upon the subscribers and the parishioners generally, to support the Visitors in their arduous, and too often thankless, labours; and to second them in their endeavours to bring about a permanent amelioration in the condition of the deserving poor.