Such a "Bureau" would be of immense benefit to the city. It would aid in keeping the poor from pauperism; it would put honest poverty in the way of proper assistance; simplify and direct charities, and enable the "charity fund" of the city to be used directly for the evils needing treatment.
Both the public and benevolent associations would be benefited by it, and much useless expenditure and labor saved. Under it, each charitable association could labor in its own field, and encroach on no other, and the public confidence in the wise use of charity funds be strengthened.
In such a city as ours it would probably be hardly possible to follow the Boston plan, and put all the offices of the great charities in one building, yet there could easily be one office of information, or a "Bureau of Charities," which might be sustained by general contributions. Perhaps the State "Board of Charities" would father and direct it, if private means supported it.
In one respect, it would be of immense advantage to have this task undertaken by the State Board, as they have the right to inspect charitable institutions, and their duty is to expose "bogus charities." Of the latter there are only too many in this city. Numerous lazy individuals make lucrative livelihoods by gathering funds for charities which only exist on paper. These swindlers could be best exposed and prosecuted by a "State Board."
CHAPTER XXXII.
HOW BEST TO GIVE ALMS?
"TAKE, NOT GIVE."
We were much struck by a reply, recently, of a City Missionary in East
London, who was asked what he gave to the poor.
"Give!" he said, "we never give now; we take!" He explained that the remedy of alms, for the terrible evils of that portion of London, had been tried ad nauseam, and that they were all convinced of its little permanent good, and their great object was, at present, to induce the poor to save; and for this, they were constantly urgent to get money from these people, when they had a little. They "took, not gave!"
So convinced is the writer, by twenty years' experience among the poor, that alms are mainly a bane, that the mere distribution of gifts by the great charity in which he is engaged seldom affords him much gratification. The long list of benefactions which the Reports record, would be exceedingly unsatisfactory, if they were not parts and branches of a great preventive and educational movement.