I am not a thick and thin supporter of the C.O.S. At various times I have been bitterly opposed both to its theories and its practices; but it certainly has done an immense deal of good in exposing some of the scoundrels who appeal to the best sympathies of human nature under absolutely false pretences. .
It is not so long ago that a man who had been convicted of fraud was found to be the flourishing proprietor of a mission to the poor, or something of the sort—whose annual income for two years past had been over a couple of thousand pounds, against an expenditure in tracts, rent, and blankets of one hundred and thirty-six pounds.
In another instance, the promoter of a charity, which had been in a flourishing condition for years, actually had his villa at St. John's Wood, and kept his brougham—his total source of income being the charity itself.
If I quote these cases here it is not to hinder the flow of the broad, pure stream of charity by one single obstacle, but to show such of my readers as may need the hint how dangerous and delusive it is to think that careless almsgiving is in any shape or form a real assistance to. the poor and suffering.
People who wish to do good must give their time as well as their money. They must personally investigate all those cases they wish to relieve, and they must set about seeing how the causes which lead to misery and suffering can be removed.
How are the evils of overcrowding—how are the present miseries of the poor to be removed? In what way can the social status of the labouring classes be permanently raised? Not by collecting-cards or funds, not by tracts or missions, but by remedial legislation—by State help and State protection, and by the general recognition of those rights of citizenship, which should be as carefully guarded for the lowest class as for the highest.
We live in a country which practically protects the poor and oppressed of every land under the sun at the expense of its own. We organize great military expeditions, we pour out blood and money ad libitum in order to raise the social condition of black men and brown; the woes of an Egyptian, or a Bulgarian, or a Zulu send a thrill of indignation through honest John Bull's veins; and yet at his very door there is a race so oppressed, so hampered, and so utterly neglected, that its condition has become a national scandal.
Is it not time that the long-promised era of domestic legislation gave some faint streaks of dawn in the parliamentary sky? Are we to wait for a revolution before we rescue the poor from the clutches of their oppressors? Are we to wait for the cholera or the plague before we remedy a condition of things which sanitarily is without parallel in civilized countries?
There is a penalty for packing cattle too closely together; why should there be none for improperly packing men and women and children? The law says that no child shall grow up without reading, writing, and arithmetic; but the law does nothing that children may have air, and light, and shelter.
No one urges that the State should be a grandmother to the citizens, but it should certainly exercise ordinary parental care over its family.