The following is a return of the number of paupers (exclusive of lunatics in asylums and vagrants) on the last day of the fifth week of April 1869, and total of corresponding week in 1868:

Unions and single Parishes (thelatter marked *).

Paupers.

Corresponding Total in1868.

In-door. Adults andChildren.

Out-door.

Total 5th week Apr. 1869.

Adults.

Children under 16.

West District:

* Kensington

809

1,379

1,545

3,733

2,874

Fulham

364

988

696

2,048

1,537

* Paddington

460

1,004

660

2,124

1,846

* Chelsea

702

896

744

2,342

2,272

* St. George, Hanover-square

753

852

642

2,247

2,127

* St. Margaret and St. John

1,131

1,791

1,313

4,285

5,742

Westminster

1,101

749

558

2,408

1,874

Total of West Dist.

5,320

7,659

6,158

19,137

18,272

North District:

* St. Marylebone

2,221

2,587

1,374

6,182

5,902

* Hampstead

143

126

57

326

347

* St. Pancras

2,141

3,915

2,847

8,903

8,356

* Islington

909

1,996

1,590

4,495

4,792

Hackney

695

2,909

2,952

6,556

5,385

Total of North Dist.

6,109

11,533

8,820

26,462

24,782

Central District:

*St. Giles and St. George,Bloomsbury

869

587

538

1,994

2,246

Strand

1,054

647

387

2,088

3,069

Holborn

554

947

781

2 282

2,724

Clerkenwell

713

999

642

2,354

2,863

* St. Luke

965

1,245

1,045

3,255

3,165

East London

838

1,038

906

2,782

2,813

West London

598

701

542

1,841

1,965

City of London

1,034

1,191

632

2,857

3,019

Total of Central D.

6,625

7,355

5,473

19,453

21,864

East District:

* Shoreditch

1,440

1,966

1,770

5,176

5,457

* Bethnal Green

1,510

1,265

1,389

4,164

5,057

Whitechapel

1,192

1,234

1,700

4,126

4,315

* St. George-in-the-E.

1,192

1,585

1,565

4,342

3,967

Stepney

1,072

1,600

1,533

4,205

4,650

* Mile End Old Town

547

1,228

1,055

2,830

2,705

Poplar

1,014

2,807

2,793

6,614

9,169

Total of East Dist.

7,967

11,685

11,805

31,457

35,320

South District:

St. Saviour, Southwk.

537

678

678

1,893

2,000

St. Olave, Southwark

478

393

464

1,335

1,349

* Bermondsey

712

554

752

2,018

1,860

* St. George, Southwk.

660

1,260

1,646

3,566

4,120

* Newington

891

1,450

1,330

3,671

3,676

* Lambeth

1,503

2,777

3,401

7,681

8,369

Wandsworth & Clapham

887

1,678

1,439

4,004

3,876

* Camberwell

865

1,537

1,492

3,894

3,360

* Rotherhithe

288

638

518

1,444

1,338

Greenwich

1,447

2,799

2,314

6,560

5,933

Woolwich

—

2,506

2,173

4,679

3,110

Lewisham

320

595

394

1,309

1,253

Total of South Dist.

8,588

16,865

16,601

42,054

40,244

Total of the Metropolis

34,609

55,097

48,857

138,563

140,482

TOTAL PAUPERISM OF THE METROPOLIS.
(Population in 1861, 2,802,000.)

Years.

Number ofPaupers.

Total.

In-door.

Out-door.

Fifth week of April 1869

34,609

103,954

138,563

„ „ „ 1868

34,455

106,027

140,482

„ „ „ 1867

32,728

96,765

129,493

„ „ „ 1866

30,192

71,372

101,564

This as regards parochial charity. It must not be imagined, however, from this source alone flows all the relief that the nation’s humanity and benevolence provides for the relief of its poor and helpless. Besides our parochial asylums there are many important charities of magnitude, providing a sum of at least 2,000,000l. a-year for the relief of want and suffering in London, independently of legal and local provision to an amount hardly calculable. We content ourselves with stating one simple fact—that all this charity, as now bestowed and applied, fails to accomplish the direct object in view. If the 2,000,000l. thus contributed did in some way or other suffice, in conjunction with other funds, to banish want and suffering from the precincts of the metropolis, we should have very little to say. But the fact is that, after all these incredible efforts to relieve distress, want and suffering are so prevalent that it might be fancied charity was dead amongst us. Now that, at any rate, cannot be a result in which anybody would willingly acquiesce. If the money was spent, and the poor were relieved, many people probably would never trouble themselves to inquire any further; but though the money is spent, the poor are not cured of their poverty. In reality this very fact is accountable in itself for much of that accumulation of agencies, institutions, and efforts which our statistics expose. As has been recently remarked: “A certain expenditure by the hands of a certain society fails to produce the effect anticipated, and so the result is a new society, with a new expenditure, warranted to be more successful. It would be a curious item in the account if the number and succession of fresh charities, year after year, could be stated. They would probably be found, like religious foundations, taking some new forms according to the discoveries or presumptions of the age; but all this while the old charities are still going on, and the new charity becomes old in its turn, to be followed, though not superseded, by a fresh creation in due time.”

If it be asked what, under such circumstances, the public can be expected to do, we answer, that it may really do much by easy inquiry and natural conclusions. Whenever an institution is supported by voluntary contributions, the contributors, if they did but know it, have the entire control of the establishment in their hands; they can stop the supplies, they hold the purse, and they can stipulate for any kind of information, disclosure, or reform at their pleasure. They can exact the publication of accounts at stated intervals, and the production of the balance-sheet according to any given form. It is at their discretion to insist upon amalgamation, reorganisation, or any other promising measure. There is good reason for the exercise of these powers. We have said that all this charity fails to accomplish its one immediate object—the relief of the needy; but that is a very imperfect statement of the case. The fact is that pauperism, want, and suffering are rapidly growing upon us in this metropolis, and we are making little or no headway against the torrent. The administration of the Poor-law is as unsuccessful as that of private benevolence. Legal rates, like voluntary subscriptions, increase in amount, till the burden can hardly be endured; and still the cry for aid continues. Is nothing to be done, then, save to go on in the very course which has proved fruitless? Must we still continue giving, when giving to all appearances does so little good? It would be better to survey the extent and nature of agencies actually at work, and to see whether they cannot be made to yield greater results.

Confining ourselves, however, to what chiefly concerns the hardly-pressed ratepayers of the metropolis, its vagrancy and pauperism, there at once arises the question, How can this enormous army of helpless ones be provided for in the most satisfactory manner?—This problem has puzzled the social economist since that bygone happy age when poor-rates were unknown, and the “collector” appeared in a form no more formidable than that of the parish priest, who, from his pulpit, exhorted his congregation to give according to their means, and not to forget the poor-box as they passed out.

It is not a “poor-box” of ordinary dimensions that would contain the prodigious sums necessary to the maintenance of the hundred thousand ill-clad and hungry ones that, in modern times, plague the metropolis. Gradually the sum-total required has crept up, till, at the present time, it has attained dimensions that press on the neck of the striving people like the Old Man of the Sea who so tormented Sinbad, and threatened to strangle him.

In London alone the cost of relief has doubled since 1851. In that year the total relief amounted to 659,000l.; in 1858 it had increased to 870,000l.; in 1867 to 1,180,000l.; and in 1868 to 1,317,000l. The population within this time has increased from 2,360,000 to something like 3,100,000, the estimated population at the present time; so that while the population has increased by only 34 per cent, the cost of relief has exactly doubled. Thirteen per cent of the whole population of London were relieved as paupers in 1851, and in 1868 the percentage had increased to 16. In 1861 the Strand Union had a decreasing population of 8,305, and in 1868 it relieved one in every five, or 20 per cent, of that population. Besides this, the cost of relief per head within the workhouse had much increased within the last 15 years. The cost of food consumed had increased from 2s. 9d. per head, per week, in 1853, to 4s. 11d. in 1868; while we have the authority of Mr. Leone Levi for the statement that a farm-labourer expended only 3s. a-week on food for himself.

In 1853 the population of England and Wales was in round numbers 18,404,000, and in 1867 21,429,000, being an increase of 3,000,000. The number of paupers, exclusive of vagrants, in receipt of relief in England and Wales was, in 1854, 818,000, and in 1868 1,034,000, showing an increase of 216,000. The total amount expended in relief to the poor and for other purposes, county and police-rates, &c., was, in 1853, 6,854,000l., and in 1867 10,905,000l., showing an increase of 4,000,000l. This total expenditure was distributable under two heads. The amount expended in actual relief to the poor was, in 1853, 4,939,000l., as against 6,959,000l. in 1867, being an increase of 2,020,000l. The amount expended, on the other hand, for other purposes, county- and police-rates, &c., was, in 1853, 1,915,000l., against 3,945,000l. in 1867.