After a time the nurse came out of the inner room, holding in her arms the newborn child. It was wriggling in the garments in which it had been wrapped. The Doctor looked down at the little purple face and screwed-up nose, and her expression changed to one of professional disgust.
“I haven’t a doubt,” she muttered, “that it is a poor, miserable, rickety little vagabond. Why must there be this terrible increase of population among paupers?”
CHAPTER XIX
My colleagues did not share my discouragement in regard to the East End. There was much to hope for, they maintained, from the spread of information concerning it, from the awakening interest of the upper classes in its condition, and from all our new and intelligent methods of doing good.
This was true. Each board-meeting, conference, committee-meeting to which I went as guest or member, gave me fresh proof of the growth of knowledge about the destitute, while the practical activity of individuals and of societies seemed full of promise for the poor.
There was one great Bureau of Inquiry which existed solely for the purpose of investigating new “cases.” Its agents, visiting the needy, gleaned innumerable facts that were entered in the books under heads like these: “Work, How Many? Bad Habits, What? Ill? Rent? Pay? Can Read? Can Write?”
This vast body was constantly torn in twain between a desire to find out genuine suffering, and a fear of being deceived.
Closely connected with this Bureau was the Society of Good Samaritans, who represented, not only the new knowledge concerning the poor, but also improved methods of relief. The Samaritans always sat in lengthy conference on Friday night, discussing in friendly fashion (not without gossip) the domestic affairs of the family in hand, and voting: “No Aid”; or, “Aid, $2.00 in groceries, visitor please follow up”; or, “Give Citizen’s Emergency Ticket for snow-shovelling”; and again, “No Aid.”
Another relief-giving society, the Almoners, differed from the Good Samaritans only in the greater carefulness of its proceedings. All its action was well considered and most deliberate. Its committee-meetings were full of anxious discussion of the question, “What do we do with such cases in District A?” and its most innocent reports were headed “Confidential!”
For instance: