In some states and cities the system of subsidizing voluntary institutions is in full force, and it is in force also in many English colonies. At first sight it has the advantage of providing relief for public purposes without the creation of a new staff or establishment. There is thus an apparent economy. But the evils are many. Political partisanship and favour may influence the amount and disposition of the grants. The grants act as a bounty on the establishment and continuance of charitable institutions, homes for children, hospitals, &c., but not on the expansion of the voluntary charitable funds and efforts that should maintain them; and thus charitable homes exist in which charity in its truer sense may have little part, but in which the chief motive of the administration may be to support sectarian interests by public subsidies. Claimants for relief have little scruple in turning such institutions to their own account; and the institutions, being financially irresponsible, are not in these circumstances scrupulous on their side to prevent a misdirection of their bounties. “Parents unload their children upon the community more recklessly when they know that such children will be provided for in private orphan asylums and protectories, where the religious training that the parents prefer will be given them” (Amos G. Warner, in International Congress: Charities and Correction, 1893). Past history in New York city illustrates the same evil. The admission was entirely in the hands of the managers. They admitted; the city paid. In New York city the population between 1870 and 1890 increased about 80%; the subsidies for prisoners and public paupers increased by 43%, but those for paupers in private institutions increased from $334,828 to $1,845,872, or about 461%. The total was at that time $3,794,972; in 1898 it was rather less, $3,132,786. The alternative to this system is either the establishment of state or municipal institutions, and possibly in special cases payments to voluntary homes for the maintenance of inmates admitted at the request of a state authority, as at certified and other homes in England, with grants made conditional on the work being conducted on specified lines, and subject to a certain increasing amount of voluntary financial support; or a close general and financial inspection of charitable institutions—the method of reform adopted in New York; or payment for only those inmates who are sent by public authorities and admitted on their request.
The enormous extent to which children’s aid societies have been increased in the United States, sometimes with the help of considerable public grants, suggests the greatest need for caution from the point of the preservation of the family as the central element of social strength in the community. The problem of charity in relation to medical relief in the large towns of the United States is similar to that of England; its difficulties are alike.
Literature.—As good translations of the classics become accessible it is easy for the general reader or student to combine a study of the principles of charity in relation to the community with a study of history. Thus, and in connexion with special investigations and the conditions of practical charity, social economics may best be studied. In N. Masterman, Chalmers on Charity (1900); T. Mackay, Methods of Social Reform (1896); B. Bosanquet and others, Some Aspects of the Social Problem (1894); and C.S. Loch, Methods of Social Advance (1904), this point of view is generally assumed. Special investigations of importance may be found in the reports of medical officers of health. See Report of Committee on Physical Deterioration referred to above, and, for instance, Dr Newsholme’s Vital Statistics and Charles Booth’s Labour and Life in London. For the history of charity there is no good single work. On details there are many good articles in Daremberg’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, and similar works. Modern Methods of Charity, by C.H. Henderson and others (1904), supplies much general information in regard to poor relief and charity in different countries. Apart from books and official documents mentioned in the text as indicating the present state of charitable and public relief, or as aids to practical work, the following may be of service. England:—Annual Charities’ Register and Digest, with Introduction on “How to help Cases of Distress”; the Charity Organization Review; Occasional Papers (3 vols.), published by the London Charity Organization Society (1896-1906); Reports of Proceedings of Conferences of Poor-Law Guardians; The Strength of the People, by Helen Bosanquet; Homes of the London Poor and Our Common Land, by Miss Octavia Hill; The Queen’s Poor, by M. Loane. United States of America:—The Proceedings of the International Conference on Charities and Correction (1894), and the proceedings of the annual conferences; Friendly Visiting among the Poor, by Mary E. Richmond (1899); American Charities, by Amos G. Warner (1908); The Practice of Charity, by E.T. Devine; Handworterbuch der Staatswissenschaften, by Dr J. Conrad, &c., vol. ii.; Das Armenwesen in den Vereinigten Staaten von America, by Dr Francis G. Peabody (1897); the Charities Review, published monthly by the New York Charity Organization Society; the Papers and Reports of the Boston and Baltimore societies. France:—La Bibliographie charitable, by Camille Granier (1891); La Charité avant et depuis 1789, by P. Hubert Valleroux; Fascicules of the Conseil supérieur de l’assistance publique, Revue d’assistance, published by the Société Internationale pour l’étude des questions d’assistance. Germany:—Reports and Proceedings of the Deutsche Vereine für Armenpflege und Wohltätigkeit; Die Armenpflege, a practical handbook, by Dr E. Münsterberg (1897). Austria:—Österreichs Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen, 1848-1898, by Dr Ernest Mischler (1899).
(C. S. L.)
CHARIVARI, a French term of uncertain origin, but probably onomatopoeic, for a mock serenade “rough music,” made by beating on kettles, fire-irons, tea-trays or what not. The charivari was anciently in France a regular wedding custom, all bridal couples being thus serenaded. Later it was reserved for ill-assorted and unpopular marriages, for widows or widowers who remarried too soon, and generally as a mockery for all who were unpopular. At the beginning of the 17th century, wedding charivaris were forbidden by the Council of Tours under pain of excommunication, but the custom still lingers in rural districts. The French of Louisiana and Canada introduced the charivari into America, where it became known under the corrupted name of “shivaree.”
CHARKHARI, a native state in the Bundelkhand agency of Central India. Area, 745 sq. m.; pop. (1901) 123,594; estimated revenue £33,000. It is surrounded on all sides by other states of Central India, except near Charkhari town, where it meets the United Provinces. It was founded by Bijai Bahadur (vikramaditya), a sanad being granted him in 1804 and another in 1811. The chief, whose title is maharaja, is a Rajput of the Bundela clan, descended from Chhatar Sal, the champion of the independence of Bundelkhand in the 18th century. In 1857 Raja Ratan Singh received a hereditary salute of 11 guns, a khilat and a perpetual jagir of £1300 a year in recognition of his services during the Mutiny. The town of Charkhari (locally Maharajnagar) is 40 m. W. of Banda; pop. (1901) 11,718.
CHARLATAN (Ital. ciarlatano, from ciarlare, to chatter), originally one who “patters” to a crowd to sell his wares, like a “cheap-jack” or “quack” doctor—“quack” being similarly derived from the noise made by a duck; so an impostor who pretends to have some special skill or knowledge.