826 THE DEPENDENT GROUP 



humanity all these " unemployed," and to transfer to the machinery 

 of the criminal law those with whom charity cannot deal, several 

 tests are necessary, and a merely automatic, mechanical method is 

 totally irrational, (a) First of all a judicious, firm, courageous, and 

 humane agent is necessary. The evil of depending entirely on a 

 single coarse test, as the stone-pile, the bath, the workhouse, is that 

 it seems to make the man unnecessary. It has long been observed 

 that in an asylum for the insane where all the patients are kept 

 within steel cages, one or two brutal attendants can carry out the 

 policy; but where freedom, fresh air, play, industry, and rational 

 treatment are given, the hospital must have many gentle, strong, 

 and trained nurses. So exclusive reliance on a stone-breaking test 

 tends to place surly and cruel keepers in charge of all applicants for 

 shelter and aid, and thus the institution designed for charity and 

 justice becomes an insult to honest workmen and a discouragement 

 to the sensitive, without furnishing the quick insight which most 

 unerringly discovers real criminals. (6) The work-test, in many 

 forms, is only one useful method which works well under good direc- 

 tion, since crime is as parasitic as pauperism, and the mark of the 

 parasite is that he wishes to live at the expense of others, (c) The 

 employment bureau, with a reliable record and a sharp watch-care, is 

 another means of marking the industrious man and discovering the 

 cheat, (d) In cities, and often in towns, a certain amount of personal 

 guardianship, a land of probation work, is necessary to hold a moral 

 weakling back from sliding down the easy incline toward criminality. 

 All this information which is necessary for a wise treatment must be 

 collected instantly, by means of messengers and telephone and 

 telegraph, and from every available source. For the moment when 

 a man can be helped and turned away from beggary or crime is the 

 moment when he is under treatment and within the grasp of the 

 official. The German Verpflegungsstationen, with their simple inns 

 and their system of certificates and records, have much to teach us. 



But whatever the tests employed, in some way the members 

 of the criminal group must be distinguished, known, and isolated 

 from the dependent group. Charity, public or private, has no 

 machinery of compulsion, and ought not to have. The steamboat 

 is not made to sail on land; the school-house is not constructed to 

 hold burglars in confinement; and a charity bureau is not fitted for 

 the task of managing deserting husbands, petty thieves, and con- 

 firmed inebriates. Society must erect specially adapted machinery 

 for dealing with this class of men, and it must have agents trained for 

 each particular branch of its service. 



(3) Part of our social policy must be a better understanding between 

 the public and private agencies of relief. So far as principles of admin- 

 istrative methods are concerned there are no radical differences, 



