444 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



criminate charity lias still full sway. We are individually and 

 unitedly to suppress the idle, incompetent, and vicious, and at the 

 same time we are to help in every way the industrious and well- 

 intentioned. The congenital criminal and the vagabond we are 

 to imprison for an indefinite time; in this confinement they 

 should be made to work. Paul said that " if any would not work, 

 neither should he eat." Tasks that do not compete with honest 

 labor should be devised for them breaking stone, sawing and 

 cutting wood for the deserving poor ; in certain districts, working 

 on the road, filling malarious tracts, etc. 



These are the suppressive and punitive methods, on the one 

 hand ; the selective method, on the other hand, is to be found in 

 the erection of wholesome tenement-houses. These should have 

 amusement halls ; gardens, if possible ; reading-rooms and libra- 

 ries ; halls, where instructive lectures should be given not on the 

 Holy Land or Babylonian antiquities, but on bread-making, the 

 chemistry of common life, hygiene, and cognate subjects. Tal- 

 ented men and women will be induced to give their services 

 occasionally to entertain or instruct. 



Adopting the deed of trust under which the Peabody buildings 

 in London were given,* we should apply the selective action by 

 letting the apartments at the lowest possible rate to all those who 

 are temperate, industrious, and are willing k) work, while the 

 vicious and the evil disposed should be rigorously excluded. 

 "Cruel!" you say; but we should recognize the far-reaching 

 mercifulness of this plan in preventing the bringing of vicious 

 children into the world, to live a life of misery and shame, or, if 

 brought in, to find such unfavorable conditions as shall remove 

 them while still young. 



Quarantine the evil classes as you would the plague, and plant 

 on good ground the deserving poor. Those who talk about the 

 liberty of the individual before the law are not to include those 

 who are endangering the liberty, perhaps the lives, of others, and 

 are transgressing the law at every step. 



Having established the means by which selective action may 

 be brought into play, and in so just a manner, too, that even a 

 vagabond could not complain of its injustice, we are to establish 

 conditions by which the offspring of such colonies may have 

 every chance of continuing in the life of sobriety and industry 



* Secondly. It is my intention that now, and for all time, there shall be a rigid exclu- 

 sion from the management of this fimd of any influences calculated to impart to it a char- 

 acter either sectarian, as regards religion, or exclusive in relation to party politics. 



Thirdly. It is my wish that the sole qualification for a participation in the benefits of 

 the fund shall be an ascertained and continued condition of life such as brings the indi- 

 vidual within the description (in the ordinary Bense of the word) of the poor of London, 

 combined with moral character and good conduct as a member of society. 



