MISGOVERNMENT OF GREAT CITIES. 303 



It is a difficult thing to bestow a charity in such a way as not to do 

 harm to the beneficiary. In so far as it is practicable, there ought to 

 be some kind of quid pro quo ; aid granted should take the form of 

 payment for some kind of service rendered, even if the service be of 

 no value to the donor. 



The city of Providence is moving in this direction. No donations 

 are made to transient mendicants. Vagrants, tramps, and beggars 

 are taken in charge by the police. Food and temporary lodging are 

 provided by the city. A certain amount of labor is demanded of each 

 able-bodied recipient of relief in payment of his entertainment, and 

 the result is that that city is shunned by the professional pauper as if 

 it were a pest-house. 



Illustrative of another manner in which charities become perverted 

 from their originally beneficent purpose, I would refer briefly to a 

 report as to the London guilds, made by the City Companies Commis- 

 sion, published not long since in the "Pall Mall Gazette." These 

 guilds or societies were originally benefit societies or charitable asso- 

 ciations, and were under the care and protection of the city. In process 

 of time they become the trustees of various bequests made for secur- 

 ing an annual income to some charitable institution or purpose. The 

 guilds were simply trustees of this property, never its owners. As 

 years passed by, the operation of natural causes enormously increased 

 the value of the properties under their care, so that they are now esti- 

 mated to be worth from $75,000,000 to $100,000,000, and the annual 

 profits about $4,000,000. But the guilds as trustees only pay over to 

 the charity funds the income on the original value of the bequests. 

 As, for instance, where the rental of a certain realty was at the time 

 the bequest was taken in charge by the guild $100, it is now $10,000 ; 

 the guild, however, pays over to the charity the $100 and pockets the 

 $9,900. Not a member of these guilds is entitled to a penny of this 

 money ; yet, by a system of " payment of privileges," which is a po- 

 lite way of saying " the purchase of a right to steal," these guilds, be- 

 sides spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of these trust-funds 

 in banquetings and entertaining their friends in a sumptuous manner, 

 pocket annually a handsome income for themselves. 



The members of the guilds are, by virtue of said membership, in- 

 vested with the municipal franchise, and are permitted to vote either 

 in person or by proxy, and thus are admitted to the very select number 

 who control the affairs of this immense metropolis. Mr. Gladstone 

 not long ago characterized these guilds as associations for the culti- 

 vation of gastronomy, which occasionally gave a five-pound note to 

 charity. 



In a number of instances like provision was made for the support 

 of churches and schools in particular localities. The changes caused 

 by the demands of trade long ago deprived both churches and schools 

 of their constituency. But the farce of maintaining religious worship 



