EDITOR'S TABLE. 



125 



ing to the removal, by force of charity, 

 of this or that form of social misery. 

 Every now and then some agent of this 

 charitable work makes a confession as 

 to its very general inutility; indeed, 

 parodoxical as it may seem, none know- 

 so well how little charity in any form 

 can do for the poor as those who are 

 foremost in charitable efforts, or most 

 immediately concerned with the actual 

 distribution of help. It is undeniable 

 that, just in proportion as the liberality 

 of the charitably disposed increases, the 

 demands upon it increase, and that, con- 

 versely, with the cessation of alms-giv- 

 ing, the need for it seems to vanish. 

 There are facts to illustrate both points. 

 We have seen it stated lately in the 

 Boston papers that the abounding chari- 

 ties of that city have drawn to it people 

 who consider themselves objects of char- 

 ity from all the surrounding country; 

 and, if so, we can judge what the effect 

 has been in the city itself in promoting 

 mendicancy. Only last Christmas one 

 of the Boston papers was calling atten- 

 tion, with evident satisfaction, to the 

 vast increase within a few years in the 

 number of Christmas turkeys distrib- 

 uted gratis to the poor; as if such an 

 evidence of the progressive pauperiza- 

 tion of the community was not more to 

 be deplored than the increasing liber- 

 ality of a few to be rejoiced over. On 

 the other hand, Mr. Smiley, in the ad- 

 dress to which we have referred, states 

 that the discontinuance of out - door 

 relief in Brooklyn, Cleveland, and Cin- 

 cinnati has been followed by an almost 

 complete disappearance of any visible 

 necessity for the administration of such 

 relief. 



The morality of the future, we may 

 therefore safely say, will be based less 

 upon self-sacrifice than upon individual 

 culture and self-restraint, and will ex- 

 hibit more and more the beneficent 

 workings of what Mr. Spencer calls the 

 law of equal liberty. This, indeed, is 

 the only moral regime befitting the in- 

 dustrial and democratic stage of society. 



In ages of great social inequality, when 

 the great tyrannize and the weak cringe 

 in submission, there is urgent need for 

 the intervention of generous spirits to 

 do and to dare what the victims of op- 

 pression can neither do nor dare for 

 themselves ; but with the removal of all 

 unjust privileges the need for such ac- 

 tion largely disappears. If unduly pro- 

 longed its effect is to make the weak 

 weaker, the helpless more helpless. 

 The time, we hold, has come now when, 

 broadly speaking, the best thing any 

 man can do is to hold himself erect, to 

 practice a high-minded justice in his 

 relations with his fellow-men, and to 

 eschew all modes of action calculated to 

 encourage others to expect that they 

 may reap where they have not sown. 

 Speaking broadly again, our present 

 modes of charity tend to no good. A 

 truer charity by far would be to vigor- 

 ously protect society from the vicious 

 and criminal class ; and, in regard to the 

 limited class of non-vicious paupers, to 

 let them understand that what they earn 

 they shall eat and no more. This is the 

 course we shall follow if we want a per- 

 fected society. If, on the other hand, 

 we are prepared to make all sacrifices, 

 alike of principle and of expediency, for 

 the sake of emotional gratification, we 

 shall proceed in the practice of an ever- 

 extending sentimental charity ; and the 

 poor and degraded we shall ever have 

 with us, and yet more abundantly. 



''TnS VALUE OF THE NEXT-TO-NOTR- 



iNGr 

 Sir Feederick Bramwell, President 

 of the British Association, chose as the 

 subject of his inaugural address the 

 singular reading, "The Value of the 

 Nest-to-Nothing; and the Civil Engi- 

 neer, and the Value to Science of his 

 Works." His purpose was to show how 

 the civil engineer, applying results al- 

 ready worked out by science, enlarging 

 resources and facilities and increasing 

 economy, had aided and stimulated sci- 

 ence to new researches to be utilized 



