ELEVENTH ORDINARY MEETING. 101 
Donation of $50 to the Funds of the Institute, by Sandford 
Fleming, Esq., C. M. G. 
On motion of Dr. Kennedy, seconded by Mr. George 
Murray, it was resolved that the thanks of the Institute be 
tendered to Mr. Sandford Fleming, C. M.G., for his generous 
donation. 
D. A. O’Sullivan, M.A., LL.B., read a paper entitled 
SYSTEMATIC CHARITY. 
Every large city in the world has a destitute population ranging 
probably about five per cent. of the whole number of its inhabitants. 
There are the poor who are unable to work, the poor who are unwil- 
ling to work, and the poor without work for them to do. 
The first of these classes include the sick, the aged, the deformed, 
and those who, whatever their disposition may be, are unfit to sup- 
port themselves. They form the great mass of any city’s permanent 
. poor, and they are the ones towards whom the energies of the chari- 
table and the actions of the Legislature are directed. 
The second—and an alarmingly increasing class — furnish the 
pauper and the tramp of modern civilization, and it is said on the 
authority of a very experienced writer that ‘the pauper, the 
imposter, and the fraud of every description carry off at least one- 
half of all charity, public and private, and hence there is a constant 
and deplorable waste in the alms-funds of every large city.” 
The third class of poor, able and willing to work, but without 
work to do, is a fluctuating class, absent in one city and present in 
another, and varying also in seasons in the same city. They form 
the lower order of working classes; if work is provided for them 
they may arrive at a higher level, if not they become depauperized 
and are the scandal of society. 
I have divided the poor whom the taxpayer and the charitable 
have to support into three classes, with reference to their capacity or 
inclination for work—for labor of some kind; but there are others 
with whom the public are concerned, such as the criminal of minor 
offences, who is kept in gaol or in prison at the public expense ; the 
drunkard, who finds his way to the same institutions, and a large 
miscellaneous class who, by reason of vice that is a legal crime, or 
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