104 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 
any poor person or pensioner. These forms were collected by the 
police twenty-four hours after delivery, and out of some 30,000 
issued, some 3,000 were returned filled in.” ‘ And this,” says the 
very able writer on the subject of Charity Organization, the Kev. 
Mr. Gurteen, ‘‘ our first work of registering the names of all in the 
city in receipt of relief, whether official or private, was begun.” 
Books were then opened for indoor and outdoor relief, and classified 
as public or private, and the information methodically arranged, with 
the names in alphabetical order. It was found that the same person, 
in some cases, was in receipt of relief from three or four different 
societies, from a dozen different individuals, and from one or more 
churches, besides being on the poor books. “It was a lesson,” he 
adds, ‘‘ Buffalo will never forget.” 
The Secretary of the Brooklyn Bureau of Charities says: ‘The 
value of the registry system is now proved by actual test in the 
principal cities of the country. The system in some form is indis- 
pensable to the intelligent administration of charity.” * * * 
‘A complete registry is the only adeqnate check upon those who 
subsist upon alms fraudulently obtained.” 
“Tn New York,” Mr. Kellogg says, ‘‘ we should feel ourselves 
powerless without it, and the bulk of the large relief societies would 
feel that its abandonment was a long step backward.” There are 
195,000 persons in the New York Registers. 
One reason why this is insisted upon—and a number of other 
authorities could be cited—is that it corrects abuses in the outdoor 
relief. The tendency of outdoor relief, it is said, is demoralizing. 
Detroit officially reports in favour of its abolition. Brooklyn and 
Philadelphia have made it illegal. New York gives no outdoor 
relief, except to the adult blind. Buffalo has taken the same view, 
and great savings are reported in cities where the organizations are 
complete, or where outdoor relief is entirely abolished, as in Brooklyn 
and Philadelphia. To reduce imposture is to reduce vagrancy, and 
in this knowledge is really power. To know that one person is 
deserving and another is not, is not only to be in the way of effectual 
alms-giving, but it is a saving of expense and an encouragement to 
the relieved. 
On all points of view every aim of methodical charity is assisted, 
strengthened and sustained for good by the completeness of its regis- 
tration ; registration of those who ought to be relieved, whether they 
