106 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 
the use of volunteers is not only desirable but imperative. The 
work could not be carried on otherwise. The usual support given to 
the poor, the encouragement to elevate their home life, their health, 
and their habits are matters for the benevolent citizen who can 
snatch a half hour in the week for that purpose, and comes all the 
better from him than from the official representative of charity. 
Indeed the associated charities must do good in this direction, or 
do very little at all, as they are not organized to relieve the poor 
by giving alms, but to enquire into the cases of deserving poor 
and thus aid the existing charities, and secondly, to help the poor to 
help themselves. So long as real misery exists or is skilfully coun- 
terfeited, so long will the charitable hand out their money on the 
street or in their offices, no matter how many charities there may be 
around them. The association of charities is opposed to this thought- 
less or indiscriminate giving. An English clergyman, speaking of 
his experience in the terrible winter of 1867-8 in the east end of 
London, says that out of every shilling ticket he had given he had 
done four pennyworth of good to eight pennyworth of harm—the 
4d. representing the bread which had gone into the mouths of a 
wretched population, the 8d. the premium which was given to their 
wasteful, indolent habits. Immediately after the experience of these 
times a society was started in London called the “ Charity Organiza- 
tion Society,” and it gives no relief (except in the extreme cases of 
despair or imminent death) without previous and searching exami- 
nation. At its head is the Bishop of London ; and men like Cardinal 
Manning, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Ruskin, the Earl of Shaftesbury and 
the Duke of Norfolk are amongst its officers. 
One of the aims of a charity organization calls for special men- 
tion. The basis of relief is employment in all cases where work can 
be got, and where the applicant is able to work. This is easier to 
discuss in theory than to reduce to practice. One thing has, how- 
ever, been noticed. Whenever work was obtainable the applications 
for relief fell off. In many cities the procuring of work is put on a 
commercial basis as they say ; in many the civic authorities provide 
employment. In Baltimore it is made a substantive charity called 
the Provident Wood Yard. When a man professed a willingness to 
work and work could not be provided, it was cruel t6 dismiss him as 
undeserving. Any man making a proper application is ‘provided 
with living wages until something better can be found for him. 
