xvir LAND NATIONALIZATION— WHY ? AND HOW ? 307 



matter of fact many do starve who might have been well fed 

 within its walls. Now, in the Daily News of April 18th, 

 1883, there was a remarkable article giving an account 

 of the results of this change of system in some London 

 parishes. It states that, ten years earlier, a severe reduc- 

 tion of out-door relief was commenced in Whitechapel and 

 other parishes, till at the time of writing there was no out- 

 door relief given in that parish, nor in Stepney and St. 

 George's in the East, while the same process was going on 

 in Marylebone and other parts of London, and to a less 

 extent all over the kingdom. The article in question states 

 the remarkable fact that this great change had produced 

 practically no increase of indoor paupers. In Stepney, for 

 example, out-door relief had been reduced by 7,000 in the 

 preceding ten years, and there was no increase whatever of 

 indoor paupers, the reason being (as expressly stated) that 

 organized 2orivate charity had taken the place of out-door relief 

 Now, if there has been a reduction of 7,000 official paupers 

 in one London parish without any proof of a corresponding 

 decrease of real want and destitution, how utterly un- 

 meaning and even misleading becomes the quotation of 

 these official statistics as showing any real decrease of our 

 pauperism. If we take as our guide the fact, that, in one of 

 the worst and most poverty-stricken districts of the metro- 

 polis, organized private charity has been able to take the 

 place of the relieving officer when a total cessation of out- 

 door relief has been effected, we may be sure that it has 

 been found quite equal to the much easier task of relieving 

 those thrown on its hands by a very partial application of 

 the same methods of dealing with the poor in other parts 

 of the country. We may, therefore, fairly assume that the 

 diminution of out-door paupers over the whole country 

 during the last thirty years has been largely due to the 

 stricter application of the workhouse test, and that those 

 thus refused relief by the guardians have been aided and 

 kept alive by more extensive and better organised 

 private charity. If this is the case, the only official test 

 of pauperism as actually increasing or decreasing will be 

 found in the records of indoor relief, and these show 

 numbers steadily increasing at a much greater rate than 



X 2 



