THE SOCIAL QUAGMIRE 39^ 



The truth of this latter statement stares us in the face 

 in every countrj^, and especially in every great city, 

 of the civilized world ; no one can have the hardihood 

 to deny it. But people are so dazzled by the palpable 

 signs of wealth and luxury which everywhere surround 

 them ; so many comforts are now obtainable by the middle 

 classes, which were formerly unknown ; so many and so 

 wonderful have been the gifts of science in labour-saving 

 machinery, in the means of locomotion and of distant 

 communication, and in a hundred arts and processes which 

 add to the innocent pleasures and refinements of life ; and 

 again, so jubilant are our legislators and our political 

 writers over our ever-increasing trade and the vast bulk 

 of yearly growing wealth, that they cannot and will not 

 believe in the increase, or even in the persistence of an 

 equal amount of poverty as in former years. That there 

 is far too much cruel and grinding poverty in the midst 

 of our civilization, they admit ; but they comfort themselves 

 with the belief that it is decreasing ; that bad as it is, it is 

 far better than at any previous time during the present 

 century, at all events ; and they scout the very notion that 

 it is even proportionally as great as ever, as too absurd to 

 be seriously discussed. 



These good people, however, believe what they Avish to 

 believe, and persistently shut their eyes to facts. Even 

 in Great Britain it can, I believe, be demonstrated that 

 there is actually a greater bulk of poverty and starvation 

 than one hundred or even fifty years ago ; probably even 

 a larger proportion of the population suffering the cruel 

 pangs of cold and hunger. I need not here go into the 

 evidence for this statement, beyond referring to two facts. 

 There has, during the last thirty or forty years, been an 

 enormous extension of the sphere of private charit}^, 

 together with a judicious organization calculated to 

 minimize its pauperizing effects. 



Besides the marvellous work of Dr. Barnardo and General 

 Booth, there are in London, and in all our great cities, 

 scores of general and hundreds of local charities ; while 

 the numbers of earnest men and women who devote their 

 lives to alleviating the sorrows and sufferings of the poor, 



