4o8 LAND REFORM 



free import of matches six boxes of these articles can 

 be bought for a penny. The so-called "free trader" 

 may regard this as a triumph of his policy, and the 

 housewife as a gain in domestic economy, but this 

 cheapness is secured at a cost of human suffering and 

 want such as the following case, by no means a rare 

 one, reveals. " One of the women, Sarah Ann Young, 

 aged seventy, of Shoreditch, died, and at the inquest 

 yesterday her daughter, who was a widow with three 

 little children, said she and her mother had worked 

 together at home at match-box making. They earned 

 IS. 3fd. for seven gross of match-boxes. For some 

 work they were paid 2:|d. a gross and for other 2d. a 

 gross, and had to find their own paste. The post- 

 mortem examination showed there was not a particle 

 of fat about the body. Death was due to exhaustion, 

 consequent on disease and want of food." (" Daily 

 Express," February 4th, 1904.) 



Passing from the question of " cheapness " we come 

 to that of "charity." The name is a beautiful one, 

 but the nature and attributes, of which the name is a 

 symbol, are more beautiful still. " Charity is the 

 desire to do your neighbour grace, the one source of all 

 human glory, power, and material blessing." (Ruskin.)^ 

 To deal effectively with the horrors of the rookeries 

 of town life, the evils resulting from ** unemployment," 

 the state of things revealed in Blue Books and in the 



' In this connection the word "charity" is altogether degraded and 

 misapplied; we want some other name properly to represent the point 

 under discussion. "Eleemosynary" is too long' and pompous for com- 

 mon folk. " Dole-giving " and the scriptural word " alms-deeds " are 

 perhaps more apt ; but these, in fact, amount to little more than doling 

 out to the poor the crumbs that fall from the rich man's table. At all 

 times and in all grades of society the need for the exercise of "charity" 

 — in its true sense— will ever remain. 



