SEVEN PEESTCIPAL LAWS OF HEREDITY. 223 



tained, and he was sent to Robert Coulter with a 

 ticket. Only a small percentage of the cards thus 

 given out were ever presented to that intelligent 

 officer. 



Of course you have done something like that in 

 Boston ; but the trouble is, we have not brought the 

 charities of all the religious denominations under a 

 common plan on this subject. We have had here 

 in Boston seventeen generals, I presume, — seventy, 

 for aught I know, — over this work of poor-relief. 

 Let every church do its own business, you say. 

 That is well ; but this Germantown plan of a union 

 of churches is better. Let every denomination unite 

 its churches, you say. This plan, which has been 

 executed with considerable thoroughness in most of 

 our large American cities, is an excellent one ; but 

 a better one would be for churches of all denomina- 

 tions to unite their purely philanthropic activities, 

 so that the able-bodied pauper who cannot get 

 relief in one parish may not emigrate to another, 

 and obtain relief there. The Church Congress in 

 New York lately favored a central bureau for church 

 aid in poor-relief. Of course there will be constant 

 imposition unless there is some general supervision 

 in such work. There will be running over bounds 

 by tramps ; and, what the unprincipled beggar can- 

 not get at one door, he will find at another. Some 

 churches, too, are not efficient ; and it will be very 

 hard to supply a city equally with benevolent visita- 

 tion and relief under the plan of letting each church 

 act by itself. 



