226 HEREDITY. 



those who had almost taken up the career of pillage 

 under the name of penury. Again and again relief 

 has been prevented from becoming a mischief be- 

 cause given out indiscriminately at thresholds. A 

 tramp called at a Philadelphia door, and said his wife 

 was dying, and that she had no medicine, food, or 

 clothing. " Give him a card." — " No," said one of the 

 ladies: "his tone proves his sincerity; we must help 

 him now." — " That card will do me no good," said 

 the tramp : " I have three like it in my pocket 

 already. Why can't you help a poor man?" The 

 gentleman of the house came out : " Why are not 

 your cards attended to ? I am a member of the re- 

 lief board, and I will go with you, and see about 

 this." He went with the man to the central agency, 

 and found that he was a person just out of the peni- 

 tentiary, and had no wife in this country, and that 

 his history was well known to the police. The 

 tramp did not dare present his cards to the superin- 

 tendent. 



Of course those who most need help are often 

 those who never apply for it ; and until we go from 

 house to house, each with a little field, and not merely 

 by proxy, there will be no ascertaining the wants of 

 those who, like a widow I heard of in the North End 

 last winter, went through two days of a fearful storm 

 similar to that which has just swept the country, and 

 without a fire, and with but one meal in the forty- 

 eight hours. When she was found at last, her little 

 daughter was lying, not dead, but white with hunger 

 and cold ; and the woman was the wife of a minister, 



