PRIVATE RELIEF OF THE POOR. 311 



The most familiar of these is the careless squandering of pence 

 to beggars, and the consequent fostering of idleness and vice. 

 Sometimes because their sympathies are so quick that they can 

 not tolerate the sight of real or apparent misery ; sometimes be- 

 cause they quiet their consciences and think they compound for 

 misdeeds by occasional largesse; sometimes because they are 

 moved by that other-worldliness which hopes to obtain large gifts 

 hereafter by small gifts here; sometimes because, though con- 

 scious of mischief likely to be done, they have not the patience 

 needed to make inquiries, and are tempted to end the matter 

 with a sixpence or something less ; men help the bad to become 

 worse. Doubtless the evil is great, and weighs much against 

 the individual exercise of beneficence practically if not theo- 

 retically. 



The same causes initiate and maintain the begging-letter im- 

 postures. Occasional exposures of these in daily papers might 

 serve as warnings ; but always there is a new crop of credulous 

 people who believe what they are told by cunning dissemblers, 

 and yield rather than take the trouble of verification ; thinking, 

 many of them, that they are virtuous in thus doing the thing 

 which seems kind, instead of being, as they are, vicious in taking 

 no care to prevent evil. That the doings of such keep alive num- 

 bers of scamps and swindlers, every one knows ; and doubtless a 

 considerable set-off to the advantages of individual beneficence 

 hence arises. 



Then, again, there meets us the objection that if there is no 

 compulsory raising of funds to relieve distress, and everything is 

 left to the promptings of sympathy, people who have little or no 

 sympathy, forming a large part of the community, will contribute 

 nothing ; and will leave undue burdens to be borne by the more 

 sympathetic. Either the requirements will be inadequately met 

 or the kind-hearted will have to make excessive sacrifices. Much 

 force though there is in this objection, it is not so forcible as at 

 first appears. In this case, as in many cases, wrong inferences are 

 drawn respecting the effects of a new cause, because it is supposed 

 that while one thing is changed all other things remain the same. 

 It is forgotten that in the absence of a coercive law there often 

 exists a coercive public opinion. There is no legal penalty on a 

 lie, if not uttered after taking an oath ; and yet the social disgrace 

 which follows a convicted liar has a strong effect in maintaining 

 a general truthfulness. There is no prescribed punishment for 

 breaking social observances ; and yet these are by many conformed 

 to more carefully than are moral precepts or legal enactments. 

 Most people dread far more the social frown which follows the 

 doing of something conventionally wrong, than they do the 

 qualms of conscience which follow the doing of something intrin- 



