3 i4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



regulate in one or other way, there may come to be formed 

 stronger moral ties ? Already such moral ties are in some meas- 

 ure recognized. Already all householders moderately endowed 

 with sympathy, feel bound to care for their servants during ill- 

 ness ; already they help those living out of the house who in less 

 direct ways labor for them; already from time to time small 

 traders, porters, errand-boys, and the like, benefit by their kind 

 offices 011 occasions of misfortune. The sole requisite seems to be 

 that the usage which thus shows itself here and there irregularly, 

 should be called into general activity by the gradual disappear- 

 ance of artificial agencies for distributing aid. As before im- 

 plied, the sympathetic feelings which have originated and sup- 

 port these artificial agencies, would, in their absence, vitalize and 

 develop the natural agencies. And if with each citizen there re- 

 mained the amount now taken from him in rates and subscrip- 

 tions, he would be enabled to meet these private demands : if not 

 by as large a disbursement, yet by a disbursement probably as 

 large as is desirable. 



Besides re-establishing these closer relationships between su- 

 perior and inferior, which during our transition from ancient 

 slavery to modern freedom have lapsed ; and besides bringing 

 beneficence back to its normal form of direct relation between 

 benefactor and beneficiary ; this personal administration of relief 

 would be guided by immediate knowledge of the recipients, and 

 the relief would be adjusted in kind and amount to their needs 

 and their deserts. When, instead of the responsibility indirectly 

 discharged through poor-law officers and mendicity societies, the 

 responsibility fell directly on each of those having some spare 

 means, each would see the necessity for inquiry and criticism and 

 supervision : so increasing the aid given to the worthy and re- 

 stricting that given to the unworthy. 



And here we are brought face to face with the greatest of the 

 difficulties attendant on all methods of mitigating distress. May 

 we not by frequent aid to the worthy render them unworthy ; and 

 are we not almost certain by helping those who are already un- 

 worthy to make them more unworthy still ? How shall we so 

 regulate our pecuniary beneficence as to avoid assisting the in- 

 capables and the degraded to multiply ? 



I have in so many places commented on the impolicy, and in- 

 deed the cruelty, of bequeathing to posterity an increasing popu- 

 lation of criminals and incapables,' that I need not here insist 

 that true beneficence will be so restrained as to avoid fostering 

 the inferior at the expense of the superior or, at any rate, so 

 restrained as to minimize the mischief which fostering the in- 

 ferior entails. 



