98 DA R WIN ISM AND RA CE PR CRESS. 



VIII. the line was drawn between " poor, impotent, 

 sick, and diseased folk, the sick in very deed and not 

 able to work, who may be provided for, holpen and 

 relieved, and such as be strong and lusty, who, having 

 their limbs strong enough to labour, may be daily 

 kept in continual labour whereby everyone of them 

 may get their living with their own hands." If, 

 however, we look a little closer into the matter we 

 shall be able to recognise at least three quite dis- 

 tinct classes of persons grouped together under the 

 term " poor," and all of whom are treated by the 

 community very much on an equality. As we 

 shall presently see, the rough and ready way in which 

 we view these three groups has led to gross cruelty 

 and injustice on the one hand, and to ill-advised 

 assistance and help on the other. 



Within the same rooms and wards of the poor- 

 house, or receiving assistance under the same system 

 of out-door relief, we find those who, from innate or 

 acquired vice, form the criminal class, undistinguished 

 from worthy and respectable men and women and 

 their children, whose only fault was, perhaps, that their 

 small savings over and above the necessities of their 

 life had been spent too carelessly, or even had, per- 

 haps, been invested in a society administered by dis- 

 honest men ; we find widows and orphans of men who 

 have died from accident or disease while in the course 

 of regular and honourable employment. With these 



