104 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



any poor person or pensioner. These forms were collected by the 

 police twenty-four hours after delivery, and out of some 30,000 

 issued, some 3,000 were returned filled in." "And this," says the 

 very able writer on the subject of Charity Organization, the Hev. 

 Mr. Giirteen, "our first woi'k of registering the names of all in the 

 city in receipt of relief, whether official or private, was begun." 

 Books were then opened for indoor and outdoor relief, and classified 

 as public or private, and the information methodically arranged, with 

 the names in alphabetical order. It was found that the same person, 

 in some cases, was in receipt of relief from three or four different 

 societies, from a dozen different individuals, and from one or more 

 churches, besides being on the poor books. " It was a lesson," he 

 adds, " Buffalo will never forget." 



The Secretary of the Brooklyn Bureau of Charities says : "The 

 value of the registry system is now proved by actual test in the 

 principal cities of the country. The system in some form is indis- 

 pensable to the intelligent administration of charity." * * * 

 " A complete registry is the only adequate check upon those who 

 subsist upon alms fraudulently obtained." 



"In New York," Mr. Kellogg says, "we should feel ourselves 

 powerless without it, and the bulk of the large relief societies would 

 feel that its abandonment was a long step backward." There are 

 195,000 persons in the New York Registers. 



One reason why this is insisted upon — and a number of other 

 authorities could be cited — is that it corrects abuses in the outdoor 

 relief. The tendency of outdoor relief, it is said, is demoralizing. 

 Detroit officially reports in favour of its abolition. Brooklyn and 

 Philadelphia have made it illegal. New York gives no outdoor 

 relief, excejit to the adult blind. Buffalo has taken the same view, 

 and great savings are reported in cities where the organizations are 

 complete, or where outdoor relief is entirely abolished, as in Brooklyn 

 and Philadelphia. To reduce imposture is to reduce vagrancy, and 

 in this knowledge is really power. To know that one person is 

 deserving and another is not, is not only to be in the way of effectual 

 alms-giving, but it is a saving of expense and an encouragement to 

 the relieved. 



On all points of view every aim of methodical charity is assisted, 

 strengthened and sustained for good by the completeness of its regis- 

 tration ; registration of those who ought to be relieved, whether they 



