49Q THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



cent pieces. Provided •with these, go to any crowded thorough- 

 fare, and give them out to the children or others that ask for help 

 — perhaps under pretense of peddling. Notice how the numher 

 of askers multiplies — how older children and better-dressed chil- 

 dren take part in the asking — and you will realize that, if your 

 pocket were big enough, you could pauperize half the city. The 

 same experiment may be tried by simply giving a little money to 

 each one that chooses to ring your door-bell and ask for it. It 

 may almost be considered fortunate that a great nation was so 

 unfortunate as to try just such experiments on a gigantic scale. 

 Walker thus summarizes the influence of English outdoor poor 

 relief while the Gilbert Act was in force: "The disposition to 

 labor was cut up by the roots ; all restraints upon an increase of 

 population disappeared under a premium upon births ; self-respect 

 and social decency vanished before a money-premium on bas- 

 tardy." Cities in our own country — notably Brooklyn and Phila- 

 delphia — have found that, when public outdoor relief, given 

 prodigally for a long series of years, was cut short off, the number 

 of indoor poor actually decreased, as also the demands upon the 

 private charities of the cities, and this in the face of an increasing 

 population. 



It is characteristic of the new or scientific charity as opposed 

 to purely emotional philanthropy that it regards poverty as an 

 evil to be assailed in its causes. It does not merely pity poverty, 

 but studies it. It believes that a doctor might as well give pills 

 without a diagnosis, as a benevolent man give alms without an 

 investigation. It insists that "hell is paved with good inten- 

 tions/' and that the philanthropist must be careful as well as 

 kindly. 



Mr. Smiley, in his recent article in "The Popular Science 

 Monthly " on " Altruism economically considered," says but lit- 

 tle of this more rational phase of charitable work. The evils he 

 condemns are very evil, but others are attacking them as vigor- 

 ously as himself, and possibly along lines of greater strategic 

 advantage. To prosecute existing charitable methods at the bar 

 of true charity is apt to have more practical results than to ar- 

 raign the same culprits at the bar of political economy. 



Most of the workers in the new charity in this country have 

 entered more or less fully into the movement for what is known 

 as " charity organization." Speaking broadly, the purpose of this 

 movement is to make the benevolent work of our large cities 

 more systematic and more intelligent. The plans of those inter- 

 ested in the movement are already sufficiently well realized, so 

 that each year they seek out, analyze, classify, and record a vast 

 number of facts regarding the poor and poor-relief in the princi- 

 pal cities of the country. An examination of some of the statis- 



