the most pestilent persons in their parish, who
systematically oppose themselves to any languid
efforts towards the improvement of their
proceedings made by the Board, and for whose
misdeeds the Board is not to be held responsible.
This is perfectly true. But when the Board is
so mighty complacent on the reduction of the
amount spent in relieving the poor, does it
tell us of these vestrymen, of its inability to
strive against their pot-valiant demonstrations,
of its knowledge that they are the wrong order
of men for their trust, of its very strong suspicions
that they sometimes relieve their own
tenants and customers more freely than other
poor, and thus convert their bad debts into
good? If the Board were what it ought to be,
and did its duty, would it not favour us with a
hint or so of its inability to deal with these
hucksters, instead of tamely and lamely singing
songs of rejoicing over their works, and making
itself Air, when most needed?

But, it is said, rates must be kept down.
They are already ruinous in the poor parishes.
The truth is— a truth we have urged again
and again— rates must be equalised. "While
each parish maintains its own poor, what is to
become of paupers who almost make up a parish
of their own, and have to pay the most enormous
rates out of the smallest means? On the
other hand, in polite regions, inhabited by
wealth and fashion, there are so few poor, that
of the wealthiest the law asks but a mite.
Clearly this is worse than absurd; in practice
it is iniquitous; and the one remedy is an
uniform rate diffused over large areas, if not one
national rate. The London parishes pay rates
varying from one penny to eight shillings, the
highest being invariably levied on the poorest
men. It has been calculated that the whole
work of relief might be done by one uniform levy
of twopence in the pound upon all rateable
property. Whatever the amount in the pound
of such a rate might be, it would be fairly
distributed, and, we are certain, cheerfully borne.
Speculative objections to this plan chiefly run
in the favourite groove of economy. It is said
that the strong local interest in keeping down
the rates would be lost, and waste would follow.

But the fiction of economy is the next great
source of the failure of the Poor Law system.
Because of it we may almost believe that every
penny given to the poor rate has been wasted.
Had there been no workhouses, and no
commissioners congratulating themselves on
decrease of the amounts spent in poor relief, could
our streets have been more thronged with
miserable creatures than they have been; could
our police magistrates have been more hungrily
surrounded; could the columns of the Times
record a greater sense of uneasiness on the part
of the charitable; could the details of want
suffered by the well deserving, have been much
more dreadful; than they were when the year
began on which we have now entered with the
faintest hope that it may bring some remedy for
all this grief?

Admit, that the local administration of parish
funds falls sometimes into the hands of noisy
and jobbing vestrymen who ape all the accidents
of evil in self-government, and nearly make us
blind to its essential good; admit that these
men, who would be simply ridiculous if they
were less mischievous, do not represent the
merciful and generous nature of the contributors
with whose money they deal; admit that
there is creeping into English public affairs
the vice so obvious in American public affairs,
to wit, that the best disposed people are too
apt to leave them alone,— these are but lesser
branches of the evil that grows, spreads, and
overshadows us. At the root of all, is that
Board, with an immense machinery and a costly
staff, over the institution of which Board there
were such pæans sung as were never sung in
parliament yet, and such politico-economical
rejoicings raised as never were raised before under
heaven. Where was this wonderful Board when
the people were perishing of want and cold?
Why was its machinery not instantly set in
motion for the spiriting up of lazy vestries, for
the seeking out of misery, for the administration
of the Poor Law— which is law for the
relief of the distressed— and for sternenforcement
of that law upon little authorities that
will not even see starvation when it lies at their
gate in the very article of death?

Until there is equalisation of poor rates it
is in the known course of nature that certain
poor parishes, such as those along the Thames
by Ratcliffe and Wapping, must have in some
seasons nearly their whole population thrown
out of work, and must become bankrupt
parishes of paupers. The necessity is
occasional, but not exceptional. It is a misery to
be foreseen; and is it no part of the Board's
duty to regard it as a misery to be provided
for, a matter at least of special representation
and of special counsel to the government? If
the Board, in short, when a few weeks of
frost gave it something to live for, gave no
signs of life, was nowhere to be seen or heard
of, had no previous existence marked enough
even to bring it at that crisis into people's
minds, if it was dead and buried under the
twelve thousand annual reports sent in by its
officials, or entirely lost in abstract compilation
from the twelve thousand reports of its own
annual report of the happy continuance of
decrease in the number of poor succoured through
its agency, of what use is the Board, and why is
it maintained?

The time will soon come when the renewal
of this Board must be discussed and decided on
in parliament. Let the generous people who
have been sending money to poor-boxes, to
refuges, to the Times, and where not, be wise
for the future, and insist on the settlement of
these questions before the next time that the
wolf comes, as it is inevitable that he will come,
to our door. We want as a system of poor
relief, not that which gives coldly to the poor
who come for aid in spite of all discouragement,
but that which embodies the true mind of a
really and truly charitable nation. What we