husband and father, nevertheless, quickly appears on
the scene. He is a young man of thirty, well-dressed
for his class, and in the receipt of some
twenty-four shillings a week.

"So. I's a gentleman, is I?" he demands indignantly
of the trustees. "You calls me a gentleman
—that's the way you treats poor folk as
wants to be respectable."

"Content yourself, my man," says the churchwarden,
quietly; "nobody will call you a gentleman
again. It was a mistake."

"And what for arn't I to have the same as the
rest?"

Hereupon down comes the clergyman, and
gives him a good (moral) thrashing on the spot,
from which Catkin at length retires, the most
injured and angry of men.

After the dole is over, the trustees balance accounts,
and depart each his several way, the
clergyman down-hearted.

From my experience of parish charities, I
question much whether the results anticipated
by the founders often are obtained. But it does
not unfrequently happen that results never
dreamt of by them have been realised. Our
almshouses were founded for poor women, who,
by the original intention of the foundress, were
to receive two shillings a week, and be provided
with comfortable furnished rooms, rent free. It
was thought that such provision, together with
parish relief, would secure a sufficient maintenance
for the almswomen. But long before the
death of the foundress a parochial difficulty occurred,
and it was foreseen that the parish could
not pay, or rather would not (for we did much as
we liked in those times), the weekly allowance to
old women, which was three shillings. Under
this state of things, Elizabeth Brown munificently
increased the charity to such an amount as to relieve
the parish for ever of the cost of maintaining
half a dozen of its matrons. When the plan
for union rating shall have come in and put such
matters on a broader basis than at present, this
advantage will not be of the same value to us that
it now is, and, doubtless, before that time comes,
we shall have hatched a fresh charity grievance.

There have been cases in which overseers and
churchwardens have stopped relief to the poor
during the week that the small charities were
dispensed, and thus meanly achieved a small reduction
of outgoings.

Of all the commissions which affect our parish
none are so beneficial as the Charity Commission.
In some way or other the commissioners have
secured many benefactions which were ready to
perish under abuses, or in the grasp of unscrupulous
purchasers of land made chargeable with
them. It is certain that had the commission been
earlier in the field, we Grumbletonians should
have been wonderfully better off than we are now,
as we have lost charities which would have almost
kept our whole poor off the rate.

But is it not worth while to consider whether
means could not be devised by which, in future,
benefactions to a parish might be made more
serviceable than they are? Why, for example,
might they not serve as encouragements and
aids to provident exertion? It is worth remembering
that the most squalid and wretched
persons and homes do not represent necessarily
the cases most suitable for special means of
relief. Where the house and people are clean,
the clothes well patched, and all things are kept
as tidy as half a dozen young ones in a small
room will allow—where the father is reputed sober
and industrious, and clear of debt, the mother
a keeper at home—the pinch of honest poverty
is often sharper than the sufferer will tell, and
neither alms nor pauper's allowance will be taken
willingly. But in aid of all brave struggles
something might be done. Where coal and
clothing clubs are under the management of the
body corporate of clergyman, churchwardens, and
overseers, many benefactions might, and ought
for their better administration, to be applied by
way of aid to their bonus fund. A safe test is
afforded by these clubs for ascertaining who are
really the industrious and striving poor of the
parish, and what hardships lie upon them. And aid
thus afforded stimulates the custom of self-help.

It is still to be lamented that efficient legislation
is yet to come to the rescue of provident
societies, and that the subject is so little understood
by those who wish to benefit the poor.
There are safe societies in existence, which are
certified to be solvent by the actuary, and these,
though ousted as much as possible by the less
trustworthy beer-house clubs, are, it is believed,
gaining ground steadily. They secure to the
bread winner support during illness, an annuity in
old age, and a sufficient sum for a respectable funeral,
with something to spare, without the humiliation
of one farthing from the poor-rate. Such
provision can be made for a sum little if at all exceeding
the annual cost of the Brummagem club.

Parish benefactions, which would assist deserving
men to pay their annual premiums in
safe societies, would aid in a most important
social work. And that they do this is more than
can with truth be said on behalf of the bulk of
parish charities as they are now administered.

SMALL-BEER CHRONICLES.

IT was my duty as a chronicler of Small-Beer
to record, some little time since, the death of the
Legitimate Drama; I have now in like manner to
announce the demise of the LEGITIMATE NOVEL.

The Legitimate Novel! Ah, volumes of the
grease-stained covers—one, two, three, with
marble sides and leather backs, with yellow
leaves covered with marginal notes written in
pencil, by such idiots as surely in these terribly
wise times exist no longer—volumes of trash,
volumes of rot, volumes now of impossible
nonsense, now of inflated twaddle, now of inimitable
merit, what delight have ye afforded to
me, and to many another consumer of Small-Beer
in this Vale of Tears. The Legitimate
Novel, in three fat octavos, with three