the committee, are distributed among the sick
and infirm. There cannot surely be a better
vehicle for West-end charity than this. If the
kind impulsive people whose guineas burn their
pockets, and who, on reading the terrible tales
of East-end distress, rush into the evils of
indiscriminate alms-giving, would buy these books
and forward them to the committee, they may
rest satisfied that every penny will confer a
benefit instead of an injury. If they do this,
they provide food for the helpless and the
starving. If they send money to the committee,
they provide honest work for men willing to
labour for their families, but who are thrown
out of employment by the bitter exigencies of
the time.

The whole of Bethnal-green, with its
population of one hundred and twenty thousand
souls, is mapped out into thirteen districts,
and to each district a sub-committee for relief
and employment is appointed. Some of the
local shopkeepers, the men whose dealings are
almost exclusively with the classes who are out
of work, and who know the poor of the district
personally, co-operate with the clergymen of
the district in selecting from among the crowds
of applicants for permission to work, and in the
preliminary letter announcing the formation of
the society to the clergy of Bethnal-green, it
was wisely written, "As this is simply a matter
of 'employment and relief,' it is most desirable
that the sub-committee should not exclusively
consist of members of the Church of England."
A large majority of these gentlemen are heartily
co-operating with the association, are
members of its committee, and are working with
some of the leading dissenters of the parish for
the common good. A minority of the local
clergy stand aloof, one of them actually giving
as a reason, "You seem too cold and secular for
religion, and you do not appear to need clergy
for such a work, or any reference to denominations
whatsoever." Is it "cold and secular" to
succour the needy, to help the distressed, and
to feed the starving? Methinks it is a
"secularity" inculcated by the most sacred of books,
and a "coldness" practised by the Great
Teacher himself. But the association is a
deadly foe to begging-letter writing, and to the
indiscriminate gathering in and bestowal of alms.
The penury of Bethnal-green, and the appeals
founded on it which have been successfully
made to the benevolent public, have demoralised
other people besides the poor. When a
sensational advertisement brings in money almost
without stint, when the sums subscribed are
entrusted bodily to the advertiser, who neither
makes nor is expected to make any formal
statement of account, and when inquiry is
resented as insult, the perfectly open proceedings
of this committee, with its measured appeals, its
regular book-keeping, and its close checks must
seem awkwardly and prudishly business-like.
The funds asked for are employed in helping
people to help themselves, and in giving food
to those for whom work is impossible. The
benevolent lady whose name, already mentioned,
always recurs in connexion with well-considered
beneficence, guaranteed eighteen-pence a day
to two hundred and fifty able-bodied men for
three months, on the condition that useful labour
should be found for them. The Employment
and Relief Association carry out and amplify
the scheme she originated, and every penny of
their funds is disbursed on fixed principles, as
we have seen. The people are not only
perfectly satisfied, but are eager for work; and
the sub-committees have to refuse employment
to hundreds seeking it.

It has been proposed to convey some of
the able-bodied to counties in which labour
is needed, and even to co-operate with the
emigration societies in supplying distant colonies
with emigrants. This requires more care than
the correspondents of newspapers seem to
imagine. The want of labour should be proved by
irrefragable evidence before a single man is sent
away. Several cases have occurred within the
writer's knowledge, in which a letter in a
newspaper has raised utterly false hopes on the
labour question. Not two years ago one of
the most eminent firms of railway contractors,
in pressing need of workmen, despatched
an agent into Cornwall to find they had
been hoaxed; and before now men have been
sent from Bethnal-green itself to distant parts, to
find work as unattainable as ever, and to return
disheartened and discomforted to their parish.
These are some of the difficulties with which
the genii have to contend, difficulties which,
if "cold and secular," are also practical and
real. But their usefulness, so long as they
exact fair work for moderate pay, will only
be limited by the means at their disposal. A
proposal is afloat to reclaim Hackney Marshes,
and to perform other acts of public usefulness,
in addition to stone-breaking and street-
cleaning.

We have our doubts, however, as to the
"temporary" character of the distress. Much
of it seems to us fixed and chronic. It is too
true, as the out-relief committee of the Bethnal-
green guardian board reported the other day—
that "as each winter comes round, numbers of
able-bodied men, either from want of work, or
misfortune, or some unforeseen catastrophe, are
obliged to apply for relief," and we really see
little hope of the existing distress terminating
with the present winter. The utter impossibility
of the guardians giving adequate parish
relief in places where, to again quote from the
parochial report, "the poor are mainly
supported by ratepayers who are themselves but
one step removed from pauperism," is the great
necessity for such an organisation as is provided
by the genii. When common sense and common
honesty prevail, and the rates of London are
equalised, we may hope to leave the grave
questions pertaining to relief in properly
responsible hands. Till then we must look to
voluntary associations to pay the heavy debt our
rich metropolitan districts owe to the poor, and
it would be difficult to hit upon a better form
of "conscience money" than remitting to genii