Anonymous

“ The Committee trust that as these labours, and the operations of the Society in general, become year by year more effective, and their results more fully ripened, there will be found to have sprung up a more intimate connexion among the different classes of the community: one which, founded on an interchange of beneficence on the one hand and gratitude on the other, and supported and cemented on both by Christian sympathy and love, cannot fail in being productive of important advantages to the welfare of all concerned. ”

“ The gift of bread or coals to a certain number of families taken indiscriminately, or to every poor person, in such a locality, is not only indiscreet but unjust, and impedes the exertions of a society whose principle is to discover and encourage the good, to deter the bad.”—Report of a Visitor, February, 1845.
[16] “The month of February appears to be the most trying to the poor of this district. Their little savings, if any, have been exhausted; their clothes and furniture are gradually being taken to the pawnbroker; hunger and cold are producing disease, unless timely help is afforded. ”

“ They are urgent in their importunity to the Visitor, and instead of being thankful for what assistance he has it in his power to afford them with justice to more deserving and pressing cases, become loud in their murmurings and expressions of anger; and in some instances have gone so far, after insulting conduct to the Visitor, as to carry their complaints to various residents, who, unaware of the true facts, have perhaps been led by their statement to form very erroneous and unjust opinions of the working of the Society. ”

“ And if in any instances it has appeared, or has been thought, that no such diminution has occurred, the Committee, from documents before them, cannot help being satisfied that the cause and the remedy of the evil lie equally in the hands of those who suffer from such applications. So long as relief is given at the doors without full inquiry, so long will persons of this class be found to ask for it: so long as bounties are conferred without respect to character and circumstances, so long will mendicants be encouraged to exist in the same state of debased and dependent pauperism. ”

“ It not unfrequently happens that residents have needle-work, charing, or other work to be done, and are at a loss to know where to find respectable persons to undertake it. A reference to a District Visitor will both supply their want and at the same time obtain employment for some deserving individual to whom it may prove an invaluable assistance. A large number of sempstresses, charwomen, laundresses, &c., depend solely upon the work which they are casually able to obtain.
[20b] The intervention of the Visitors has been productive of most valuable assistance in many other respects. ”

“ The exchequer of the poor in this, an Irish district, generally consists of a few shillings deposited within a very small box carefully kept within two or three other boxes, or at the bottom of an old chest. On no one occasion has any bad money been offered to him. The money is generally, indeed invariably, paid by the females. The confidence with which they give their money is a trait not to be unnoticed; it being often difficult to prevent them paying their money in the street, and without any card or check. ”

“ Individuals who desire to visit personally and to relieve from their own resources a small number of poor families, but who are unable to take charge of a District, are requested to communicate with the Clergy upon the subject. It will not be difficult to make arrangements by which such benevolent persons may be provided with a field of labour proportioned to the time and the funds at their disposal. ”

“ Such measures are those which the Committee have taken; and in endeavouring by their means to attain the end desired, they trust they shall in future receive the full co-operation of those parishioners who, with every desire of doing good to the utmost of their power, yet may have sometimes been unawares throwing away valuable resources upon unworthy objects; upon persons, at all events, whose cases are not THE MOST deserving cases of industry, respectability, sickness, and distress. ”

“ It is a sufficient confirmation of the opinion they hold, that throughout the whole of the Metropolitan portion of the Diocese the same general system of District Visiting, the same active co-operation of Laity with Clergy in the work of charity, and the same general course of action, have been acknowledged as the only effectual means of coping successfully with the pressing evils arising from an overflowing population, from ignorance, improvidence, and vice ”

“ The means and measures which immediately present themselves are those whose tendency is, on the one hand, to encourage and assist the laborious, deserving, and permanent portion of it: and, on the other hand, to initiate, and stimulate the growth of providence and industry in those who have not yet learned the necessity and the duty of striving to help themselves and to improve their own condition ”

“ No person shall be relieved who has not resided three months in the Parish, and has not occupied the same house or lodging, unless good reason be assigned.
13. Subscribers to the Society may recommend cases for inquiry and relief. Recommendations may be sent to the National School House, from whence they will be forwarded daily to the Visitors. Money remitted to any of the Parochial Clergy for the relief of particular families shall be appropriated to that purpose, if they are found to be proper objects of charity ”

“ The landlord seized on their furniture, which if it had been sold, must have broken up their home for ever. She applied to me in her distress. On making her case known to the managers of the District Visiting Society, they obtained (from private sources) a loan of the part she was not able to make up, and saved them from destruction. A part of the money that was lent has been returned. The continued illness of the man I believe to be the only reason why the whole has not. ”

“ Omitting, for brevity, 80 families of intermediate degrees of education, it appears that of the remaining 100 families respecting whom the calculation was made, the amount of relief required by those in which neither father nor mother could read, or one of them imperfectly, has been actually twice as much per head as by those in which either father or mother could read and write well. ”

“ Most earnestly do the Committee appeal to the Members of this Society and the parishioners in general, to consider the importance—the Christian duty—of administering the proportion of their income which they set apart for charitable purposes, in such a manner as may produce THE GREATEST amount of good. ”

“ The Treasurer wishes it to be distinctly understood that he would thankfully receive Donations or Subscriptions of however small an amount, as it is the wish of the Society to afford an opportunity to ALL CLASSES to assist, as far as their circumstances will permit, and each according to his power, in the furtherance of the great work of practical Christian charity. ”

“ If it be the ordinary duty of the Committee, while administering the funds at their disposal, to adopt such measures as shall enable the poorer classes to perceive and fulfil what is due from them in this interchange; it is now their office to point out to the wealthier and educated classes, who may be anxious for the opportunity, how they may perform their part. ”

“ This, again, can only be attained by a watchful superintendence, exercised for a length of time over them by the same persons—as by a permanent Visitor, or the Clergy. Of these, then, let inquiry be made respecting such applicants; they will be at once willing to state whether, in their opinion, they are or are not fit objects of relief and encouragement. To these, who possess the most certain means of information that are attainable, let any, [15] who are desirous of affording assistance beyond a mere annual subscription, apply. ”

“ It would appear from the amount of relief administered in certain districts, selected for the calculation on account of their remote distances from one another, and from their containing a labouring population exclusively, that, although subject to modifications from the peculiar character and condition of the inhabitants, or from circumstances of an accidental nature in each case, yet the same law is found in the mass to prevail throughout; physical distress and want of Education are exhibited as co-existing in a direct ratio. ”

“ The miserable effects of too long continued toil and exertion without adequate repose and nutrition, with insufficient clothing, exposure to cold, damp, and deficient ventilation, and other privations to which the poor are too often subjected, invariably extend their influence over their social condition and habits, and affect materially their position as moral and intelligent beings ”

“ In dosing their Report, the Committee are anxious to express their cordial THANKS to those Medical Gentlemen whose attendance and advice at the Dispensary and attention to the wants of the poor at their homes, are productive of so much important benefit to them. It is impossible to speak too strongly of the advantage derived to the parish by their arduous and exemplary labours ”

“ And this statement will, the Committee hope, exhibit the strong necessity of discriminating inquiry being made previously to relief being afforded, not only in order to avoid giving encouragement to such persons, but also in justice to the really deserving poor, in order that they (whose cases are p. 15for the most part known only to the District Visitors and the Clergy) may receive that assistance and relief which all will confess to be their due, and every one desire that they should obtain. ”

“ And they desire to express most warmly the sense they have of the assiduous and successful exertions of the Ladies and Gentlemen who have taken the initiative in the work of charity as Visitors of the poor. ”

“ Any person may obtain Bibles and Prayer Books at the prices of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, by applying at the depôt at the Girls’ National School Room, on any Monday, between one and two o’clock only ”

“ More than half the relief has been given to persons who could neither read nor write.”
Upon this fact he has founded an energetic appeal for measures to be taken to provide for the education of the adult population, so far as practicable. The Committee trust that the liberality of the Subscribers may put it into their power to co-operate with the Clergy in adopting measures for the purpose, which the limited means at their disposal have up to this time rendered impossible. ”

“ They have, they appear to think, a kind of prescriptive right to an equal portion with their neighbours of all relief administered, irrespectively of their own moral or social character, and of their circumstances and wants as compared with those of others. ”

“ The anticipation expressed last year of an increased appreciation of the Provident Funds by the poor, has been more than justified. The number of depositors to the Coal Fund, which in 1844 was 388, in 1845 has been 581. ”