we pay our  taxes, with a cheque, shifting all the
labour and responsibility on to other shoulders,
robs alms-giving of its feeling and heartiness,
and has a tendency to convert our charitable
institutions into mere poor-houses, whose relief is
regarded as the constituted right of a whole
class. Dives may be naturally a kind-hearted
man; but he finds so many people ready to take
the work of charity off his hands, that he never
has an opportunity of giving exercise to his
benevolent feelings. When he writes a cheque, it
is not because he is melted to tenderness and
pity by the sight of poverty and suffering, but
because the collector has called for his annual
subscription. It is a mere piece of business, a
matter of routine; and the knowledge that he
has given a certain number of cheques in
discharge of his obligations is apt to blunt his
sensibilities and deaden his heart. It is charity
without mercy; and charity that is dispensed
in this wholesale cold business-like way is apt
to be received without thankfulness.

Another disadvantage of what may be called
the centralisation of charity is, that it throws
the greater part of the obligation to aid the
poor upon one class. The chief supporters of
public charities are the aristocracy and persons
known to possess great wealth. Their
prominent position in society makes them a mark
for appeals which are rarely addressed to the
classes below them. Secretaries of charitable
institutions share in the popular belief that all
members of parliament and all lords are rich.
In this belief they direct their appeals to the
upper classes, entirely neglecting to bring any
influence to bear upon the numerous well-to-do
middle class, which in the aggregate is quite as
well able to respond to them. This system
fixes alms-giving upon the aristocracy as a tax;
and compels many a person to give money
which he cannot afford, not for the poor's sake
but for his own. He must do as others do.
Contributions are sometimes given from a sense
of public duty, sometimes out of pure ostentation,
with a stipulation that the name and
amount shall appear in the published list; at
others for the sake of patronage and power.
There are ladies who like to see their names in
the same list with other ladies. Lady Mary is
down for ten guineas. Lady Jane will not be
behind Lady Mary, and puts down her name
for fifteen. Some subscribers take care to have
their money's worth for their money, and send
their servants, when they are ill, to share in
the benefits of the institution to which they
subscribe. There are various motives, other
than charitable ones, for subscribing to
hospitals. It will be found that the landlord of
the public-house nearest to an hospital is an
annual subscriber, perhaps to the extent of ten
or fifteen pounds. In return for this amount
he is privileged to give so many letters of
admission. Poor people call upon him to solicit
a letter, and bespeak his favour by having a
glass at the bar. When they get the letter,
they have another glass to show their gratitude.
A publican known to be a subscriber to a
hospital secures the patronage of all the
out-door patients, and it is wonderful, considering
the delicacy of his health, how much gin an
out-door patient will consume, both before going
into the hospital and on coming out of it. It
would be most unjust and ungracious to say
that there was no true charity among the class
which supports the benevolent institutions of
the country. There are many who give from
the purest motives—nay, who devote their
lives and a large share of their wealth to the
relief of the poor and the sick; yet it is not to
be denied that too much of this duty is cast
upon one class. There is a vast deal of out-
door public charity among us, but there is far
too little in-door private charity—far too little
of the charity which begins and finds its first
work at home.

There is a very large class of well-to-do
persons in this country who never contribute a
single halfpenny to any charitable institutions.
They pay their poor-rates, and that is all. For
the rest, they are satisfied to believe that public
hospitals and other charities are well supported
by the aristocracy and benevolent persons of
large means. There is not a more forlorn
neglected thing in London than the voluntary
contribution-box of an hospital—a stark,
starved-looking object, with an open mouth,
rigid and rusted from disuse. No one pays
any attention to its gaping appeal, except the
street-boys, who poke sticks down its throat, or
splash it with mud; and when the box is
cleared out, nothing is found in its maw but stones,
bits of slate, and flimsy handbills, mockingly
thrust in to raise delusive hopes of bank-notes.
This neglect does not convict the "public in
general" of want of charity, but merely proves
that they rely, in such matters, upon the
"nobility and gentry."

In order that the fullest amount of good
may be done in a true spirit of Christian
charity, it is necessary that the cause of the
poor should be brought home to individuals in
their own spheres, at their own firesides, and
that their pockets should be touched through
their hearts. I, for one, feel strongly that I
am not doing the whole of my duty, even
though I pay poor-rates and subscribe to
hospitals, if I do not interest myself about my
poor neighbours. Have we not all poor neighbours,
hard-working, struggling people, whom
a little sympathy would cheer in their troubles,
and a little help might save from the workhouse?
The occupant of the grandest mansion in
Belgravia has not far to go to find the hovels of
the poor; their squalid huts are crowded
together under his very windows. Everywhere
in London the rich and poor meet together in
very close companionship. There are opportunities
for us all at our own doors to do good to
our fellow-creatures, and to do it kindly, if we
would only take a little personal trouble. Some
of us men-folks may plead that we have no time
for such work; but have not many of us wives
and daughters who are sometimes at a loss
how to kill the weary time? Might not these
ladies kill time by giving hope and life to the
poor? The workhouse and the hospital which