ALMSGIVING.

Dunstan Times, Issue 521, 12 April 1872, Page 1 (Supplement)

ALMSGIVING.

A report, recently issued by the Society for Organising Relief and Repressing Mendicity, on the soupkitchens and dinner tables of tho metropolis, and affords ample evidence of the deleterious influence of almsgiving as at present practised.. “ The injurious influence is by no means confined to the pauperised, demoralised class which lias already lost tho habit of self-respect and self-support; for the soup kitchens and dinner tables are open to working men and their families whenever they are out of work or sick, as have children at school unprovided with food ; and there is reason to fear that the actual practice, especially in the case of soup kitchens, goes even beyond- this, and that food is given without much inquiry as to the causes which have led to the demand for it. ‘We are '■ old at one soup kitchen that the applications from the fninil’T’ of workpeople arc more frequent towards the end of tho week, when the wages are all sf.ent; and at another, that it was regarded as a privilege to relieve the fondly of an honest workman.” Can it be wondered at, that a large portion of the poorer classes have learnt that it is easier to live by charity than by work ! The only matter for surprise is, that the evil is not more extended than it is. But lazniess and dependence arc not the only vices caused by the practice of almsgiving. The rector oi St, Margarets, Lothbury, bears testimony to rho gross hypocrisy resulting from the distribution of charity by the competing sects. “ There was nothing more disgrace al, nothing which tended so

much to la'sify the character of the people, as the almost conscious bribei y by which the pAorwere sometimes induced to say canting words, or, when the almoner went round, to quote t’ e Bible and appear devout in order to elicit a’ms.” By the light ot tins remark—all the more valuable since it comes from a clergyman—it is not difficult co understand why die Society for the propagation of the Gospel among the Jews for cxamphsl carries on its operations in Bethnal Green. The eificacy of fasting as a means of spiritual enlightenment is. perhaps, not so incredible as might be imagi neck