A HINT TO THE CHARITABLE.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1120, 11 August 1882, Page 4

A HINT TO THE CHARITABLE.

Mast persons charitably disposed often fail to do as much good as they desire by not knowing how to give. A pair of boots to a wooden-legged man would scarcely be considered more appropriate than the sending of pocket-hand-kerchiefs to the heathen. No doubt more good can be done by dispensing one's benefits through some well-con-ducted charitable organisation, but many persons like to work on their own account, thinking perhaps they can discriminate between cases of real distress and impostures. Such persons might find it advisable to ask the recipient what would be most useful, after the manner of the lady in the following anecdote, extracted from an | American paper:— A Detroit lady with a heart full of j charity towards the poor received a call a few days since to visit an old man in the eastern part of the city who was represented to be greatly in need of | nourishing food. She found a poverty- I ■tricken family in need of relief, and as she was taking her departure from ‘ the house she said to the woman : “ What can I send you that will please the old man's appetite ?" “Well, he's all the time talking about quail on toast,” was the reply. The lady went out with a dim sub- | picion in her mind that she hud fallen in with a very particular family, but in the middle of the next block she was overtaken by the woman, who had run after her to say : “ We don’t want to put you to any great trouble about this. If it isn’t handy to send him quail on toast you can send him quail on mince pie or sweet cake, and we’ll coax him to put up with it!’’