Page:1902 Encyclopædia Britannica - Volume 26 - AUS-CHI.pdf/745

 CHARITY

AH D CHARITIES 689 degrees. Visiting by “ districts ” is set aside, for “ friend- voluntary institutions is in full force, and it is in force liness ” is not a quality easily diffused over a wide area. also in many English colonies. At first sight it has the To be real it must be limited as time and ability allow. advantage of providing relief for public purposes without Consequently, a friendly visitor usually befriends but one the creation of a new staff or establishment. There is or two, or in any case only a few, families. The friendly thus an apparent economy. But the evils are many. visitor is the outcome of the movement for “ associated chari- Political partisanship and favour may influence the amount ties,” but in America charity organization societies have and disposition of the grants. The grants act as a bounty also adopted the term and to a certain extent the method. on the establishment and continuance of charitable instiBetween the two movements there is the closest affinity. tutions, homes for children, hospitals, &c., but not on the The registration of applicants for relief is much more com- expansion of the voluntary charitable funds and efforts plete in American cities than in England, where the plan that should maintain them; and thus charitable homes meets with comparatively little support. At the office of exist in which charity in its truer sense may have little the associated charities in Boston there is a central and part, but in which the chief motive of the administration practically a complete register of all the applications made may be to support sectarian interests by public subsidies. to the public authority for poor relief, to the associated Claimants for relief have little scruple in turning such charities, and to many other voluntary bodies. institutions to their own account; and the institutions, The Elizabethan poor-law system, with the machinery being financially irresponsible, are not in these circumof overseers, poor-houses, and out-door relief, is still main- stances scrupulous on their side to prevent a misdirection tained in the New England states and Pennsylvania,' but of their bounties. “ Parents unload their children upon with many modifications, especially in New York State. the community more recklessly when they know that such A chief factor in these changes has been immigration. children will be provided for in private orphan asylums While the county or town remained the administrative and protectories, where the religious training that the area for local poor relief, the large number of immigrant parents prefer will be given them ” (Amos G. Warner, in and “unsettled” poor, and the business connected with International Congress: Charities and Correction, 1893). their removal from the state, entailed the establishment Sometimes, as in New York, the admission is entirely in the of a secondary or state system of administration and aid, hands of the managers. They admit; the city pays. In with special classes of institutions to which the counties New York City the population between 1870 and 1890 or towns could send their poor, as, for instance, state increased about 80 per cent.; the subsidies for prisoners reform schools, farms, almshouses, &c. For the oversight and public paupers increased by 43 per cent., but those for of these institutions, and often of prisons also and lunatic paupers in private institutions increased from $334,828 to asylums, in many states there have been established state $1,845,872, or about 461 per cent. The total was at that boards of “charity or corrections and charity.” The time $3,794,972 ; in 1898 it was rather less, $3,132,786. members of these boards are selected by the state for a The alternative to this system is either the establishment term of years, and give their services honorarily. There are of state or municipal institutions, and possibly in special state boards in Massachusetts, New York, Bhode Island, cases payments to voluntary homes for the maintenance Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, of inmates admitted at the request of a state authority, as Colorado, and elsewhere. There is also a district board at certified and other homes in England, with grants of charities in the district of Columbia. These boards made conditional on the work being conducted on specified publish most useful and detailed reports. Besides the fines, and subject to a certain increasing amount of volunstate board there is sometimes also, as in New York tary financial support; or a close general and financial State, a State Charities Aid Association, whose members, inspection of charitable institutions; or payment for only in the counties in which they reside, have a legal right of those inmates who are sent by public authorities and entry to visit and inspect any public or charitable institution admitted on their request. owned by the state and any county and other poor-house. The enormous extent to which children’s aid societies A large association of visitors accustomed to inspect and have been increased in the United States, sometimes with report on institutions has thus been created. Further, the the help of considerable public grants, suggests the greatest counties and towns in New York State, for instance, and need for caution from the point of the preservation of the Massachusetts, and the almshouse districts in Pennsylvania, family as the central element of social strength in the are under boards of supervision. Usually the overseers community. The problem of charity in relation to medical give out-door relief, and the pauperism of some areas is as relief in the large towns of the United States is similar to high as that in some English unions, 3, 4, and 5 per cent. that of England : its difficulties are alike. On the whole population of the States, however, and of indigood translations of the classics become accessible vidual states, consisting to a great extent of comparatively it Books.—As is easy for the general reader or student to combine a study of young and energetic immigrants, the pauperism is insig- the principles of charity in relation to the community with a nificant. In Massachusetts “it has been the general study of history. Thus, and in connexion with some special policy of the state to order the removal to the state alms- investigations (such as those made by Mr Charles Booth) and conditions of practical charity, social economics may best house of unsettled residents of the several cities and towns the be studied. In Chalmers on Charity, N. Masterman (1900), in need of temporary aid, thus avoiding some of the Methods of Social Reform, T. Mackay, and Some Aspects of the abuses incident to out-door relief.” In New York State, Social Probleni, this point of view is generally assumed. Bor the in the city of New York, including Brooklyn, the distri- history of charity there is no good single work. On details there many good articles in Daremberg’s Dictionary of Classical bution of outdoor relief by the department of charities is are Antiquities, and in other similar works. Apart from books and forbidden, except for purposes of transportation and for official documents mentioned in the text as to the present state the adult blind. Most counties in the state have an of charitable and public relief, or as aids to practical work, the almshouse, and the county superintendents and overseers following may be of service:—England: Annual Charities' Register Digest, with Introduction on “Mow to help Cases of Distress” of the poor “ furnish necessary relief to such of the county and (1901); the Charity Organisation Review; and Reports of Propoor as may require only temporary assistance, or are so ceedings of Conferences of Poor-Law Guardians Occasional Papers disabled that they cannot be safely removed to the alms- (two vols.), published by the London Charity Organisation Society house.” Public attention is in many cases being drawn (1896 and 1900). United States of America : The Proceedings of the International Conference on Charities and Correction (1894), to the inutility and injury of out-door relief. and the proceedings of the annual conferences.—Friendly Visiting In some states and cities the system of subsidizing among the Poor, by Mary E. Richmond (1899) ; American S. IT.— 87