Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/618

 604 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

and that of the honor offices, and to supplement the one by the other.

The deficiency of the Hamburg poor relief arose mainly from the fact that the relief work had not kept pace with the growth of the city ; the boundaries of the old quarters remained unchanged, while the number of helpers was not increased. The result was that a single helper, as a rule, had from 20 to 30 cases in charge ; in some districts the number ran as high as 40-50, and in a few even to 70-80. It will be read- ily seen that one who undertakes the duties of a helper besides his regular business or trade cannot give 40 or even 20 persons or families sufficient attention to thoroughly understand and constantly oversee their circumstances, to say nothing of his being their friend and adviser and performing the most impor- tant social function, that of a helper. And as a matter of fact the work of the helper had, with a few praiseworthy exceptions, become limited to the receiving of applications for assistance and a more or less careful examination at the time of the grant- ing of the first aid. But then the aid once granted was usually paid year after year, without a renewed investigation ; and in the first year after the reorganization it was found upon investi- gation that in nearly 5000 of the 9-10,000 cases then receiving aid the assistance was no longer necessary at all. The principal type of this class were widows with several children. At the time of the death of their husbands they were, indeed, entirely helpless; but after a lapse of some ten years, during which their children had grown up, they were very well able to support themselves without any assistance whatever, and in some of these cases the joint earnings of several children living with their mother were found to exceed considerably the income of the better class of laborers. Another respect in which the old system of Hamburg was deficient was this : the record and such other material were not collected at one central office. The result was that as soon as an indigent pauper became reasonably well known in one part of the city and was no longer believed to be in need of support, all he had to do was to move to