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 100 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

other places of indoor relief in sufficient number to contain all the poor at any season, or half of them in seasons of special des- titution. It is unreasonable to expect a community to put all its paupers into public buildings if there is room in those buildings for less than a third of them, which is the fact. There are per- sons, be the number greater or less, who need public relief in their own homes, and who can receive it there with greater advantage both to themselves and to the public than anywhere else. Concerning this class of persons that excellent econo- mist, the younger Pitt, said in Parliament in 1796: "The law which prohibits giving relief where any visible property remains should be abolished. The degrading condition should be with- drawn. No temporary occasion should force a British subject to part with the last shilling of his little capital, and to descend to a state of wretchedness from which he could never recover, merely that he might be entitled to a casual supply." What Mr. Pitt said concerning a British subject is none the less true when applied to free American citizens. Great care should be taken, in relieving their distress, not to throw them into the great class of vagrant and homeless poor, to which belong many of the inmates of our public establishments, when they go forth from an almshouse, a hospital, an insane asylum, or a prison, into the general community. Let us, then, adopt as the starting-point of our system of public charities what the French call secours a domicile, and what we have termed " family " or " household aid." Let it be as by the great law of nature it must be the initial point of public charity.

So far as experience can teach anything, it teaches us that both indoor relief and family aid, or outdoor relief, as properly practiced, are both indispensable in any comprehensive plan of public charity. Wherever and whenever one of these methods has been wholly given up, accidentally or purposely, evils have followed which only the introduction of the omitted method could wholly remove. Where to draw the line between the prac- tical use of the two methods for individual cases of poverty is a matter to be determined only by wise discretion on the part of the officers who administer public relief. 1

1 " Indoor and Outdoor Relief," N. C. C., 1890, pp. 75-80.