Page:Life of Octavia Hill as told in her letters.djvu/282

 Thus the poorer Committees were deprived of the independence secured by the richer ones.

In order to equalise these arrangements, it was proposed to centralise all the funds of the Society in Buckingham Street. Octavia advocated the change; but the majority of the Council felt that such a change would destroy that local interest in the work, on which the strength of the Society depended; and subsequent modifications in the arrangements of the Committees, aided, perhaps, by a considerable change in the personnel of the Council, did, to some extent, reform the defect which I have referred to. It may be said generally that, as the aims of the Society became more coherent and definite, and the chief workers grew more alike in their fundamental principles, Octavia's sympathies with the Society increased; and when Mr. Loch succeeded Mr. Bosanquet as secretary of the Council, her friendship for the new secretary still further strengthened her approval of the action of the Society.

Her sympathies with the enquiry traditions of the Society, and with the restrictions on reckless relief, often startled and repelled some of the more impulsive philanthropists; but one of the most earnest of them wrote, "I remember taking to her a typical case for advice, and she gave me what I thought stern advice, and I demurred. But she was right; and I often thought of it afterwards."

During this very period, her attention was painfully drawn to the difficulties of her local and more individual work, and to the dangers of that purely official view of charitable movements, against which she was always on her guard.

She had published in a magazine an account of the courts which had been placed under her care; and of course, in explain-, ing the object of her undertaking, she was obliged to describe the condition of the houses when first she undertook the management of them. Unfortunately, some fussy person took the article to the medical officer, with the question, "If these things were so, what were you doing?" The medical officer was at once seized with a panic, and ordered the destruction of all the houses in that court. Octavia thereupon went to remonstrate with him; and, after hearing her explanations, he with-