The State Board of Charities in New York would deal severely with Elia
if it found him upon the street, stammering out his admiration of the
fine histrionic powers of a beggar, and searching in his pocket for a
penny. Lamb said that it was shameful to pay a crown for a seat in the
theatre to enjoy the representation of woes that you knew to be
fictitious, and to grudge a sixpence to the street performer who was so
excellent that you could not tell whether his sufferings were real or
affected. He is undoubtedly responsible for a great deal of easy and
irresponsible alms-giving, which greatly increases human suffering and
the expense of society. It is not possible to conceive anything more
comical than Lamb's probable reception of a politico-economical or
scientific view of charity. He would have felt his genius for humor to
be hopelessly surpassed. His view would have been the ludicrous aspect
of the idea which is more solemnly held by those who regard ordinary
alms-giving as one of the cardinal virtues, and who have a vague
conviction that a liberal disbursement of money to the poor in this
world is a strong lien upon endless felicity in the next. There is,
indeed, something very affecting in the old picture of conventional
charity--the groups of disabled and destitute assembling at the great
gate or in the courtyard, and the benign priests distributing food and
clothing. And there is a similar picturesque interest in the ancient
English bounties--a trust which secures to every wayfarer who may demand
it a loaf of bread or a mug of beer.
That charity meant this, and nothing more, was long the conviction, as
it was the tradition, of society. It was thought to have the highest
Christian sanction. There were to be always poor among us. The poor were
to be relieved, and relief, or charity, consists in feeding the hungry
and clothing the naked. Yet out of that simple, unreflecting, seemingly
innocent faith, have sprung enormous suffering, demoralization, and
crime. The whole subject of charitable relief was as misunderstood as
that of penal imprisonment before John Howard. There will be criminals,
was the theory, and they must be punished. They must therefore be
secured in jails, and the object of imprisonment is intimidation from
crime, not the improvement of criminals. The result of this view was
that society dismissed the subject, and regarded prisoners as mere
outcasts, so that the inhumanity of their treatment was revolting.
Happily the neglect revenged itself. The jails became sores. They were
nurseries of loathsome disease. Judges and sheriffs were smitten by the
pestilence that exhaled from prisons, and John Howard, like a purifying
angel, in cleansing the prisons began also to cleanse society.
So alms-giving and the relief of the poor arrested the attention of
humane persons who were not content with Elia's philosophy. They had
sometimes watched the skilful street performer, and had seen him slip
round the corner and spend at the gin-palace in a dram the money which,
with some fine histrionic genius, he had besought for the sick wife and
the starving children. They found the wife was also an accomplished
histrione, and that the children were receiving parental instruction in
the same calling. They found that the amiable, careless, unquestioning
alms-giving was breeding a class of paupers, people who did not seek
work nor wish to work, but who lived, and who meant to live, by beggary,
who bred their children to do likewise, and whose haunts and
associations and habits became great nurseries of crime. The evil had
become enormous, and was most deeply seated before it was accurately
observed. But wise men and wise women everywhere are now, and for some
years have been, earnestly engaged in studying how to save society from
the curse of pauperism, while taking care that all helpless and innocent
suffering shall be relieved. This is what Elia and his amiable,
thoughtless friends denounce as "machine charity." But their amiability
is only selfishness. How many of those who decry "machine charity" ever
went home with a single street beggar to whom they gave, or ever
ascertained or cared whether his story was true, or told for any other
purpose than to get the price of a dram? What they call their Christian
charity and common humanity and apostolic alms-giving is often mere
fostering of lying, drunkenness, and crime, and the indefinite increase
of suffering.
It is upon this spirit that knaves and charlatans play and prey in
establishing great charitable agencies, of which they are managers, and,
in the vivid French phrase, touch the funds. There are thousands of
kind-hearted people in every city who devote a share of their income to
charity. They know that there is immense suffering, and they would
gladly do their share in relieving it. But they do not know how to do
it. They are conscious that there is deception upon all sides, and they
cannot spare the time to ascertain for themselves who, of the host of
the poor, are proper objects of charity. But it is only less difficult
to decide upon a trusty agency. Here is the chance of the ingenious and
plausible rascal. If he can only obtain the co-operation of those whose
names make societies respectable, and who will permit him to be the
society, and especially to disburse the moneys, he will be as satisfied
as Ferdinand Count Fathom with any of his "little games." It is not
always difficult for such a rascal to secure the conditions of his
success. The consequences are both lamentable and ludicrous. For under
this solemn form of a Christian charitable foundation the most selfish
purposes are served, and when the mischief is exposed it is denounced as
one of the abuses to which delegated or "machine" charity is inevitably
liable. To perfect the comedy, this criticism is usually made by those
whose own alms are generally transferred from their pockets directly to
the till of the dram-shop.
It is evident from the letters that have been written to the newspapers
during the winter that there are those who sincerely think that careful
inquiry regarding poverty, and regulations of relief based upon it, must
somehow deaden human sympathy and deepen the suffering of the poor. This
is so ingeniously incorrect a theory that it would be exceedingly
amusing if it were not so sincere and even general. The very first thing
that careful investigation accomplishes is to acquaint the comfortable
class with the real condition of the suffering, and to show the latter
that they are not forsaken or turned off with uninquiring alms. They are
conscious of an intelligent sympathy with which falsehood will be of no
avail. They are taught self-respect by the perception that they are not
forsaken, and self-respect is the main-spring of successful exertion.
When the street-beggar understands that his tale will be tested, that if
he needs succor he will receive it, and that if his plea is but asking
for a dram he will not receive it, the number of street-beggars will
sensibly decrease. And the sturdy tramp and professional pauper, when
they know that they must go to the work-house or starve, will often
conclude that even work is better than the poor-house, and they too
will cease to be a nuisance and a terror.
Nor need it be feared, on the other hand, that if irresponsible
street-giving is stopped nobody will investigate the actual situation of
the poor. What is asked of the street-giver is not that he will close
his pocket and his hand and his heart and his soul; but that, if he will
not take the trouble to inquire before giving, he will give his alms to
somebody who will take that trouble, that his alms may be true charity
and relieve suffering, instead of relieving nothing whatever, but
fostering vice and crime. He must see that he is not a good Christian
exercising the heavenly gift of charity, but an indolent and reckless
citizen who is promoting poverty and multiplying the public burden of
the honest poor. He is that lazy absurd boy who wishes to eat his cake
and have it. He would satisfy his soul that he is good because he gives,
without seeing that to give ignorantly is, socially, to be bad. Nobody
is exhorted to surrender inquiry to others. Every one may inquire for
himself. If a beggar stops you and asks for a penny in the name of God,
and says that his family is starving, go and see if it is so. If you
have not the time--O sophistical Sybarite! inclination--send him to
those who, as you know, will inquire. Will his family starve in the
meantime? That is something you do not believe yourself. Do you fear
that the visitor will not go? Then go yourself. Do your engagements
prevent? Then you know that it is a thousand to one the story is but a
plea for whiskey. Will you take the chance? Then you become an immediate
accomplice in the vast multiplication of hereditary pauperism and crime.
The pretence of your giving is Christian charity and humanity; the real
cause is indolent self-indulgence and saving yourself trouble.
The charity that is beautiful in the old stories is actual charity. It
is the friendly feeding of those who are really hungry, and the clothing
of those who shiver with the cold. The Elia's charity is only a refined
selfishness, a whim of humor. He rewarded the deceit, he did not
relieve the suffering. Of course, his plea was an exquisite jest, and
so he felt it to be. But his jest is made earnest and changed into a
sober rule of life by gentle Sybarites, who, if they have ever heard of
the Englishman Edward Denison, are lost in amazement and cigarette smoke
as they meditate his career. The story may be found in a tender and
graphic sketch in the entertaining volume of papers by the author of the
admirable _History of the English People_, J. R. Green. Edward Denison,
born in 1840, was the son of the Bishop of Salisbury, and nephew of the
Speaker, and was educated at Oxford. Then he travelled on the Continent,
and studied the condition of the Swiss peasantry. Returning to England,
he engaged practically in the work of poor relief as an almoner of a
charitable society. He soon learned the uselessness of relief by doles,
and, determined to deal with the subject thoroughly, he withdrew from
the clubs, Pall Mall, and Mayfair, and taking lodgings in Stepney, made
himself the friend of the poor, built and endowed a school, in which he
taught, gave lectures, and organized a self-helping relief. He went to
France and to Scotland to study their poor-law systems. In 1868 he was
elected to Parliament, where his knowledge of the general subject would
have been invaluable. But his health failed before he took his seat. He
sailed for Melbourne, still intent upon his life's purpose, and died
there seven years ago, in his thirtieth year. A little volume of his
letters has been published, and Mr. Green's affectionate and pathetic
sketch draws the outline of this true modern knight and gentleman, the
Sir Launfal of this time. The street-giver, seeking a rule of conduct,
may more profitably heed the counsel of Edward Denison than the
delicious humor of Charles Lamb.