Apr. 28, There has never been a golden age in the world's history when there was no poor or when the problem of what to do with the Poor was not a puzzle to those who were not themselves indigest, Some are born—poor, some achieve poverty and some have poverty thrust upon them, As there are some fortunate individuals who have the Midas touch, so that all they do pros: pers well, so there are some so unlucky that even the heritage of a fortune does not prevent them from sliding down into their appointed place. Friends rush to the rescue and to help them out of their distress but it avails not. All the king's horses and all the king's men could never get them further than a state of unstable equilibrium and, at last, tiring of the une fruitful effort, the reformers leave the unfortunates to thei fate; a condition which seems to cause less worry to the vie+ tims than it does to their reg. pectable acquaintances, These reflections are prompt. ed by the article we published week ago on "The Passing of the Poor Law" and the fact that from March 81 of this year the care of the poor and the administration of relief will be in the hands of Borough and County Councils and the Boards of Guardians will cease to exist. This indicates that the former system, under which the poor were paupers and the refuges assigned to them were "unions" or "work-houses' in which a special dress and a meagre diet was the rule, has been found inadequate' to satisfy the quirements of modern reform, Under it the needy were rolley ed, it is true, from the pressure of hunger and cold, but there was a sonlessness about the relief that was so degrading that many of the deserving poor preferred to starve rather than go into "the house." To the constitutionally lazy or those who, through 2 kink in their mentality, had no qualms about eating the bread of charity, or no shame in being dubbed op probriously "paupers," the workhouse was welcome enough. Many of them acquired a habit of going in and out as the fit prompted them; going in when they wanted a spell of rest, coming out to ply the trade of vagrant when the spring verged into summer and returning again when the first snow fell in winter. Thus it came about that the better class of pot, who might have been nourished into strength and encouraged to try another fall with fortune order to win back independene were left to pine and die in their garrets and those who were assisted were the wasters who had not the stamina nor the resolution to make 2 bid for self-respect but wallowed happily in their slough of despond.
The chief defect of the system was its deadly officialism. Tt could not breathe on the dry
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.