hope that experience will so prove the wisdom and helpfulness of our plan and work that all societies will be led to a full co-operation. They must judge.

Thirdly. Let us dispel at once and forever the idea that this is a new relief society. This society will give no relief. It will have no funds for that purpose. Its visitors will give nothing from the society tor of their own-subject to the exception which overrules all law of absolute and immediate suffering. And even this exception must substantially disappear when the new plan of work is put in practice. The further exception, "on consultation with their committee," and what that means, and how it will work, we will consider later.

THE AIM OF THIS SOCIETY IS TO RAISE THE NEEDY ABOVE THE NEED OF RELIEF, BUT NOT TO GIVE ALMS.

If, then, the giving of relief is not, what is the great object of this society? I wish I could emphasize it so that hereafter no man could doubt it. We aim not at the mere relief of need, but to elevate the needy out of and above their need. Not temporary alleviation, but permanent cure. Not by offering money, but by putting men at work. Not by feeding them while idle, but by insisting upon industry. Not by encouraging beggary, but by enforcing thrift. Let no boy or girl grow up a pauper. School first; then work, aiming at skill; and all under constant watching. If now we agree that not more relief, but wiser relief, after more thorough visitation, and, if possible, less relief, be the thing to aim at; if the elevation of the needy out of and above their need is a yet grander aim, can it be accomplished? and how far? and by what means? Is it a mere dream of hope and fancy? Or may business men put into it the same energy and sagacity and indomitable will, which in our private affairs command success? Put this into the hands of idle dreamers, and it may all prove an empty dream. If men will take up this work who have been tried in the fire of life and have proved their fitness in affairs, aided by wise and loving women, - who will fix the limits of the work, powerful for good? Boston is full of wealth, energy, and love, all ready to give and work and help. Nothing is needed but organization and guidance. Nor is this movement a new experiment. London has risen in its might to grapple with its vast army of the poor, and has organized more than a score of branches of this same society all through the city and its suburbs, working by ways adapted to their needs and existing agencies, but on a scheme substantially like this.

THE BUFFALO ASSOCIATION.

Let me say a few words about Buffalo, which I have recently visited on purpose to see and learn their mode of work. Buffalo has in the last eighteen months studied, started, organized, and got well along on the path of perfection, the same system which we seek here. Their central system was started eighteen months ago, and the district and ward conferences four months ago, on Nov. 15. The central office aims at complete registration, receiving reports daily from their poor-masters (our overseers of the poor) and from the district offices, recording everything in three books, a method not so convenient as our plan of cards, - reporting at once all cases of overlapping, that is, aid given by different sources to the same case. The districts in the city do not follow ward lines but police precincts, — eight in all; but so far they have only four district conferences. Each has its local office, and a paid visitor giving his whole time, living if possible in the house above, the lower floor, two rooms opening together, being the office. The front room is used by the agent; and the rear room, separated by a rail, is used by the committees, or for any purpose. The cost being, for visiting-agent and office, about $60 monthly, not over $800 a year, including everything. Every applicant for aid is to apply at the district office, and citizens are urged, and are learning to send, every applicant there first: so that street-begging has wellnigh ceased. The agent takes his or her whole story, recording it in the applicant book, containing full information as to family, children, school, wages, work, references, church, rent, arrears of rent, how long out of work, why discharged, who is or was their employer and the causes of their discharge, the causes of their need of relief, full, complete, and exact information. Printed blanks are ready for the agent to send to the employer and also to the references, asking all information which they can give. Replies come almost always, and very full. All information is recorded in a large record book in the district office, on two pages devoted to the name of each applicant.

Twice a week the district conference meet, consult, and act on all new and all deferred cases. I was present at the meetings of two of these conferences. Ten business men met at the first district at five P. M., and in seventy minutes had considered and acted on every case. The record of a case is read: the agent is there to answer questions. The decision in each case is the best which ten

good men can make. Case one is a widow with three young children, worthy, industrious, out of work, can sew or wash, gets aid of city. One of the committee agrees to send a lady to visit, and, if possible, find sewing, and report. If sewing can be found, the need of relief ceases. Case two is a woman, sick, with children, worthy, and supports herself when well; has never received aid of city; and it is very important that she should not get on the poor books, and learn to rely on city aid. A member of the committee will send a lady almoner to visit and give aid until she is well. Case three is a woman, lazy and fond of begging, but able to work. A visitor is sent to her with special instructions not to give aid, but to tone her up and make her work. Case four is an able-bodied man, who comes in winters to the city to live on his wits by ingenious begging. A suitable visitor looks him up, and lets him know he will be prosecuted and shut up in the workhouse. And so on. In each case the best decision, on their best judgment, after brief consultation. Visitors are not selected at hap-hazard, nor sent blindly. But, in each case, the visitor best adapted to handle that case, and with special instructions about the case and what to do; that is, be sure not to aid, or to aid judiciously while sickness lasts; or to furnish work, if possible; or to get them out of a bad neighborhood or tenement; or to tone up one who is demoralized; or to encourage one who is struggling against drink; in every case to make him more of a man, her more of a woman, and especially to look after the children. Not mere relief or more relief, but real help, wise counsel, friendly visits, elevation of the man or woman, and, above all, guarding, wherever possible, the boys and girls from growing up into paupers. Pauperism is a vast army. Cut off the recruits. Stop the sources of supply. Every boy or girl saved from growing up a pauper is a great gain to us, how much more to themselves!

Yes, in this spirit, working to this end, full of this faith, Buffalo has buckled on its whole armor for the fight, not merely to relieve, but to remove pauperism. Her best business men have taken it up strongly. The president of the charity-organization society is the president of a great steamboat company, sending almost daily a steamer up the lakes; and the same energy and wisdom guide the charity which direct the business. The people are giving it their cordial support. The churches are furnishing visitors in good numbers, though by no means all that are wanted. The newspapers are eager to aid, publish full reports, publish

weekly and without charge a bulletin of cases (without names) where work or aid or anything in special is desired. The response which private charity gives to any such public appeal is prompt and large. Why, ladies and gentlemen, we do not begin to realize the volcanic power for good which lies dormant in this people, all ready to be evoked into life and work, in any good cause, by the mighty agency of the public press. The success, the cordiality, the devotion, with which the best men and women in Buffalo have started and have now in full career her organization of charities, deeply impressed me with surprise and admiration. They hardly realize themselves how grandly they are doing. May I not send to Buffalo to-night, in the name of Boston, a few words of cheer and greeting?

THE PROPOSED WORK IN BOSTON.

Now, then, for Boston, where the problem is different, harder, because the city is so much larger, the numbers of the needy so much more numerous, and pauperism has got a tighter grip on us, easier, because we have our superb private charities, pouring out relief with a free hand to every kind of need. The system is the same in theory here as there. The new plan must start carefully, feel its way cautiously ahead, guided by experience, listening to the suggestions of the great relief-giving societies, especially asking the co-operative aid and advice of the city, through the mayor and the overseers of the poor. Registration and the ward conferences, registration in the centre, ward conferences working in the districts. Registration aims to give notice of all double aid to the same case,—not that double aid is always wrong, but it should always be with knowledge. Registration means "notice to quit" to all professional tramps. Boston shall no longer be a nest so soft and warm for idle tramps to winter in. Not that we would drive them to other towns, but in the hope that all other towns may work to the same end, so that tramping may become a lost art. Registration, even more, means that the worth of worthy need shall be carefully investigated and recorded, so that wise relief may be fittingly and surely given. Without registration charity invites fraud. The kindest heart is the easiest victim to the well-conned tale of woe. One poor widow learned so well the art to do it, that nineteen times she buried her poor husband-if she ever had one at all— always at Worcester, asking and getting each time large aid in her distress. Misplaced charity is a mischief both to giver and receiver.

Wisely and lovingly given, charity falls like the dews of heaven, blessing both giver and receiver, it is hard to tell which most; but, given indiscriminately, it fosters the pauperism it is meant to relieve.

Picture for a moment the return of the professional mendicant, laden with booty, into the same tenement-house where other men and women are working hard and earning less. What influence can be worse for all who see that begging pays better than work? for the beggar and the worker, for adults, and especially for the young? How quick children are to see, how eager to compare! What worse poison can taint the blood of boys and girls, when their character, like wax, is to receive the stamp, to last perhaps through life, than the belief that begging prospers while honest industry is cold and hungry?

Probably all of you in this hall have one or more families which you privately aid, not through any society, but in your own way. Perhaps you will each exclaim against our request that you register all this aid, as needless, because you feel you know the facts as to the family you aid. But among the four hundred cases thus relieved, some at least deceive (though each of us may say "Not mine"), how many no one can tell. Shall we say one-quarter? Then, even of our cases, perhaps one hundred get double or triple aid by lying. Who, then, can measure the amount of overlapping aid given in the whole city to the same mendicants? Who can count the number of families which get aid from different sources? These are the prizes of the mendicant art. But it is the prizes which fill a profession full. It is the prizes which lead men to a lottery in spite of the multitude of blanks. Nothing can remove the curse of mendicancy but complete registration. Take away the prizes, and you may hope to empty the profession. Go on giving, and refuse to register, and rogues will still find it pay to ply their art, not much to your loss, but enough to their gain to make them train up their children, and, worse yet, their neighbors' children, in the same sad career. Why should any one hesitate to register all aid he gives? Registration is not open to all-not public. It is sacredly confidential, only to be used by those wishing to aid a given person, or to discover cases of double relief. If you register aid to a man, and state that you give him all needed aid, the only reply to any inquiry about that man will be that he needs no aid; but you are notified that your client has been seeking relief of another person, whose name you receive. To sum up, registration