present prevails. The elementary education now given is practically useless to a large proportion of the children of the thriftless class, however valuable it may be, and undoubtedly is, to those of a higher grade. The reasons of this failure are evident: children of the thriftless are for the most part badly fed, and therefore suffer from a deficiency of energy and brain-power; they are also generally irregular in attendance, and receive little aid or encouragement at home; besides, as a rule, they leave school at the earliest possible opportunity, before reaching the higher standards. Their real education then begins too often in the streets, in the atmosphere of thriftless surroundings, and if they read at all afterwards it is but tales of folly and filth. Under such disadvantages, thriftlessness cannot fail to be perpetuated.

A satisfactory remedy for this failure in our educational system, so far as this class is concerned, must be found by extending the time of compulsory education, and by requiring attendance at evening classes till the highest standard is reached. This extension, whilst allowing the children to work for their living during the day, would not only make the education they had obtained in the day-school valuable, but save them from the demoralizing effect of evenings spent in the street during the most susceptible period of their lives. To make this compulsory attendance less irksome, these evening classes should be bright and provide some industrial instruction.

With regard to the lack of energy through want of nourishment, from which many of these poor children suffer, no kinder act can be performed than providing food for them; but here again the great difficulty meets us-can this be done without further demoralizing the parents who, for the most part, are only too glad to shift the support of their children upon others?

In reply to the question how the vagrants and mendicants are to be dealt with after they have been sent back to their respective parishes, the answer is, they must be subjected to penal discipline; the law already provides three months' imprisonment for sturdy vagabonds, and if two or three terms of such imprisonment do not suffice, a longer period must be legalized. Some foreign countries have endeavoured to meet the difficulty by establishing semi-penal mendicant farms, where vagrants are detained for one, two, or three years; they are provided with huts to live in, but food and all indulgences are given only in exchange for work. Some such scheme will probably have to be carried out in England before the mass of vagabondage, largely the result of our too lenient treatment of vagrants, can be brought within reasonable limits. Repeated short terms of imprisonment should not be resorted to, as they are in all cases useless; yet the same term of penal servitude could hardly be given even to the most persistent tramp as is inflicted on the burglar.

Perhaps some modified form of the mendicant farm system as carried out in Holland would prove the best solution of the difficulty, but it would require much consideration before being adopted. The aim of all legislation shonld be to make the worthless classes realize that they must work, if not in freedom, then under compulsion.

The plague of vagrancy is not confined to England, and has little to do with want of employment. An American gentleman, a leading philanthropist in Chicago, recently informed the writer that it is becoming a burning question in the United States, the authorities being seriously alarmed at its steady increase, and all their remedial efforts having so far failed.

The objection raised that the employment of applicants for relief on useful work would take it from those at the time supporting themselves, could only apply where the work given was limited to a few trades, and might be avoided altogether. There are very few parishes in which the sanitary arrangements are so perfect, the roads, paths and open spaces so thoroughly cared for, the workhouse itself, its yards and outbuildings, in such complete repair, but that a large amount of labour could, in times of exceptional distress, be profitably expended on them.

If the authorities were always prepared with a supply of tools and material, so that deserving men applying for relief could be at once set to work, much good might be done it would also be a very valuable provision to have a farm attached to each Union, where spade labour could be employed; and if useful work for wage were restricted to persons of good character, who form a small proportion of those that apply for relief, these provisions would suffice, except in times of very exceptional distress, when special relief works, such as were so successful in Manchester during the cotton famine, ought to be provided. But before any progress can be made towards solving the difficulty of the unemployed, a new spirit must be infused into the Poor Law authorities, and instructions such as those given to the guardians of the Wandsworth and Clapham Union, that they could not give work for wages, but only relief, must be reversed.

Strange as it may appear, there is great difficulty in obtaining any exact knowledge of the provisions of the present law: it is the result of a medley of legislation; and a codification of all Acts relating to the relief of the poor and the treatment of various classes of destitute persons is much needed; a digest of these should be published in a simple form, and placed in the hands of all engaged in their administration.

To conclude: uniformity in the amount of relief, and the conditions in which it is given, should be enforced in all districts and towns where the circumstances of the community are similar. The character of all applicants for relief ought to be obtained and registered, and

the kind of relief to be given to each class laid down and enforced by Government. Every Union should be required to provide reasonable work for persons of good character; and as an encouragement, those Unions working satisfactorily might receive a contribution from the Imperial taxes, the withholding of which would be the penalty of neglect. The supervision of the Poor Law administration ought not to rest primarily upon the President of the Local Government Board, who has far too much to attend to, but should form a separate department under his control, but having a responsible head. In one word, the amendments needed in our Poor Law administration areFirstly-Relief to be given on one uniform scale. Secondly-Wage-work supplied to the deserving.

Thirdly-Test-work provided for the idle and improvident. Fourthly-Penal-work exacted from the vicious and worthless. Upon these principles our present Poor Law was founded; departure from them has led to our present trouble. In a return to these alone can we hope for an effectual remedy. Meanwhile, every effort should be made to induce the Local Government Board to enforce the administration of the law by the guardians in a spirit of humanity and justice.

It is to be feared that at present the attention of philanthropists is too much concentrated in supplying those bodily wants of the poor for which the law already amply provides, and is diverted from that equally important work which no Boards can accomplish-the raising of their moral condition. There is unlimited scope here for philanthropic effort among the young, the thriftless, the unfortunate, and even among the fallen and the worthless.

The truth seems almost to have been forgotten that "it takes a soul to raise a body," and that the souls of the degraded must be in some measure refined, even, as has been well said, to make them appreciate a cleaner stye. This cannot be done except by individual contact with individual souls; as in the child's fable it was impossible for Beauty to restore manhood to the Beast till she gave it her love, so true humanity cannot be restored to these outcasts but by the outflowing of loving sympathy.

It seems almost incredible that in wealthy England, at the close of the nineteenth century, so much destitution should exist, and still more that vagrancy and mendicancy should so prevail. It may well be asked, Is this the grand total result of the wisdom of our legislators, the efforts of our philanthropists, the Christianity of our churches? that our streets are infested with miserable creatures, from whose faces almost everything purely human has been erased, whose very presence would put us to shame but for familiarity with the sight; poor wretches, filthy in body, foul in speech, and vile in spirit; human vermin; yes, but of our own manufacture, for every individual of this

mass was once an innocent child. Society has made them what they are, not only by a selfish indulgence in indiscriminate almsgiving, but by permitting bad laws to exist and good laws to be so administered as to crush the weak and wreck the lives of the unfortunate.

Looking at all this terrible human wreckage, the awful warning of the Phantom in the Christmas tale seems once more to be rung out from ten thousand steeples by the midnight chimes: "There is not a father by whose side these creatures pass. There is not a mother in the land. There is no one risen from the state of childhood but shall be responsible in his or her degree for this enormity. There is not a country in the world on which it would not bring a curse. There is not a religion in the earth it would not deny. There is no people in the earth it would not put to shame. Woe to the nation that shall count its monsters, such as these, by hundreds and thousands!"

FRANCIS PEEK.

THE SCOTTISH CHURCH QUESTION.

LOR

ORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH is one of the most respectable of our Scottish nobles. He has not, indeed, the brilliant and versatile qualities of the Duke of Argyll, nor the humour and deftness of the Earl of Rosebery. But he has good sense and good business habits, and he is certainly not less esteemed in his own country because he takes a warm interest in the Church which is still the chief symbol of its nationality. By that Church, I do not mean merely the portion of it which is established by law, but that Presbyterianism which still keeps hold of the hearts of the Scottish people, and to no part of which is Lord Balfour wholly indifferent. When I sa then, that a paper on the Church question by him was to appear in THE CONTEMPORARY, I turned to it with eagerness, expecting that he would surely lift it out of the province of narrow party tactics into the serener air of thoughtful Christian statesmanship.

For his own sake, I am grieved that this hope has been sadly disappointed. Lord Balfour's article is one that may satisfy a blind partisan who cares only for what he thinks a good hard blow, but who has no conception of the battle that is being fought; while the partisan, on the other side, will not find it difficult to return the blow with interest; but thoughtful readers will ask, Is the old ecclesiastical littleness never to disappear? Are great questions always, in the hands of Churchmen, lay or clerical, to be made small? Is it thus that grave religious problems are to be handled by those who are fain to put forth their hand to stay up the ark ? It is not easy, indeed, to see why the paper was written at all, or what good it could possibly do. The only reason I can find for it is, that he wished to make a little political capital for his party out of Mr. Gladstone's Nottingham speeches, and to repeat the parrot-cry that the late Premier would fain bribe people to vote for Home Rule in Ireland by offering to disestablish the Welsh and Scottish Churches. I am not concerned to defend Mr. Gladstone, who can look after himself very well with