misery, by means of any considerable amount of help, indigent families or individuals who deserve to be assisted. But it is strenuously argued that the conclusion should not therefore be drawn that the help given by the bureau is inefficacious and useless. Although small, the assistance given helps to render the trials of life less painful. To judge of the charitable action of the bureaux, they must not be isolated, but rather completed by grouping around them the works of other societies, such as those of maternity charities, crèches, orphan asylums, hospices, hospitals, friendly societies, monts-de-piété, ‘et toutes les œuvres si nombreuses, si actives, de la charité privée, qui, en ajoutant leur assistance à celle des bureaux de bienfaisance, ne laissent, pour ainsi dire, aucune souffrance sans soulagement, aucune misère sans secours' (Paul Bucquet).

The bureaux at present give help almost exclusively in kind and in money; but the inspectors-general look forward to the time when an improved financial position will enable them to elevate their mission above the merely material wants of the indigent. Then it will become a duty for the bureaux to help those whose indigence stands in the way of obtaining for their children such advantages as primary education, technical education, and moral and religious instruction.

Beyond the age of infancy or early youth the intervention of the bureau is discreet, accidental, and essentially temporary. English reformers have failed, as a rule, to recognise the importance of this principle. The only economist of eminence in this country who has ventured to draw earnest attention to it is, as far as I know, Dr. W. A. Guy, F.R.S. His view exactly agrees with the words of M. Paul Bucquet: Il ne faut pas que l'intervention du bureau vienne énerver l'esprit d'initiative et supprimer le sentiment de la responsabilité.' It is not simply public but also private charity which is capable of pauperising the poor. It is nearly as easy wrongfully to deprive a man of his natural power of self-dependence by a voluntary system of charity as by a legal and obligatory one. There is this difference, that the recipients of the latter are able to calculate with absolute certainty upon it, whilst those who come under the influence of the former are always more or less in uncertainty as to what help they will get. The French system sees the importance of maintaining this distinction. A lavish and unorganised scheme of private charity may do quite as much harm as any other.

Wherever a Bureau de Bienfaisance exists, all public grants must pass through its hands. No commune or municipality can in such a case undertake the direct relief of the poor. This regulation has an important influence on the management of efforts made to meet special seasons of suffering. In such cases the organisation for relief is ready at hand, and to this private subscriptions and public grants readily flow. The local authorities, in conjunction with the Bureau

de Bienfaisance, devise a plan by which general distress may be relieved, and this usually takes the form of an Atelier de Charité. M. Maurice Block points out that this institution has a double objectfirst that of assisting persons who are in temporary distress without offering them alms, which are often degrading, and next that of economising the resources of the commune-'car l'assistance publique est une attribution municipale.' The works executed by the Ateliers de Charité are such as roads, drainage, and the like. They are paid at a lower than the market rate, in order that it may be understood that they are not to come into competition with regular labour, but are a mere pis-aller or temporary expedient.

Even the magnitude of the disasters of 1870-71 did not prevent the bureaux from attempting, and not without success, to cope with the misery which necessarily came into existence. The following extract from the report of the inspectors will give some idea of what was done :

Nous devons signaler à la reconnaissance du pays les importants dons en argent et en nature que nos bureaux de bienfaisance à Paris et dans les départements ont reçus de la société anglaise des Amis (Quakers), du lord-maire de Londres, des comités de New-York, de Boston, de Philadelphie, de Bruxelles, de Saint-Pétersbourg, de Hambourg, et des diverses ambulances étrangères. Les dons faits aux pauvres de Paris, en 1871, se sont élevés au chiffre de 383,798 fr. 60 cent. Parmi les donateurs nous devons citer le philanthrope anglais dont le nom est si justement populaire à Paris, Sir Richard Wallace, qui a fait distribuer aux pauvres de Paris, pendant le siége, des secours qui peuvent être évalués à plus de 130,000 francs.

It will be observed that the bureaux are spoken of as the organisation through which these munificent gifts were distributed.

Each

The composition and mode of nomination of the administrations of the bureaux were finally fixed by a law passed in 1873. bureau is composed of five re-eligible members, and, in addition to these, of the mayor and of the senior clergyman in charge of a parish (le curé le plus ancien). In places where there are Protestants or Jews a delegate from each of these bodies is also appointed. One of the five members retires every year. The new member is selected by the Prefect from a list of three persons drawn up by the members of the bureau. The Minister of the Interior only dissolves bureaux, and in case of a new creation the members are appointed by him on the nomination of the Prefect. The new law (1873) by which ministers of religion are called to assist in the administration of the bureaux is regarded by M. Maurice Block as a most important step. It assures to them the place which belongs to them in the councils of public charity. Their presence has already had the effect of preventing abuses and twofold relief; for those mendicants who formerly lived with impunity on public assistance and the alms of the clergy and of private charity now find their double-dealing revealed and their occupation gone.

The members of the bureaux are unpaid. In large parishes they may increase the number of their members, and make use of the services of sisters and dames-de-charité. The former are supported by the bureaux. In Paris, in addition to the ex officio members there are twelve administrators and a number of commissioners and sisters, whose duty it is to convey the help granted to the homes of the poor. The only paid official of the bureau in Paris is the secretary-treasurer, upon whom the management of the details mainly falls. The law requires the appointment of a receiver for each bureau which enjoys a revenue of 30,000 francs and upwards per annum. His duty is to receive the income of the institution, a work which is performed by the municipal receiver in the case of the smaller bureaux.

In the large towns the bureaux are very important and frequently wealthy establishments. Those of Paris, where there is one for each of the twenty arrondissements, are regarded as models. They depend on the Assistance Publique, which is housed in a large building in the Avenue Victoria, near the Châtelet. This is not a government institution, but, having also the control of the hospitals and hospices, it requires the services of a large staff of paid clerks.

Each bureau in Paris has one or more maisons de secours dependent on it, in which stores of all kinds are kept, and the religious ladies who perform the duties of visiting the poor generally reside.

The treatment of the poor by all the officials of the bureaux is considerate and kind. The difference between poverty and pauperism is virtually abolished; the need of assistance is regarded as a misfortune, not a crime. In England an obligatory Poor Law imposes upon a vast number of officials the daily duty of an acrimonious discussion with applicants for relief, the object of which is to decide whether the exact point of poverty which is called indigence has been reached. In our system there is little place for the charity of which St. Paul speaks; in France it has full sway. In Elberfeld, in the Rhine province, where an obligatory system of outdoor relief exists, the administrators are cautioned that it is their duty not to treat the poor unworthily. The system has not, however, gained the approval of one of the most Social-Democratic populations in Germany. There seems to be a peculiar hardness in all obligatory systems of relief; they are necessarily harsh in operation. Nor is the cause far to seek. Whilst they create and foster pauperism by giving to all the right to demand help, they are compelled to adopt an attitude of suspicion in order to avoid the deception which is sure to be in some measure the rule rather than the exception where relief is offered to all. How is it possible, for instance, that a labouring man, with a wife and five children, should be free from suspicion when he demands the 128.

per week to which he has a legal claim in Elberfeld when destitute? How is it possible to treat such a man without suspicion?

A comparison of the French and Elberfeld systems ought to teach the new school of English Poor Law reformers something. The restriction of outdoor relief is preached by them as the great remedy for many of the evils from which we suffer. This dogma, when pushed to an extreme, frequently thrusts its supporters into great difficulties. They fail to see that the arguments that they use against outdoor relief are equally valid against any obligatory relief whatever. No doubt in an increasing number of unions the new system has been worked with great success. Pauperism has been diminished, and the rates reduced. Indigent persons are generally found to be indigent enough to be glad of a weekly allowance in money at their own homes, but they are not so indigent as to be willing to break up their homes and accept the offer of the house.' The guardians win the day. Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant. They do not untie the knot-they cut it. The remedy now being applied to English pauperism is a drastic one. Those who do accept the house' are a State-created race of pariahs, who, it may be expected, will present a far from easy problem for a future generation to solve. Those who are, like myself, opposed to all systems of obligatory relief observe with satisfaction much that is going on under the present movement. We remark that in many unions the action of the Poor Law is reduced to a minimum by the restriction of outdoor relief. But two considerations step in to alloy our satisfaction. The first of these is the above-mentioned difficulty of the creation of hardened paupers who will see no disgrace in the workhouse in which they will spend the greater part of their time, and out of which they will only go to beget new generations of pariahs like themselves; the second is the fact that the organisation of private charity has not yet reached a point where the comparatively small but yet necessary amount of activity which should be at hand when out-relief is abolished may be relied on.

Both the Elberfeld and the French systems confine themselves as far as possible to out-relief. One is immeasurably superior to the other, at any rate in the opinion of the present writer who has examined both in loco within the last few months. The former creates and cherishes pauperism, which is rapidly increasing under a system that gives the legal right to claim large relief. The tide of pauperism has already reached the height of most of the worstmanaged Scotch or Welsh unions, and it is still rising. With all the minute care bestowed upon the system by its administrators, the point desired by Mr. Mill has not yet been reached at which a large amount of needful help can be given, and yet the recipient, with a legal claim to that help, taught not unduly to rely upon it. English reformers commit an error in supposing that the failure of the

Elberfeld system-and it certainly fails in these two points, in being regarded with dislike by the working men, and in causing a large amount of pauperism-is owing to its being an outdoor system. Its real fault is that it is obligatory, that it gives to all the right to demand help. The French system is also one of out-relief. It works well. Its merit is that it is non-obligatory. It checks pauperism whilst it relieves real distress.

The original intention of the Legislature, on the foundation of Bureaux de Bienfaisance in 1798, was to establish one in every commune; but this idea has been practically given up of late years. The bureau, where properly constituted, is the legal representative of the poor; and the Government encourages the conversion into bureaux of all charitable commissions which are charged with the distribution of funds arising from foundations, subscriptions, or communal subventions, when they possess a sufficient endowment or income to secure the permanence of such establishments. But to go beyond this would be, as is pointed out in the report of the inspectors, to discourage the efforts of private charity and to create pauperism in places where it does not exist. Although bureaux are at work in all important and thickly populated places both in town and country, the large majority in actual numbers of communes are without them; in many of these, however, charitable commissions are at work. In remote and thinly populated districts the poor are dependent upon the clergy and upon their wealthy neighbours for assistance.

The Bureaux de Bienfaisance in existence in 1874 were 13,545 in number. The total number of communes in France is 35,989, so that nearly two-thirds are without bureaux. If some 5,000 charitable commissions are counted, about half the communes have no organised system of public relief. Fresh bureaux are, however, called into existence every year, and it is believed by the authorities on the subject that no injury is done to the poor of thinly populated districts by leaving them to the tender mercies of their neighbours. This could not be done in towns. It is considered that the local authorities should encourage the establishment of a bureau in every commune which has a population of over 1,000 inhabitants. The present bureaux are very unequally spread over the country. In the department of the Seine there are as many bureaux as communes; in that of the Nord 631 bureaux in 661 communes; in Seine-et-Oise 387 in 685; in Belfort only 5 in 106.

There were in 1871, the date to which the most recent complete statistics are drawn up, 5,179 bureaux for places with populations of over 1,000 inhabitants. The population of the places served by 13,348 bureaux was, in 1871, 21,931,881, or nearly two-thirds of the whole population of France. The total number of indigent persons assisted in that year was 1,608,129,representing 528,242 families. The proportion is therefore 1 assisted person in 13, or about 7 per cent. In Paris