'the general summary showed
a balance in hand of L178.4.6'. (They always kept a good balance in
hand because of the Secretary's salary and the rent of the offices.)

After this very explicit financial statement came the most important
part of the report: 'Thanks are expressed to Sir Graball D'Encloseland
for a donation of 2 guineas. Mrs Grosare, 1 guinea. Mrs Starvem,
Hospital tickets. Lady Slumrent, letter of admission to Convalescent
Home. Mrs Knobrane, 1 guinea. Mrs M.B. Sile, 1 guinea. Mrs M.T.
Head, 1 guinea. Mrs Sledging, gifts of clothing--and so on for another
quarter of a column, the whole concluding with a vote of thanks to the
Secretary and an urgent appeal to the charitable public for more funds
to enable the Society to continue its noble work.

Meantime, in spite of this and kindred organizations the conditions of
the under-paid poverty stricken and unemployed workers remained the
same. Although the people who got the grocery and coal orders, the
'Nourishment', and the cast-off clothes and boots, were very glad to
have them, yet these things did far more harm than good. They
humiliated, degraded and pauperized those who received them, and the
existence of the societies prevented the problem being grappled with in
a sane and practical manner. The people lacked the necessaries of
life: the necessaries of life are produced by Work: these people were
willing to work, but were prevented from doing so by the idiotic system
of society which these 'charitable' people are determined to do their
best to perpetuate.

If the people who expect to be praised and glorified for being
charitable were never to give another farthing it would be far better
for the industrious poor, because then the community as a whole would
be compelled to deal with the absurd and unnecessary state of affairs
that exists today--millions of people living and dying in wretchedness
and poverty in an age when science and machinery have made it possible
to produce such an abundance of everything that everyone might enjoy
plenty and comfort. It if were not for all this so-called charity the
starving unemployed men all over the country would demand to be allowed
to work and produce the things they are perishing for want of, instead
of being--as they are now--content to wear their masters' cast-off
clothing and to eat the crumbs that fall from his table.

Chapter 37

A Brilliant Epigram

All through the winter, the wise, prac