basket with a dinner for a family. A good
deal of trickery is indulged in by the professional beggars, by means of
which it often happens that several dinners go to the same person. And
yet, as we have watched those 5,000 baskets containing food for 25,000
persons go out, to bring cheer and comfort to the hungry in their homes,
and as we have gazed on that vast banquet of 3,000 guests seated at one
sitting, we could not but feel glad that these poor brothers and sisters
of ours might realize the force of human sympathy for once in the year
at least.[93]

Another minor feature of the Salvation Army work is the prison work.
The majority of the jails, local, county and state, are visited at
intervals by certain members of the Army set aside for that purpose in
each community. In one State's prison there is a regularly organized
corps of Salvation Army soldiers, who are all prisoners, some of them
for a life term. In most prisons the Army provides literature, sees to
the correspondence of the prisoners and holds meetings with them. But it
is not so much the work with the prisoners in the jail that counts, as
it is the influence gained over them, which leads them to come to the
Army and make a new start in life when they get out. Many who find
themselves behind the prison bars are not to be classed as regular
criminals. A man is often classed as a criminal who is a victim of
misfortune only, and has no inherent criminal instincts. It is with the
criminal "by occasion," as Lombroso puts it,[94] that much successful
work can be done in the way of reform. The Army has a regular
organization known as the Prison Gate League. When a prisoner is
discharged he is met by one of this league and invited to go to work at
one of the Army's institutions. After being influenced and helped in
this institution for a certain length of time, if he seems to justify
it, he is sent out to work in some position. There are no definite
statistics recorded of those of this class who have been permanently
bettered.

Still another minor feature is the employment bureau system. While
mentioned here as merely one of a group of minor features, this system
is one of great importance to the industrial world. It is being taken
into consideration in many places by thoughtful men, and there is
promise of its assuming national, if not international proportions. The
general term, employment bureau, serves to bring to our recollection the
accompanying evils of