book: "Take a case which is constantly
recurring. A man has let himself drift into bad ways: he neglects his
work, spends his money for drink, cares less and less about his family;
the children become more and more neglected and starved. At last some
charitable agency steps in. 'The man is hopeless,' it says, 'there is
no question of relieving him of responsibility, for he has already lost
all sense of that, and matters cannot be made worse by our
interference. The children must not be allowed to suffer for their
father's sins; we will feed and clothe and educate them, and so give
them a chance of doing better than their parents.' All very well, if
this were the only family; and we should all rush joyfully to the work
of rescuing the little ones. But next door on either side are men with
the same downward path so easy before them, and to a large extent
restrained from entering upon it by the thought, 'What will become of
the children?' This restraining {50} influence will break down much
more rapidly for the knowledge that Smith's children are better cared
for since he gave up the battle, and so the mischief spreads down the
street like an epidemic." [2]

The method to be followed in dealing with the family of the married
vagabond must depend upon circumstances, but it will usually be
necessary to let him find out what the charitable community expects of
him, and this he will hardly do unless the charitable withhold all aid
except in the form of work. A visitor will not succeed in bringing
this about until he has taken the trouble to find out what sources of
relief are open to the family, and has persuaded each source to
withhold relief. Visitors often hesitate to urge this radical measure,
fearing that it will bring suffering upon the wife and children; but
the plain fact is that the family of a lazy man must suffer, that no
amount of material relief can prevent their suffering.

On this disputed point I venture to quote what I have written
elsewhere: "Let us {51} consider the chances that a married vagabond's
children have of escaping suffering in a large city. . . . They are
born into a world where the father is inconsiderate and abusive of the
mother; where cleanliness, fresh air, and good food are not assured to
them; where all the economic laws of the civilized world seem
topsy-turvy; where things sometimes come miraculously, without any
return for them in labor, and where they sometimes do not come at