p, combined with personal work, represents
the usual practice of charity organization societies. _Mutatis
mutandis_, the plan can be adopted on the simplest scale in parochial
or other relief committees, subject to the safeguards of sufficient
training and settled method. The inquiry should cover the following
points: names and address, and ages of family, previous addresses,
past employment and wages, present income, rent and liabilities,
membership of friendly or other society, and savings, relations,
relief (if any) from any source. These points should be verified, and
reference should be made to the clergy, the poor-law authorities, and
others, to ascertain if they know the applicant. The result should be
to show how the applicant has been living, and what are the sources of
possible help, and also what is his character. The problem, however,
is not whether the person is "deserving" or "undeserving," but
whether, granted the facts, the distress can be stayed and
self-support attained. If the help can be given privately from within
the circle of the family, so much the better. Often it may be best to
advise, but not to interfere. In some cases but little help may be
necessary; in others again the friendly relation between applicant and
friend may last for months and even years. Usually in charitable work
the question of the kind of relief available--money, tickets, clothes,
&c.--governs the decision how the case should be assisted. But this is
quite wrong: the opposite is the true rule. The wants of the case,
rightly understood, should govern the decision as to what charity
should do and what it should provide. Cases are overwhelming in
number, as at the out-patient and casualty departments of a hospital,
where the admissions are made without inquiry, and subject practically
to no restrictions; but when there is inquiry, and each case is
seriously considered and aided with a view to self-support, the
numbers will seldom be overwhelming. On this plan appeal is made to
the strength of the applicant, and requires an effort on his part.
Indiscriminate relief, on the other hand, attracts the applicant by an
appeal to his weakness, and it requires of him no effort. Hence, apart
even from the differentiating effect of inquiry, one method makes
applicants, the other limits their number, although on the latter plan
much more strenuous endeavours be made to as