Note 22 — CHAP. III.

This observation can only apply to such voluntary contributions as are liable to abuses, and where the poor are permitted to dispose of the benevolence of the opulent in their own way.—The Soup-Charities established in different parts of the Metropolis are a peculiar exception, inasmuch as they contribute only to the relief of those that are really objects of distress, while no Public Charity heretofore instituted has been found to be liable to fewer abuses. In a great Metropolis like London, it has been clearly established, that in spite of every regard to prudence and œconomy, decent families will be suddenly broke down, while the habits of life peculiar to the lower orders, and their want of the knowledge of frugal cookery have proved a source of much real calamity; for where nothing is laid up, every pressure arising from sickness, child-birth, or death throws many hundreds upon the Public, who have no legal parochial Settlement, and who but for some relief must absolutely perish;—While the Soup-Charities hold out immediate and constant relief to many families, who might otherwise perish with hunger;—while this species of relief may be said to be accessible to every indigent family in the Metropolis, no lure is held out to the idle or profligate. It cannot be disposed of, as bread, meat, and coals, for gin and other articles. There is therefore scarcely any risque of deception, more especially as the applicants pay down half the original cost on receiving it—Thus establishing the means of discrimination between real and pretended distress. About 10,000 families, composed chiefly of persons who had not the means of obtaining sufficient food to support nature, consisting of 50,000 men, women, and children, were relieved by the daily distribution of Soups at Spital-Fields, Clerkenwell, St. George's Fields, and Westminster, during the last winter, at an expence to the Subscribers not exceeding One Guinea for every 504 meals of rich nourishing Soup, which those poor people received. But this is not the only advantage which attends these Institutions, since there is every reason to believe, that while the poor are thus frugally fed, they are taught by example, and by circulating among them printed friendly advices, what they never knew before—The means of making a little go far, by introducing the same beneficial mode of dressing food in their own houses. And from a minute attention to this object, the Author has great satisfaction in stating, that from the eagerness shewn to obtain the Soup, and the thankfulness almost universally expressed for the benefits it conferred, there is every reason to hope, that more good has arisen to the industrious poor from these establishments (which are now extending themselves in the Villages and Manufacturing Towns) than by any plan which has ever been resorted to for relieving distress. Among the various classes of benevolent individuals, to whom the Public have been indebted for their pecuniary and personal aid in promoting this design the Society of The Friends is peculiarly prominent. To the zeal and perseverance they have manifested, and the valuable time they have bestowed, in giving effect and utility to the System, is owing much of its success.