as it will give much besides. Money is all that some people can give, and if it be given from a sense of duty it is true charity, though it carries with it the further duty of seeing that the money is rightly applied. Speaking generally, however, the giving of money is the easiest thing for those who have plenty of it, and it involves, per se, the minimum of personal feeling, the minimum of personal sacrifice; but we live in a commercial age, and no one who watches the signs of the times, or directs his attention to the utterances of public men and of the Press, or takes note of the references to the subject in modern drama, can fail to be struck by the fact that, so far as the public mind is concerned, money-giving has monopolised the whole landscape of charity.
Again, we have all read our Dickens, and remember the "telescopic" philanthropy of the immortal Mrs Jellyby and the "wholesale" philanthropy of the equally famous Mrs Pardiggle. Mrs Jellyby, as we all know, was so wrapt up in the affairs of the natives of Africa, of "Borrioboola Gha," and of the "brotherhood of man," that she found no time to look after her own family. "'It's disgraceful,' said poor Miss Jellyby; 'the whole house is disgraceful. The children are disgraceful, I'm disgraceful, Pa's miserable, and no wonder. Priscilla drinks—she's always drinking. It's a great shame, and a great story of you if you say you didn't smell her to-day. It was as bad as a public-house waiting at dinner, you know it was.'" And again—"'I wish Africa was dead,' she said on a sudden. 'I do,' she said. 'Don't talk to me, Miss Summerson, I hate it and detest it: it's a beast!'"
We may ask ourselves whether there is no "telescopic philanthropy" to-day? whether there are no rich people who pay starvation wages and
