is better, after all, to be a "voice crying in the wilderness" than one stump orating in the market places.
In our own time the attempts to mitigate poverty by the action of the State have been many. Some have already been mentioned, but there are some others worthy of notice. In the early nineties Vestries and other Local Boards were urged by the Local Government Board to provide work for the unemployed. That led to vast expenditure upon road-sweeping and stone-breaking, as we all remember, an expenditure with, to say the least of it, very chequered results. Of late we have been instructed to make all sorts of alterations in our workhouses, some of them undoubtedly very necessary, and not to offer the House to the aged deserving poor, but to give them "adequate" outdoor relief. For many years past the same Board has been urging on the construction of enormous and splendid infirmaries which are gradually tending to become municipal hospitals not confined to the destitute only, and there are many who contend that the whole charge of the sick should be taken over by the State. The attempt by an important section of the London School Board to throw the charge of feeding "underfed" school children upon the rates has already been noted.
It will not be forgotten, moreover, that by the abolition of school fees a very considerable sum has of late years been added to the income of the labouring population. There were many prophecies, at the time, of the advantage that would accrue to them in consequence.
Alongside of all this we have had enormous schemes of voluntary charity. Many years ago we were all startled by the proposals of General Booth and his book "In Darkest England and the Way Out." The result of that book has been a great
