CHARITIES OF LONDON, AND SOME ERRORS OF THEIR ADMINISTRATION: WITH SUGGESTIONS FOR AN IMPROVED SYSTEM OF PRIVATE AND OFFICIAL CHARITABLE RELIEF. (Read at a Meeting of the Association for the Prevention of Pauperism and Crime in the Metropolis, in the Rooms of the Society of Arts, December 17th, 1868: The Earl of Shaftesbury, K.G., in the Chair.) BY THOMAS HAWKSLEY, M.D. LOND., ETC. PHYSICIAN TO THE INFIRMARY FOR CONSUMPTION AND DISEASES OF THE CHEST, 99 66 WORKING CLASSES," ETC., ETC. 66 BODI To be had at the Temporary Office of the Association, 1, JAMES STREET, ADELPHI, W.C.; JOHN CHURCHILL & SONS, NEW BURLINGTON STREET LONDON. 1869. BIB The Council of the Association, without pledging themselves to an exact agreement with every position stated in the following Paper, believe that it brings forward facts and remedial measures of the greatest importance, and deserving the earnest consideration of every one interested in the Prevention of Metropolitan Poverty ana Crime. THE CHARITIES OF LONDON. ABOUT the end of last June, the Rev. H. Solly read a paper at the Society of Arts, entitled "How to deal with the Unemployed Poor of London, and with its Roughs and Criminal Classes." The subject excited great interest. It seemed as if the public mind had been long brooding over the weighty questions then discussed, and that the moment had arrived for a general impulse to pass from deliberation to action. The first result was the formation of a committee of inquiry, which divided itself into various sections in order to facilitate and systematize the work. Every member of that committee did his best, and as soon as it was thought that the chaos of material brought into view was sufficiently ordered, and the atmosphere of its intelligence clear enough to see ahead and determine the path to be pursued, the committee merged into the present Association. Those who know the immensity and difficulty concerned in attempting to deal with questions of pauperism and crime, may well feel doubtful of any committee or association being useful. Many will think its members guilty of temerity, if not of presumption, in making the effort. To this it may be replied, that the members of this Association are fully sensible of the great difficulties in their way, and would take a diffident and humble view of their abilities and expectations in respect of them; nevertheless, they feel the courage of desperation when they view the fearful aspect and the increasing magnitude of those evils, and the awful responsibilities of society in relation to them, while the character and motive of their labours supply to them the faith and hope of that Divine help, which shall if necessary remove mountains. In the division of labour referred to, it fell to the Author's lot to take a general survey of the means now in operation to oppose pauperism, and during an autumn holiday he was enabled to expend considerable time on the subject. The facts then made out were generously thought by the writer's colleagues sufficiently important to make them a basis for discussion. EXPENDITURE OF CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS. 1. The first question that arose was the amount of money expended by the various metropolitan charities in the work of administering to the want and destitution of London. Fry's B 2 "London Charities "* was selected as a handy and good catalogue of the same, and sums total were made of the number of charities, the annual receipts, and the number of persons said to be benefited. The following are the results :-The whole number of charities registered was found to be 989, of which 619 give the amount of their annual income, and the gross total of the annual income of these amounts to £3,857,109. But in looking through the list several institutions are found whose sphere of operation is not London, or only partly in London. As, for example, the missionary societies, and the grant for education from the Privy Council': excluding all these entirely, we have to subtract from the gross total above named the sum of £1,259,089, leaving a residue for employment in London of £2,607,020. The next question was the value to be attached to the 370 charities, the incomes of which are not recorded. If calculated at the same ratio as the first, they would produce a sum equal to £1,420,243. A third question was the kind of charity, or what direction of benevolent work these vast sums were committed to. To get a rough notion of this, three heads of benevolent relief were laid down, and the whole catalogue distributed between them thus: (a.) Charities for the relief of diseases (bodily and mental).- (c) Charities intended for educational, moral, and religious *The Royal Guide to the London Charities, for 1867-8. By Herbert Fry Robert Hardwicke, 112, Piccadilly. Dr. Fleetwood Buckle says, speaking of 1863, "In London alone 1,018,940 patients were treated in the (hospitals and medical institutions), 41,567 as inpatients and 977,343 as out-patients. The proportion to population was of in-patients I to 67:43, of out-patients I to 2.86, together I to 2.75." Dr. Fleetwood Buckle sets down the cost of in-patients as averaging £215s. a head, and of out-patients as 2s. 6d. a head. But from the complete list of Fry's "Royal Guide to the London Charities," the cost must be double this; for, as we see in 1867 (four years later than Dr. Fleetwood Buckle's estimate) the whole number of patients reported is 1,082,610, or 64,000 more than in 1863; but the total incomes of these charities in London alone is considerably over half a million, giving an average cost per head of total of 9s. 34d.; or 49,209 in-patients, at nearly £5 a head, and 1,033,410 at 5s. a head. The difference is probably due to the fact that Dr. Fleetwood Buckle does not include the great number of dispensaries and other medical and surgical institutions at work. incomes are recorded in 161 instances, and their amount is £1,170,391. The 78 without incomes given would at the same ratio produce £570,366. Thus, after removing from the computation the charities which are not intended for London, we get a residue of over four millions sterling, supposed to be spent in the work of relieving the wants of the houseless, the foodless, the unclothed, the sick and suffering, or the uneducated and untrained. It must be admitted that the estimate is a rough one, and is to be received more as an approximation than as an accurate return. Considering, however, that Fry's catalogue is by no means complete, that, in fact, many more charities exist than are herein recorded, that the compilation was made from returns of two years ago, since which time vast additions have been made to the number and amount of our charities, as, for example, Mr. Peabody's last gift of £100,000, and the immense collections for the relief of East End distress-considering these facts, the probabilities are that the result arrived at is considerably under rather than over the mark. In Mr. Sampson Low's excellent work on the "Charities of London," we find that in 1861 he made a summary of the incomes of 640 of these institutions, and at that date the aggregate income was £2,441,967. He also tells us that in the ten years from 1851-61 the charities had increased 1-4th in number, and 1-3rd in their entire amount of income. Seven years have passed since that summary was made, and if the progress had pursued only the same rate of increase, the institutions would be now 800, and the incomes over three millions, or £3,011,753. But there can be no doubt that the rate of increase has been considerably more during the last seven years than before that time, and this would easily bring up the number and amount to the results now presented. 2. In any estimate of what means are directed to the same ends we must include the benefactions of the charitable and the religious, given through the clergy, the offertory, and the communion. What the amount is baffles computation, but it must be very considerable, knowing as we do the powerful influence that religious appeals very properly have, and the regularity and constancy of their recurrence. It is probable that a community of three and a quarter millions of people, so rich as Londoners and with so little time to think of their own personal duties in visiting the sick and destitute, commit not less than a million a year to the ministers of religion for this purpose; for if we suppose that half the population only are adults, that 200,000 are paupers, and 500,000 more are too poor to give, yet a million of adults are still left who, one with another, at the offertory, the communion, and at other times may give 20s. a year for the purposes referred to, which is about 4 d. a week. 3. We must also take into consideration the money given by the compassionate, the weak-minded, and the thoughtless, to street beggars and to private appeals. This cannot average less than |