The Parish Net: How it's 'bragged and What it Catches.
By George C. T. Bartley. (Chapman and Hall.)—Mr. Bartley has made good his claim to speak with authority on the subject of pauperism, and he speaks with the more effect, because he does not content himself with complaint. It is only too easy to write passionate words about our social evils, and alas ! very useless. But Mr. Bartley differs from mere declaimers in being eminently practical. That "charity and the Poor Law should work together" is not a new principle, but it is a principle which is ever in want of being newly enforced, and of which the appli- cations are practically unlimited. It is a miserable story which Mr. Bartley has to tell. He traces the career of two girls whom circum- stances bring together, the one from want of the wisely helping hand which would have kept her up—or helped her when she had once fallen— coming to utter degradation ; the other, steady, well-conducted, and pru- dent, if prudence in the poor is consistent with marrying, brought into the depths of pauperism by misfortunes which there was no discriminating charity ready to relieve. Both come alike to die in the workhouse. It is true that under the best-ordered system there is sometimes the same end for the wise man and the fool, but it ought to be our business to render it as nearly impossible as may be. And no one can say how much might be effected in this direction by judiciously supple- menting and improving the administration of the Poor Law.
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