The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1891.

Auckland Star, Volume XXII, Issue 294, 11 December 1891, Page 2

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1891.

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The fourth annual report of the Melbourne Charity Organisation Society has just been issued, and furnishes a

very complete answer to a few persons who were disposed to call in question

the necessity for the Society's existence. The organisation is the outcome of a condition oi society that could hardly have been foreseen by those who forecast me future of the colonies from the prosperity that marked the earlier stages of their history. The chief objects of the Society are the promotion of co-operation in charUable work, the bestowal of charity only to the. deserving, the discouragement of indiscriminate giving, exposure of professional impostors, inquiry before relief, the establishment of provident dispensaries, and the encouragement of charitable effort in localities where no suitable societies are in existence.

The Society does not exist to distribute relief, but for inquiry and organisation. This feature has. been overlooked ny some of its critics who have commented upon the small amount it has dishursdd in relieving cases of distress. But in so acting, the Society is strictly fulfilling the object of its mission. Where it has granted relief, it has only been of a temporary kind, pending a reference to the proper quarters. It aims at assisting the various charitable institutions against being imposed upon by unworthy applicants, and its constitution provides that each of the Melbourne charities shall have a representative on its Council.

The necessity for' some such organisation is shown by the evidence taken before the Royal Commission on Charities. As is usually the case in iarge cities, Melbourne has an _ imposing list of charitable institutions. Indeed, the competition owing to what the Chairman of the Congregational Union called " the guilty scramble of the sects" is so keen that beggars naturally drift from one to another on the look-out for the place where they will be best served. It is instructive to tincl that these worthies feel themselves so perfectly masters of the situation that they sometimes threaten the representative of a society to desert i( the dole of charity is not so great as that given by others. There was until the formation of the Charity Organisation Society little co-operation or reciprocity between the different societies. Charitable persons bestowed alms at haphazard. They knew that they were often duped and deluded in the absence of an agency to make necessary inquiries, and kind-hearted philanhropistst could not help feeling that with the best intentions they were perpetuating evils they could .only deplore. The line of work which the Society has taken up it has prosecuted vigorously, and by its investigations has proved itself a valuable ally not only to the charitable institution-, but to private persons who are in the. habit of disbursing charity.

Turning to the report, we find that during last year 675 cases occupied the attention of the Society's officers. Of these 501 are recorded as new cases, while 49 had previously been under the notice of the Society, and 125 wre recorded as "irregular" cases. Investigation into the 501 new cases produced the following results :—Satisfactory, 180; unsatisfactory, 177; doubtful, 144- The iar 8 e Proportion recorded under the two last headings will convince the most sceptical of the necessity for strict inquiry beiore relief is afforded. Professor Moms, the [•resident of the Society, remarks : " Of a thousand <#ses it has been re-

ported that a third are undeserving, professional beggars, impostors,' liars, those who can work and will not work."

A lew instances taken at random from tbe long list of cases described as " unsatisfactory," shows the shifts to which many persons will habitually resort rather than do anything in the shape of work. In fact, an ordinary observer would be disposed to conclude that it would be much easier to set to at honest work, iustead of going through the amount of letter-writing and watercart business that seem specialties of these worthies. One married man who visited the office " wept profusely," and indeed performed the Job Trotter role to perfection. A little examination into the past history of this damp soul proved that he was a begging letterwriter who bad carried on his profession in three colonies with a zeal and success worthy of a better cause. Indeed, from the mass of letters ..he had written to charitable persons, his daily duties must have been as heavy as those of an ordinary corresponding clerk. Then we have a case of a woman appealing to awell-knoiwn journalist for assistance. She modestly wished him to collect £,100 to assist her out of her difficulties, and offered lo give him " an honorarium " of On the case being placed in the hands of the Society, it was found that she owned the house she lived in, and more than worth of other property, while her husband had a life income of per annum. A married solicitor was bowled out in telling "gross falsehoods" to the Society, and a young working man earning £2 10s per week, with no children to support, takes a " very haughty tone" because his wife is refused relief. But a family named Flyburd beat the record. The father has posed as a teacher ot languages, the mother is described as a "lady-like person, who "weeps copiously" for the benefit of the clerks when she visits the Society's office. The family have run up the whole gamut of imposture, from collecting funds to bury a dead child, to swindling a young Englishman in New Zealand of a large sum of money.

The hard conditions of modem life make it necessary that society should protect itself from organised imposture. There is something bold and matter-of-fact that is alien to our ideas of the spontaneity of charity in subjecting every applicant to rigorous examination. Still, few private persons have not at some time or other had cause to regret they have been duped by plausible representations.

In the earlier stages of a community, the charity that blesses giver and receiver can be bestowed without much fear of imposition. We have reached that stage in colonial life when to some extent, at least, the flow of sympathy needs to be regulated by prudential measures. This is so fully realised in Australia that efforts are being made to regulate charitable disbursement in the different colonies by international action. The Australasian Conference on Charity has just closed its second annual session at Melbourne. It was attended by delegates from all the neighbouring, colonies, and aims at procuring legislation from the various Parliaments to secure, as far as possible, uniform treatment of paupers throughout Australia. In a word, as the President, remarked, what the Charity Organisation Society "undertook to perform for the Melbourne charities, the Conference hopes to perform on a larger scale. The movement can hardly fail to be watched with interest by all colonial philanthropists.