ed._

Though the foregoing six relief principles could easily be extended to
twenty, yet a {163} bookful of such generalizations would be of no
value to the almoner without a detailed knowledge of the neighborhood
into which relief is to go, and an intimate acquaintance with the lives
of the poor. It is evident, therefore, that a beginner in charity
should not decide relief questions except in consultation with an
experienced worker. For instance, a new visitor going to the house of
a widow supporting her aged mother and two children, may find the woman
sick, and receiving only a small pittance in sick benefits from the
society to which she belongs. There is no apparent suffering, but the
visitor at once concludes that the income is insufficient, and applies
to the nearest relief agency, asking that coal be sent. As a matter of
fact, the family income is as large as the average income of the
neighborhood, and the woman has never thought of asking relief; if fuel
is sent, the neighbors all know it, and, immediately, there is a
certain expectancy aroused, a certain spirit of speculation takes the
place of the habit of thrift. There seem, to the simple imaginations
of these people, to be exhaustless stores of relief, which {164} are
somehow at the command of visiting ladies. Take another instance of a
more difficult kind. A family has long passed the stage of receiving
relief for the first time; the man is a heavy drinker, the household
filthy, the children neglected. They appeal at once for assistance.
The children need shoes to go to Sunday-school, the rent is overdue,
the coal is out. Confronted with such misery, the beginner is very
likely to give, and to compound with his conscience by giving "a
little." This is the very treatment that has brought them to their
present pass, and only an experienced and intelligent almoner can tell
how far it is wise to let the forces of nature work a cure, and how far
it is wise to prevent extreme suffering by interference.

One trouble in the past has been that the agents employed by relief
societies have not always been intelligent, but there have been great
advances made in this regard, and now, in many communities, the agents
of charitable societies are active, intelligent men and women, who have
received special training for the work. These agents are often in
communication with {165} many sources of relief, and can save us from
duplicating relief to the same persons-