tain
family, to whom charitable relief had been given in an aimless way for
many years with no good result. Three churches were represented, and
the persons present had visited and relieved the family for periods
ranging from three to ten years. Almost immediately, however, the fact
was brought out at the conference that not one of these visitors had
ever seen the man of the family, or had ever made any effort to see
him. By way of excuse one visitor said she had always understood that
the man was very good-for-nothing. But happily there is no better
dispeller of mental {18} fog than a friendly conference of those who
are in earnest, and it did not take long to convince these conferees
that the man's good-for-nothingness was, in part at least, their own
fault. I shall have occasion to speak more than once, in this book, of
the power of suggestion. Even here, where these relief visitors had
never given the head of the family a thought, they had taught him a
lesson. From their whole line of conduct he must have received the
suggestion that his neglect of his family was an affair of no
consequence.

In turning to the details of family life among the poor, I take the
breadwinner, or the one who ought to be the breadwinner, as my first
consideration for the reason that he is so often ignored altogether by
charity workers. Especially is this true of church workers. "A church
worker came to me the other day," writes Mrs. Bosanquet, "about a
family of little children, concerning whom he was greatly distressed.
He had visited them for months, and found the woman honest, striving,
and clean, but _as usually happens_ he knew very little of the man. He
assured me {19} over and over again that the family was in a pitiable
state of poverty and in urgent need of help; and we at once set to work
to ascertain the real financial position. Result: man earning 35s.,
giving 20s. to his wife and keeping 15s. for pocket-money. Obviously,
if charity steps in here, it will not necessarily improve the state of
the wife and children at all; it will merely enable the man to keep a
still larger proportion of his wages for pocket-money." [1]

But, though the charity worker may ignore the man of the family, there
are others who are wiser. In the first place he is a voter, and the
ward-worker, the policeman, and the saloon-keeper never forget this
fact.

An illustration of the policeman's interest in the voter as an
applicant for char