reform has been resented, and politicians have often
accentuated this resentment. In 1894 a select committee was appointed
to inquire whether it was desirable to take measures to bring the
action of the Charity Commission more directly under the control of
parliament, but no serious grievances were substantiated. The
committees' reports are of interest, however, as an indication of the
initial difficulties of all charitable work, the general ignorance
that prevails in regard to the elementary conditions that govern it,
the common disregard of these principles, and the absence of any
accepted theory or constructive policy that should regulate its
development and its administration.

Charity in the parish after 1601.

After the Poor-Law Act of 1601 the history of the voluntary parochial
charities in a town parish is marked by their decreasing amount and
utility, as poor-law relief and pauperism increased. The act, it would
seem, was not adopted with much alacrity by the local authorities. From
1625 to 1646 there were many years of plague and sickness, but in St
Giles's, London, as late as 1649, the amount raised by the "collectors"
(or overseers) was only L176. They disbursed this to "the visited poor"
as "pensions." In 1665 an extra levy of L600 is mentioned. In the
accounts of St Martin's-in-the-Fields, where, as in St Giles's, gifts
were received, the change wrought by another half-century (1714) is
apparent. The sources of charitable relief are similar to those in all
the Protestant churches--English, Scottish or continental: church
collections and offertories; correctional fines, such as composition for
bastards and conviction money for swearers; and besides these, income
from annuities and legacies, the parish estate, the royal bounty, and
"petitions to persons of quality." In all L2041 was collected, but, so
far as relief was concerned, the parish relied not on it, but on the
poor-rate, which produced L3765. All this was collected and disbursed on
their own authority by collectors, to orphans, "pensioners" or the
"known or standing" poor, or to casual poor (L1818), including nurse
children and bastards. The begging poor were numerous and the infant
death-rate enormous, and each year three-fourths of those christened
were "inhumanly suffered to die by the barbarity of nurses." The whole
administration was uncharitable, injurious to the community and the
family, and inhuman to the child. If