aste cooked food, another for gifts of
uncooked food, and a third for old clothes, waste paper, shoes, tins,
bottles, and other similar articles.

(6.) At an appointed hour the Brigade would proceed to their posts,
would patrol their wards, and bring or send the various articles
collected to the labor yards, where all would be sorted and dealt with
as necessary the cooked food being distributed among those who were
willing to eat it, or sent to the surburban farm for our buffaloes. The
raw grain would be handed over to our food depots, and credited by them
to the Beggars Fund for the special benefit of the destitute.

(7.) At the end of each day every member of the Brigade would receive a
food ticket in payment of his services. The amount could be regulated
hereafter. This ticket he would present at our food depot, where he
would be supplied with whatever articles he might require. There would
be a regular system of rewards and encouragements for good conduct. But
all such details will be settled hereafter.

(8.) A special feature in the system would be the introduction of the
ancient _Buddhist_ custom of "_meetihal_," or "the consecrated handful
of rice." This is as follows. A pot is kept in each home and a handful
of grain is put into it every time the family meal is cooked. We think
that there would be no difficulty in getting this custom universally
adopted, when it was understood that the proceeds would be devoted
entirely to feeding the destitute. I believe that the income derived
from this alone would in course of time be sufficient to meet the needs
of the destitute in any city in India, at the same time that it would
serve to equalise and therefore minimise the burden which now rests
chiefly on a comparative few.

(9.) In case the food supply thus obtained should be insufficient, we
have little doubt that we could persuade leading merchants in the city
to club together and make up the difference, when they saw the good work
that was going on.

Such in brief is a skeleton of the scheme for elevating and renovating
the Beggar population of India. It is no doubt open to criticism on some
points, but it has special advantages which I will proceed to point out,
apologising for the extra space I am obliged to occupy, in dealing with
this subject, on account of its novelty and importance, and in order
that I may be thoroughly understood.

1. _It is conservative._ Here you have a reformation without a
revolution