.

Is not this plan infinitely superior to the spasmodic Egyptian
expedient of occasional public works, which cost the State enormous sums
and only increase the local difficulty as soon as they are completed?
Should we not here be erecting a satisfactory and permanent bulwark
against the future inroads of famine? Shall we not rather be increasing
the public revenue for future years by millions of pounds and that
without adding a single new tax, or relying upon sources so uncertain
and detrimental to the public welfare as those founded upon the
consumption of drugs and liquors that destroy the health of the people?
Shall we not again be increasing the stability and glory of the Empire
in caring for its destitute masses and in turning what is now a danger
to the State into a peaceful, prosperous and contented community? And
finally will not our Poor Man's Paradise be infinitely superior from
every point of view to the miserable regulation _workhouse_, that is in
other countries offered by the State, or again to the system of
charitable doles and wholesale beggary that at present exists? To me it
seems that there is indeed no comparison between the two, and General
Booth's book has opened out a vista of happiness to the poor, such as we
should hardly have conceived possible save in connection with a
Christian millennium or a Hindoo "_Kal Yug._"

But it may be objected by some that in providing those outlets for the
destitute, we should in the end only aggravate the difficulty by
enormously increasing the population. This reminds one of the gigantic
folly of the miser with his hoards of gold. An amusing eastern anecdote
is told of one who having gone two or three miles to say his prayers to
a mosque suddenly remembered that he had forgotten to put out an oil
lamp before leaving home. He at once retraced his steps and on reaching
his house called out to the servant girl to be sure and put out the
light. She replied that she had already done so, and that it was a pity
he had wasted his shoe leather in walking back so far to remind her. To
this he answered that he had already thought of this and had therefore
taken off his shoes and carried them under his arm so as not to wear
them out!

And here you have a wretched class of miserly so-called "_economists_"
who are afraid to light their lamp, lest they should burn the oil, and
who would rather sleep in the darkness, doing nothing, or break their
necks fumbling about in thei