CHAPTER XIII. THE WORK OF PUNISHMENT AND RECLAMATION.
_The Effect of_ “_The Society for the Suppression of Mendicity_”—_State Business carried out by Individual Enterprise_—“_The Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Society_”—_The quiet Work of these Societies_—_Their Mode of Work_—_Curious Statistics_—_Singular Oscillations_—_Diabolical Swindling_.
THE Society for the Suppression of Mendicity has done more towards checking imposture, and bringing evildoers to punishment, than the Government itself, notwithstanding all the elaborate and expensive machinery at its command. Nor, by the way, is this a solitary instance of business peculiarly its own being shirked by the State, and handed over to be dealt with by the skill, energy, and perseverance of a few private individuals. A kindred association to that, the province of which is the better government of the beggars of London, is that which devotes its energies to the reclamation of returned convicts. Anyone at all acquainted with the matter is aware of the immense amount of lasting and substantial good that the “Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Society” has accomplished. That the individuals chiefly concerned—the returned convicts themselves—fully appreciate the advantages held out by the said Society is sufficiently proved by the fact, that out of 368 licence-holders discharged into the metropolis, 290 placed themselves in its hands. No doubt such arrangements do prove as convenient as economical as regards the Government; but whether it is just to inflict a responsibility of such magnitude on private individuals is another question; or whether the easement it confers is cheaply purchased by our rulers at the cost of so unmistakable a confession of their incapacity.
So quietly and unobtrusively do these self-constituted guardians of public morality perform the arduous duties they undertake, that it may be safely assumed not one person in a thousand is aware what their prime objects are, let alone the means by which they are accomplished. As regards the Mendicity Society, there can be no doubt what is the popular impression. It is commonly regarded as a sort of amateur detective association for the discovery of fraudulent begging,—a Society that has in its employ certain cunning individuals of the detested breed of “spies,” who earn their wages by lurking in shady places, and peeping over men’s shoulders, and covertly listening to their private conversation. The full extent of the Society’s usefulness, according to vulgar prejudice, is represented by the unfortunate “cadger” pounced on in the act of receiving alms, and carried before a magistrate to account for that enormous iniquity. People, however, who know no more of the Society than this, know only of the smallest and least important of its functions. It is a poor’s-relief association on an extensive scale. It has its labour-sheds for testing the genuineness of the mendicants that apply at the office, to say nothing of a real treadmill of its own. Moreover it proclaims its ability to offer suitable employment to _every_ able-bodied mendicant referred to it. The following is the Society’s method of dealing. The plan of the institution is to provide subscribers with tickets, which are intended to be distributed to street-beggars only, and which will insure admission to the Society’s office, where the applicant is examined by the sitting or assistant manager, who directs such immediate relief as in his judgment may appear proper.