The Express.
London, England, 1865-01-05 00:00:00

'OMIT BROOD/DM G OLD ALBERT MAIM.

KOHN BBOODEN'S GOLD BROOCH CHAIM

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LONDON, THURSDAY, JANUARY 5.

THE emotion excited by the poverty and the
charity of the metropolis is different this year
from what it usually is. The consternation
freely expressed everywhere may be partly at-
tributed to disappointment at the new Act not
having at onoe disposed of the Homeless Poor ;
but there is more in the matter than that sort of
mortification. It is not only about the Homeless
Poor that the comfortable classes are aghast. The

host of charitable inatitutions--each with ita empty
- - • • •

money-box and ita dreary tale of overwhelming
applications for relief—seem to disclaim a
bottomless gulf of misery and helplessness,
into which the tens of thousands of pounds of our

rich almsgivers are cast in vain. " How can it
"be " everybody is asking. " What are we to
" do, and what are we to expect if, after all we
" have done, the evil grows upon us, apparently
" without cause, from meson to season? What
" can it moan " The common reply is that it is

no time to speculate—that the duty of the moment
is to save the perishing—and that the worst thing
we can do is to allow any good work to fail for
want of funds. No doubt, when there are hungry

people in tile streets, and the snow is on the
ground, these people must be fed and warmed ;
but we are disposed to think that the beet chance
of saving the next generation—we could almost
say the next season—from an augmented burden
of such misery is to encourage, rather than dis-
countenance, the inquiry how such a state of things
can exist among us at this date. Moreover, • due
regard to our own security, and to that of society
after we are gone, requires that we should inves-
tigate the causes of an apparently boundless
pauperism—a helplessness and dependence et
which we may well dread the increase. If the
plain truth were known, there are not a few pee-
sons who are beginning to see through feeling—to
perceive through their experience—the tendencies
of such a state of things as they suppose to exist.
Some who have laughed at Communism as at •
bugbear too s'ly to frighten anybody, and others
who have been really alarmed about Socialism as
existing among the vulgar, are beginning to ask,
in their secret minds, whether the present state of
things is not in fac • long stride in the direction
of Communism I As soon as a citizen has ac- 1
quired any property he becomes OA source of
maintenance of more or fewer helpless persons ;
and he has very little choice about the when,
where, and how. Rich men have their hand
almost continuously in their pocket. When greet
men became owners, instead of mere holders of
land, they continued the practice which
had always been the condition of their
landholding that of securing the mainte-
nance of all the residents on their estates. They
always knew what they would have to do ; the
limit of their responsibility was plain ; and it
was not almsgiving, generally speaking, that was
required of them. The well-to-do classes in Lon-
don are in a very different position. The mere
almsgiving is becoming to them equivalent to •
forfeiture of a considerable part of their incline,
which is given away by persons whom they do
not know, to persons about whom they do not
care, except in as far as they are in misery at the
moment. If this kind of liability grows much
more, there will be a communism in England, after
all, more dangerous and hateful than the schemes
of ROBERT OWEN, or any other preacher of sub-
versive doctrines. Such is the apprehension which
is harboured in many minds this winter, as for
some winters past. Two years since we consoled
ourselves by saying (what was true to
a osrtain extent) that the national charity
to Lancashire had diminished the ►l.ns
fund in London and elsewhere ; but now,
this year, there has been no such call from Lan-
cashire as has lessened the bounty of London. It
is not lack of bounty that is accountable for the
destitution in London. What, then, is it? Is
there really a great increase of misery among ua,
at a time when work is plentiful in the kingdom
generally, and wages are good, and bread is
cheap ? And how can there be so much hardship
as there is ?

There are many things to be taken into the
account in seeking an answer to this question ;
and on the whole, the impression they yield is en-
couraging in regard to the country at large, if not
in regard, just at present, to London. Formerly
a resort to London was never dreamed of but by
traders and pleasure•seekers, or persons on express
Galls of business. In our time the railways bring
up a host of feckless adventurers or fortune•seeker',
who, failing to prosper, become applicants for
charity. Their own neighbourhoods are so much
the better, and London is so much the worse, by