The Express.
London, England, 1867-01-23 00:00:00

PRINCESS'S.

TRIe Eve/Ingo, DE11( GPI g ND. Mews. Vining and
J.O. shore; Miss Kathvnne IZ.lger,.—And TIIE sTREins OF
LoN ;V. Messrs F. Villiers, Flinn, ('alhaem, Forrester, Cath-
cart, Mellon, and Vining lira. 11. Manton and Miss llcsigers.

LWEUM.

THIS ETZTMO. THE TP.Lt,. Mr. Wl,ldleamb.—And
Wit GE IT Xlll It. Messrs. Fectiter, Emery, (.'wirer. Moreland,
Fitzpatrick, DAIGni, Iteynulds, 1.4.111.14 Andrews. Mice, Ac, ;
Mrs. L. Murray, awl Misses ileurzele, Grattan, and C. Letlenty,

STRAND.

ltlrrltllo, .ftei which will be produced
a Grand burlesque, GI.Y F. WEES.—AIuI A SUIT VI
TWEED'S.

ITOLTIORN.

THIS ErrNEVE MI T 1 I.X NEXT. Sr. Belmnre: Misses
Tnotoand tennoc —And YINING *X U. Messrs. Neville. Bet.
more, Elake, 11.54E/zoos F. Josephs, C. Samolers,
Bessie FUOit, Elthiss, Wows, Itaymond, Be.

BRITANNIA.

TrITSI EVININO, THE 1•RINI: TIIE PEARL ISLANDS;
OR, TIIE THREE KINOIXAIS OP PEARL, GOLD, AND
RILVER. Mr" Cane and Miv,.Licol».—First•rato Pantomimist'.
—Anti THE SISELEION CREW.

RIOT! WATER AT LONDON BRTDOE

Tnll 3n4-- ---Alternoo---n, 46 24m.
TO-Yonnovr—Morning, 4b. 4.-An Afternoon, sb. 51n,

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 23.

Is there nothing to be said in favour of our
existing Poor-law, or are the oft-repeated charges
of harshness, incapacity, and maladministration to
be taken as proved, and the misery in which Lon-
don is now steeped to be accepted as the logicid
sequence of blunders made by political economists
and philosophers some thirty years ago ? Evi-
dence or argument to the contrary would be emi-
nently appropriate at this juncture, for plain-
thinking people incline to the belief that if central
and local boards, and the minutes, orders, and
regulations pertaining to each, had been all swept
into the sea, the prevailing distress would not be
aggravated, while the means adopted for its relief
would be more effectual and assured. This is the
grave hardship of the situation. With ample
means and excellent intentions, we have yet
allowed matters to drift to such a pass, that our
poorer neighbours are starving at our doors, while
we bok on helplessly, or bestow with spasmodic
lavishness what we have slender guarantee
will be appropriately or beneficially ap-
plied. It is idle to urge that the pre-
sent pressure is exceptional, that the legacy
left by the couunercial panic of last year, and the
distress arising froni the unusual severity of the
weather, are sufficient to account fur the pitiable
stories with which our columns and those of our
contemporaries are tilled. Emergency tests sys-
tem, and no sooner does it arise with WI than the
whole of our Poor-law machinery breaks down. It
is the fashion just now to make local guardians
responsible for the sufferings of the poor people it
is their duty to protect ; and it is undeniable that
to the inefficiency and ignorance of the people
elected to administer the rates much hardship and
injustice is due. We have not been backward in
denouncing the paltry evasions and insolent de-
fiance of the law of which metropolitan boards are
habitually guilty, and we have from time to time
done justice to the vulgar incompetence of the
individual atoms of which they are co n-
posed. It may be doubted, however,
whether the root of the evil does not lie deeper
than in mere personal incapacity. Tho corre-
spondent of a contemporary, in contrast;ag me:re-
politan with provincial administration in times o:
distress, sneeringly doubted yesterday whether it
would suit " the gentlemen of Poplar," as be
designated the guardians of that paa:sh, to it
" all day and every day," as some other game-
diens in Lancashire meritoriously did during a
similar crisis to the one London has succumbed to
now. His remark represents a popular fallacy
respecting metropolitan guardians, for we have
little doubt that if the constitution of the Poplar
Board were examined, it would be found to con-
sist mainly of men to whom sitting " all day
" and every day " for the relief of the
poor would be either a sheer impossibility or a
gross injustice to their families. The
line of demarcation between the payers of rates
and the recipients of relief is so narrow in the
parishes most heavily taxed, that one class con-
'tartly merges into the other; while the guardians
themselves are frequently small el'opkeepera living
by the profits gained from the very poor. To
expect men in this position to give up the whole
of their time to public duty, is to look for more
abstract purity and self-denial than would be
found among the highly educated classes. The
inefficiency of guardians is but the natural fruit
of the tree which brings guardians forth, and until
some unification of system, and sonic adjustment
of the burdens pressing so terribly upon the poor
districts of the metropAis be devised, protracted
misery and deaths from starvation and neglect
may be looked for as regularly as frost in Decem-
ber or heat iu July.

Nor is this the worst. :Matters have been mis-
managed with such disastrous ingenuity that the
flood of private benevolence which wells boun-
teously up wheLever called upon, is left to disperse
itself unaided, while its obviously natural channels
are hermetically sealed. Who in their senses
would make a board of guardians the almoners of
Or guides in their charity ! yet who should be such
capable judges of the wants of a district as the
legally constituted protectors of its poor ? If the
local committees now formed at such places as
Bethnal-green and could be made perma-
nent ; if the administration of public contributions
were recognised as an honorary function, and
some system of regular and confidential communi-

cation between the boards of charity and the boards
of Poor-law were devised, the objects of both would
be furthered, and the poor be enormously
benefited. A lack of definite responsibility is the
crying evil of both our legal and voluntary relief ;
and while contributing liberally from our super-
fluities is au imperative duty now, we should in-
sist upon steps being taken hereafter to render a
recurrence of existing evils impossible. For there
is no lack of sympathy, of leisure, or of means.
The raw material is all here, and only wants
adapting to its end. The French system of en-
trusting to the same people the disposal of two
distinct poor-funds, the one arising from bequests
and the taxes on luxuries, and the other derived
from a systematic and periodical appeal from the
mairic to the wealthy dwellers in each arrondisse-
ment, has the signal advantage of dividing what
our neighbours call " the shamefaced poor " from
, the habitual paupers, and ensures the contribu-
tions of the benevolent going straight to their
destination. The legal dole can be supplemented
by a charity which has personal knowledge
for its guide, and the benevolent have
the satisfaction of knowing thatwhenever a sudden
call arises for help, in money or in kind, the
appliances for its bestowal are all ready to hand.
It is unnecessary to give unqualified admiration to
a whole system of relief before recognising the
advantage of this ; and our own want of some
rule by which law and charity might aid, instead
of opposing each other, as they frequently do now,
has never been more apparent than at present.
Meer while, the properly authenticated local relief
societies should be supported generously and
promptly. At Bethnal-green the rector, himself
a guardian, is chairman of the committee for the
distribution of chin itable contributions, and at
Poplar a similar organization has the support and
services of the leading inhabitants of the
parish. Both lack funds sorely, and prompt
pecuniary aid is a more pressing, as well
as a simpler duty than evolving theories on social
improvement. The miserable deaths of the
paupers DALY and GiikioN prepared us for the cry
for workhouse infirmary reform ; and it may be that
the magnitude of the emergency the deserving pour
are groaning under now, the wail of the thousands
the workhouses are unable to relieve, and the
confession on all hands that but for private, and
necessarily impulsive and desultory benevolence,
deaths by starvation would be more terribly fre-
quent than they are, will pave the way for an
enactment placing the metropolitan poor-law upon
a basis which shall be neither ridiculous, inhumaa,
nor unjust.