The Sun.
London, England, 1864-02-25 00:00:00

REAL BENEVOLENCE.

" There is nothing so difficult," said Mr. John
Abel Smith last evening, " as to give away money
without doing more harm than good." At first
sight, and to that large class whose only idea of
charity is indiscriminate almsgiving, the ab3ve state
ment appears absurd, but it is strictly and literally
true. The real history of the vast herd of mendi-
cants, including the " genteel beggar," and the
begging letter writer who infest our streets, is yet
to be known, despite tho light that has of late
years been thrown upon their practices, and many
a shilling, aye, and many a sovereign, too, which is
given in the purest spirit of benevolence, finds its
way into channels of which the donor has little
suspicion.

While this is the fact, too, there are at our very
doors hundreds, nay,thousands of cases requiring and
deserving that relief, which, were they but known,
would be readily and largely poured upon them; but
the sufferers shrink from parading their woes,
They are not of a class that " Hawk their wrongs
as beggars do their sores." They suffer and too
often die in silence and in oblivion. Here it is that
the aid of an almoner, a discreet and trustworthy
channel for the benevolence of the public, is invalu-
able ; nor in all the wide range of our great chari-
ties do we know of one which better fulfils this im-
portant duty than the institution on behalf of whom
Mr. John Abel Smitb, its long tried friend and
deeply-respected treasurer, pleaded last night.

We allude to the Provident Clerks' Bene-
volent Fund. Those who know the vicissitudes to
which, without any fault of his own, a clerk is too
often subject will readily acknowledge how much
such an institution is needed, and how fully it merits
support. The crash of a "great city house" is to
him a ruin often more irreparable than to the mer-
chant whose larger venture has gone down in the
storm—a few weeks' illness when ho cannot be
spared—the falling off in a particular "market"—
the necessity for providing fcr a son or other rela-
tive of " the firm," any of these are to him the cause
of that enforced idleness which, in many cases, is
accompanied with actual destitution ; and if all
these be spared, he must, in most cases, be gifted
with an unusual degree of care and good fortune if
he is able to face the inevitable approach of age and
official uselessness, free from anxiety and secare in
the possession of a competence.

If the position of the clerk be thus uncertain,
what must be the case of the widow of such a
man, struck down perhaps by disease and death
ere time has been afforded him to make
even a slender provision for those he loved. He
may have been prudent and commenced to assure
nis life, but how long will the proceeds of his
small policy last before the claims of widow and
children ? Here it is that the aid of the Provi-
dent's Clerks Benevolent Fund stops in, and by
providing the widow either with temporary
aid in the shape of gratuities, or a per-
manent annuity enables her to provide at least
a shelter for those whom God has given to her
charge. To the clerk, too, who, from age or infir-
mity, is incapacitated from earning a livelihood, the
same comfort is afforded; and at present some £1,400
a year is permanently charged upon the fund to meet
such cases as we have described, That the greatest
care is exercised, that every application receives
strict but kind scrutiny we are glad to know,
and that those best qualified to judge arc
satisfied with the administration of the fund—the
list of supporters,comprising, as it does, almost every
leading house in the City, in ample evidence.
Something, more, however, is wanted, as the claims
on this noble fund must of necessity grow yearly—
and that is, that not the mercantile public only, but
the charitable of all classes, should spare for this
institution some small portion of that golden stream
which flows so freely toward every deserving
object.
The amount of good conferred by this fund in
proportion to the applications for relief, exceeds
that of any kindred institution, and the secret of
th;s is found in the fact, probably unparallelled in
the history of our charities, that on the average of
years very nearly 90 per cent of the gross income is
applied to the purposes of the fund—the coat of
management last year not exceeding 8 per cent.
There are none in this great commercial country
to whom the welfare of so large and so valuable a
class of citizens is not of real importance—there
ought to be none among those able to contribute to
such an object who are unwilling to do so. Most
truly did the Treasurer say at the meeting held last
evening that much, very much, of the commercial
greatness of England was due to the ability and in-
tegrity of the class on behalf of whose noble insti-
tution these lines are penned.