PREFACE
The accompanying volume contains the substance of various articles and papers covering a period of twenty-five years, during which the author has been engaged in poor law and charitable administration in London. Two or three of these have already appeared in pamphlet form. They have been written at various times and upon various occasions, and have no special connection, except that they deal with different aspects of the same subject. They therefore contain some repetitions and some references that have been rendered obsolete by subsequent legislation. But the author ventures to republish them much as they were written, in the hope that the fact that they are based upon the experience of twenty-five years of practical work in a poor district may commend them to the consideration of students of the most difficult problem of local government. They are not addressed to socialists, who at least have a definite social theory, but to those who appear to be halting between two opinions. The author is indebted to the Editor of the "Times" for permission to republish the criticism of the Minority Report.