The societies for improving the
dwellings of the industrial classes,--for building baths and
washhouses,--for establishing workmen's, seamen's, and servants'
homes,--for cultivating habits of providence and frugality amongst the
working-classes,--and for extending the advantages of knowledge amongst
the people,--are important agencies of this kind. These, instead of
sapping the foundations of self-reliance, are really and truly helping
the people to help themselves, and are deserving of every approbation
and encouragement. They tend to elevate the condition of the mass; they
are embodiments of philanthropy in its highest form; and are calculated
to bear good fruit through all time.
Rich men, with the prospect of death before them, are often very much
concerned about their money affairs. If unmarried and without
successors, they find a considerable difficulty in knowing what to do
with the pile of gold they have gathered together during their lifetime.
They must make a will, and leave it to somebody. In olden times, rich
people left money to pay for masses for their souls. Perhaps many do so
still. Some founded almshouses; others hospitals. Money was left for the
purpose of distributing doles to poor persons, or to persons of the same
name and trade as the deceased.
"These doles," said the wife of a clergyman in the neighbourhood of
London, "are doing an infinite deal of mischief: they are rapidly
pauperising the parish.
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