He went on to show the iniquities of our Poor Law system from a national standpoint. About £28,000,000 a year was raised in the name of the Poor Law. Of this only £14,000,000 had any connection with the Poor Law at all. And how were the fourteen millions spent? The poor got seven and a half millions, while the remaining six and a half millions were spent in administrative charges. That meant that every 5s. given to the poor out of the rates cost the ratepayers another 4s. 9d. to give it. No wonder that Bumbledom became nervous when Guardians urged that the poor rather than officials should receive more of this money raised for the poor. The Local Government Board Inspector, when deploring that Poplar's expenditure on the poor had gone up during the last ten years, might have added that during the same period the cost of collecting rates in the City had gone up from £11,000 to £23,000. It seemed to be all right when officials got the money, but all wrong when the poor got it. "I believe in being a true Guardian of the poor, and not merely a Guardian of the Poor Rate. We in Poplar have preferred to save the lives of the poor rather than the rates. Even then we have administered with remarkable economy; for Poplar's rates would not be high if London as a whole paid its proper share towards maintaining London's poor. We in Poplar, however, have not allowed an unjust rating system to prevent us from doing our duty to broken-down old people, to the starving and to the unemployed. We agree with Carlyle that 'to believe practically, that the poor and luckless are here only as a nuisance to be abraded and abated, and in some permissible manner made away with, and swept out of sight, is not an amiable faith. To say to the poor: Ye shall eat the bread of affliction and drink the water of affliction and be very miserable while here, requires not so much a stretch of heroic faculty in any sense as due toughness of bowels.'" From Stockport, where he had been addressing one of a series of public meetings in the Midlands, he wrote:-- "How good the people are! Whenever I mention Poplar, it is truly inspiring to hear the magnificent response. Last night the moment the word passed my lips an audience of two thousand cheered like one man. It sometimes overwhelms me almost. Who am I to deserve it?...