Destitution in towns, however, seemed to involve no indictment of the social structure; there was nothing for it but charity. As one of the administrators of the Poor Law, Macleod did good work, procuring the adoption of the boarding-out system; but it was for those whom legal relief might not reach that his heart bled. ‘There is many a desolate cry of pain,’ he wrote, ‘smothered within the walls of poor homes, like that of mariners in a sinking ship, who see no sail within the wide horizon.’ To aid the deserving poor he declared to be one of the highest objects that could engage the attention of good men;--one of the highest, doubtless, but one of the most illusory, for the deserving poor you shall hardly discover, they put on such a prosperous face. He canvassed various plans, from New York to Elberfelt; but vain was his dream of building a bridge between east and west by charity,--the wary remorse and discount of the Vandals. The working men of Glasgow more than once testified in a body to the good he had done them. Silver and gold they had none, they said, but they would retain for his kindness a lifelong gratitude. When in 1857 his wife was lying as it were at the point of death, ‘hundreds,’ he wrote, ‘called to read the daily bulletin which I was obliged to put up. But everywhere it was the same. Free Church people and people of all Churches called. Men I never spoke to stopped me; cab-drivers, ‘bus-drivers, working men in the streets, asked after her with much feeling.’ Many a time a surreptitious hand would be thrust into his, and in a moment gone. All the forenoon his house in Bath Street was besieged with suppliants of various kinds. For refuge he had a small study fitted up in the laundry, and there he would be sitting, pen in hand, pipe in mouth, now joined by a privileged visitor, now summoned to deal with a conscience or a thumb. His name was oftener heard in common talk than that of any other man, and was seldom more than ‘Norman.’ Stories about him were current in Glasgow. One day a U.P. minister was requested to visit a family whom he did not know. Thinking that they might be new adherents, he went to the house, which was up three flights of stairs. A man was lying very ill. After praying, the minister asked if they belonged to his congregation. ‘Oh no,’ said the wife, ‘we belang to the Barony; but, ye see, this is a catchin’ fivver, an’ it would never dae to risk _Norman_.’[4]