So much for Williamson. But Committee is not over yet, and here are the papers of Mrs. Canty--56 years of age--a poor shrivelled old woman, ugly and uninteresting in appearance, unable to work from a dreadful complaint in her face, living with her two children, the only survivors out of a goodly family of six. The children, a boy of 20 and a girl of 16, are earning 24_s._ between them, and the Committee decide that the case is one ‘not requiring relief.’ Perhaps not--in money, but is cold, hard money the only relief that the Charity Organisation Society has to offer? Surely charitable effort could be organised for the benefit of this family. Some one could be sent with time and tact who would help the poor widow to other pleasures than those of regretful memories; for we read she was ‘well-to-do in her husband’s lifetime.’ Some one who would make bright half-hours for her and take her mind from dwelling on her poor painful face, guiding her to draw strength from the thought of other lives and hope out of greater interests. Is not some one’s carriage at the Society’s disposal in which she may be taken--she is too weak to walk and has not been out for two and a half years--to catch a glimpse of the bright spring flowers and the new-budding trees? For the boy too. He may be in a good place and earn enough for bare necessities; but he has not the means of getting books, the opportunities for joining a gymnasium, nor the knowledge of the club, where he could be re-created and form friendships. These may all be within reach, and would certainly be for the relief of such a lad’s hard and monotonous life; but the Charity Organisation Society, declaring that he does ‘not require relief,’ lets him go without an effort to give him what would influence his life far more radically than the asked for half-a-crown a week. And for the girl also. She may be training for good work, but she must often be tired of the drudgery of her five years’ nursing done without the help of a competent doctor--for the old lady ‘doctors of herself’--and done, too, between the intervals allowed by her business of widow-cap making. Does she require no relief which the Charity Organisation Society can give--the relief which comes through books and patience-preaching pictures, the relief which follows the introduction to the singing class leading to the choir, or which comes through the hand-grasp of the wiser friend when the road is unusually drear? Relief through such agencies would often make later relief unnecessary--relief which we _dare_ not withhold, and yet ache as we silently give it to lock hospitals, reformatories, and penitentiaries. Might not--may not charitable effort be organised to remove some of the social conditions which stand as barriers to prevent, or anyhow make it painfully difficult for these eight people to live the highest, fullest, richest life?