The fund was thus in the first place inadequate to relieve the distress. An attempt was made in some districts by discrimination to make it useful to those who were ‘deserving.’ Forms were given out to be filled in by applicants; visitors were appointed to visit the homes and to make inquiries; committees sat daily to consider and decide on applications. The end of all has been that in one district those assisted were found to be ‘improvident, unsober, and non-industrious,’ and in another the almoner can only say, ‘they are a careless, hard-living, hard-drinking set of people, and are so much what their circumstances have made them that terms of moral praise or blame are hardly applicable.’ An analysis of the decisions of the committees formed in the various parts of the Tower Hamlets shows that the decisions were according to different standards, and with different views of what was meant by ‘assistance.’ A half-crown a week was voted for the support of one family in which the man was a notorious drunkard. Twelve pounds were given to start a costermonger on one day, while at a subsequent committee meeting 10_s._ was voted for a family in almost identical circumstances. In one district casual labourers were given 20_s._ or 30_s._, but in the neighbouring district casual labourers were refused relief. Methods of relief were as many as were the districts into which London was divided. In Whitechapel a labour test was applied. The labourers were offered street-sweeping; and those who were used only to indoor work were put to whitewashing, window-cleaning, or tailoring. The women were given needlework. When it was known to the large crowd brought to the office by the advertisement of the fund that work was to be offered to the able-bodied, there was among the ne’er-do-weels great indignation. ‘Call this charity!’ ‘We will complain to the Lord Mayor, we will break windows,’ and addressing the almoners, ‘It is you fellows who are getting 1_l._ a day for your work.’ Many ‘finding they could not get relief without doing work did not persist in their application,’ and they were not entered as applicants, but work was actually offered to 850 men and accepted by only 339. Of these the foreman writes, ‘The labour test was a sore trial for a great many of them. I repeatedly had it said to me by them, “The Fund is a charity, and we ought not to work for it.”’