(1) The big advertisement of ‘70,000_l._ to be given away’ offered a chance which attracted idlers, and relaxed in many the energies hitherto so patiently braced to win a living for wife or children. The effect is frequently noticed in the reports. The St. George’s-in-the-East visitors emphasise the opinion that it was ‘the great publicity of the Fund which made its distribution so difficult.’ A visitor in Poplar thinks ‘the publicity was tempting to bad cases and deterrent of good ones.’ The chance of a gift out of so big a sum was too good to be missed for the sake of hard work and small wages. Faith in chance was further encouraged by the irregular methods of administration. Refusals and relief followed no law discoverable by the poor. In the same street one washerwoman was set up with stock, while another in equal circumstances was dismissed. In adjoining districts such various systems were adopted that of three ‘mates’ one would receive work, another a gift, and the third nothing. ‘The power of chance’ was the teaching of the Fund, started through the accidental emotions of a Lord Mayor, and they who believe in chance give up effort, become wayward, and lose power of mind and body. Chance leads her followers to poverty, and the increase of the spirit of gambling is not the least among the causes of distress. (2) The remark is sometimes made that ‘the righteous man is never found begging his bread,’ or, in other words, that there is always work for the man who can be trusted. Honesty in its fullest sense, implying absolute truth, thoroughness, and responsibility, has great value in the labour market, and agencies which increase a trust in honesty increase wealth. The tendency of the Fund has been to create a trust in lies. Its organisation of visitors and committees offered a show of resistance to lies, but over such resistance lies easily triumphed, and many notorious evil-livers got by a good story the relief denied to others. Anecdotes are common as to the way in which visitors were deceived, committees hoodwinked, and money wrongly gained, while the better sort of poor, failing to understand how so much money could have had so little effect, hold the officials to have been smart fellows who took care of themselves. The laughter roused by such talk is the laughter which demoralises, it is the praise of the power of lies, and the laughers will not be among those who by honesty do well for themselves and for others.