VIII. THE YOUNG WOMEN IN OUR WORKHOUSES. By MRS. S. A. BARNETT (Aug. 1879) 126 IX. A PEOPLE’S CHURCH. By REV. S. A. BARNETT (Nov. 1884) 142 X. CHARITABLE EFFORT. By MRS. S. A. BARNETT (Feb. 1884) 157 XI. SENSATIONALISM IN SOCIAL REFORM. By REV. S. A. BARNETT (Feb. 1886) 173 XII. PRACTICABLE SOCIALISM. By REV. S. A. BARNETT (April 1883) 191 XIII. THE WORK OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. By REV. S. A. BARNETT (Nov. 1887) 204 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PRACTICABLE SOCIALISM. I. _THE POVERTY OF THE POOR._[1] [1] Reprinted, by permission, from the _National Review_ of July 1886. It is useless to imagine that the nation is wealthier because in one column of the newspaper we read an account of a sumptuous ball or of the luxury of a City dinner if in another column there is the story of ‘death from starvation.’ It is folly, and worse than folly, to say that our nation is religious because we meet her thousands streaming out of the fashionable churches, so long as workhouse schools and institutions are the only homes open to her orphan children and homeless waifs. The nation does not consist of one class only; the nation is the whole, the wealthy and the wise, the poor and the ignorant. Statistics, however flattering, do not tell the whole truth about increased national prosperity, or about progress in development, if there is a pauper class constantly increasing, or a criminal class gaining its recruits from the victims of poverty. The nation, like the individual, is set in the midst of many and great dangers, and, after the need of education and religion has been allowed, it will be agreed that all other defences are vain if it be impossible for the men and women and children of our vast city population to reach the normal standard of robustness.