Having now had two years’ EXPERIENCE of the DIFFICULTIES which must beset every endeavour to produce a substantial and permanent improvement in the condition of so extensive a mass of population, whose individual elements are so unsettled and fugitive;—the Committee have had a fair opportunity of judging of the practical working of the Rules that were originally adopted, and of the plan and operations which has from the first outset been acted upon. The result, they are prepared to say, amply justifies the discretion by which those Rules and that plan were dictated. It is a sufficient confirmation of the opinion they hold, that throughout the whole of the Metropolitan portion of the Diocese the same general system of District Visiting, the same active co-operation of Laity with Clergy in the work of charity, and the same general course of action, have been acknowledged as the only effectual means of coping successfully with the pressing evils arising from an overflowing population, from ignorance, improvidence, and vice; and that, under the sanction and direction of the Bishop, they have been almost universally brought into action. {10} There is one point bearing strongly upon the difficulties the Committee have had to encounter, to which they are desirous of directing especial attention; namely, how much the endeavours of the Society to ameliorate the condition of the poor would be facilitated, if greater care were taken by the donors of charity to make full inquiry into the CHARACTER and CIRCUMSTANCES of APPLICANTS, before administering relief. It is found that applicants at the doors of residents belong in general to one of three classes:— The first class consists of PERMANENT MENDICANTS; who have a more or less constant residence in this or other parishes, and are supported exclusively by the donations of charitably disposed, but undiscriminating, individuals. Instances can be pointed out, of persons who it is believed have lived in Kensington for years, professing for the most part to have some nominal occupation, yet in fact subsisting entirely upon means obtained by such systematic mendicancy. As they readily state their trade and abode when interrogated, their tale—which is but too commonly a tissue of mere invention, or at best only partially correct—is at once assumed to be true. In the event of further inquiry being instituted at their abode, the same story of course is told; and probably supported by the interested evidence of the other dwellers in the same house, who generally derive their subsistence by similar means. Relief is given; the idle and the impostor encouraged; and by so much the industrious and respectable labourer discouraged and injured, the suffering and the unfortunate deprived of their due.