support the Visitors in their arduous, and too often thankless, labours; and to second them in their endeavours to bring about a permanent amelioration in the condition of the deserving poor. That a great and remarkable diminution has taken place in the number of applicants of this class at the houses of the residents since the institution of this Society, is felt and confessed in almost all quarters. And if in any instances it has appeared, or has been thought, that no such diminution has occurred, the Committee, from documents before them, cannot help being satisfied that the cause and the remedy of the evil lie equally in the hands of those who suffer from such applications. So long as relief is given at the doors without full inquiry, so long will persons of this class be found to ask for it: so long as bounties are conferred without respect to character and circumstances, so long will mendicants be encouraged to exist in the same state of debased and dependent pauperism. {13} It is evident that one of the first objects to be sought, both in respect of time and importance, is to FIX and SETTLE the population. {14} The means and measures which immediately present themselves are those whose tendency is, on the one hand, to encourage and assist the laborious, deserving, and permanent portion of it: and, on the other hand, to initiate, and stimulate the growth of providence and industry in those who have not yet learned the necessity and the duty of striving to help themselves and to improve their own condition; and at the same time to check the migratory and mendicant habits of that class of persons, the term of whose residence in any one place usually depends exclusively upon the limits of the indiscriminate benevolence of charitable individuals in the neighbourhood. Such measures are those which the Committee have taken; and in endeavouring by their means to attain the end desired, they trust they shall in future receive the full co-operation of those parishioners who, with every desire of doing good to the utmost of their power, yet may have sometimes been unawares throwing away valuable resources upon unworthy objects; upon persons, at all events, whose cases are not THE MOST deserving cases of industry, respectability, sickness, and distress. These, then, are the classes of persons of whom it may be safely affirmed that a very large majority of the APPLICANTS FOR RELIEF AT THE HOUSES of the residents is composed. And this statement will, the Committee hope, exhibit the strong necessity of discriminating inquiry being made previously to relief being afforded, not only in order to avoid giving encouragement to such persons, but also in justice to the really deserving poor, in order that they (whose cases are for the most part known only to the District Visitors and the Clergy) may receive that assistance and relief which all will confess to be their due, and every one desire that they should obtain.