Without a certain modicum of food, comfort, good clothing, leisure and ease of mind, no human being long remains capable of producing good work. The father of a family who receives 18s. a week and pays 7s. for lodging cannot, if he also feeds his wife and children, either remain or become a very good workman. Before he can do better work he must be better paid. Mrs Bosanquet thinks otherwise. Efficiency and consequently prosperity might, she appears to believe, be enforced upon the poor by the withdrawal of such help as is now accorded them. The prospect of that beloved refuge, the workhouse, prevents them from providing for their old age; but the prospect of literal starvation would probably be more effective. The hunger and hardship of their daily lives do not furnish an adequate spur; but perhaps despair might do so. We seem to hear Mrs Chick exhorting the dying Mrs Dombey to “make an effort.” Again, that terrible pressure of the poorer upon the poor which Mr Booth regards as so serious an evil appears to Mrs Bosanquet an element of hope and strength. Morally, the charity of the poor to one another is undoubtedly a beautiful thing; economically, it is assuredly one of the causes that increase and aggravate poverty; and such diminution of pauperism as is produced by the maintenance out of the workhouse of an aged or sick relative may, in the long run, lead to the destitution of a whole family. The last result of such maintenance may, if wide-spread, be far more nationally expensive than if all the sick and aged were supported out of the public purse. Let us see, in an example of the commonest kind, how this mutual help works out. Smith and Brown, manual labourers, are working side by side at a wage of £1 a week or thereabouts. Both are married men with children. Both are contributing to a provident society which, if they survive the age of sixty, will furnish a small pittance to their declining years. Slack times come; Smith is discharged; Brown is retained. Within a fortnight, Smith, with his wife and children, begins to suffer hardship; the household property goes, piecemeal, to the pawnshop; the “club money” is no longer forthcoming, and Smith’s provision for his old age lapses. Brown, whose pound a week affords, as may be supposed, no great superfluity for him and his, finds himself unable to see his “mate” and his mate’s children in want of bread; Brown’s club money and a good deal more which can ill be spared goes to their assistance, and Brown’s provision for old age lapses.