It is probable that the highest form of charity, involving real and serious self-denial, is much more common among the poor, and even the very poor, than among the rich. I think most persons who have had much practical acquaintance with the dealings of the poor with one another will confirm this. It is certainly far less common among those who are at the opposite pole of fortune. They have not had the same discipline, or indeed the same possibility of self-sacrifice, or the same means of realising the pains of poverty, and there is another reason which tends not unnaturally to check their benevolence. A man with the reputation of great wealth soon finds himself beleaguered by countless forms of mendicancy and imposture. He comes to feel that there is a general conspiracy to plunder him, and he is naturally thrown into an attitude of suspicion and self-defence. Often, though he may give largely and generously, he will do so under the veil of strict anonymity, in order to avoid a reputation for generosity which will bring down upon him perpetual solicitations. If he is an intellectual man he will probably generalise from his own experience. He will be deeply impressed with the enormous evils that have sprung from ill-judged charity, and with the superiority even from a philanthropic point of view of a productive expenditure of money. And in truth it is difficult to overrate the evil effects of injudicious charities in discouraging thrift, industry, foresight and self-respect. They take many forms; some of them extremely obvious, while others can only be rightly judged by a careful consideration of remote consequences. There are the idle tourists who break down, in a once unsophisticated district, that sense of self-respect which is one of the most valuable lessons that early education can give, by flinging pence to be scrambled for among the children, or who teach the poor the fatal lesson that mendicancy or something hardly distinguishable from mendicancy will bring greater gain than honest and continuous work. There is the impulsive, uninquiring charity that makes the trade of the skilful begging-letter writer a lucrative profession, and makes men and women who are rich, benevolent and weak, the habitual prey of greedy impostors. There is the old-established charity for ministering to simple poverty which draws to its centre all the pauperism of the neighbouring districts, depresses wages, and impoverishes the very district or class it was intended to benefit. There are charities which not only largely diminish the sufferings that are the natural consequence and punishment of vice; but even make the lot of the criminal and the vicious a better one than that of the hard-working poor. There are overlapping charities dealing with the same department, but kept up with lavish waste through the rivalry of different religious denominations, or in the interests of the officials connected with them;