So quietly and unobtrusively do these self-constituted guardians of public morality perform the arduous duties they undertake, that it may be safely assumed not one person in a thousand is aware what their prime objects are, let alone the means by which they are accomplished. As regards the Mendicity Society, there can be no doubt what is the popular impression. It is commonly regarded as a sort of amateur detective association for the discovery of fraudulent begging,—a Society that has in its employ certain cunning individuals of the detested breed of “spies,” who earn their wages by lurking in shady places, and peeping over men’s shoulders, and covertly listening to their private conversation. The full extent of the Society’s usefulness, according to vulgar prejudice, is represented by the unfortunate “cadger” pounced on in the act of receiving alms, and carried before a magistrate to account for that enormous iniquity. People, however, who know no more of the Society than this, know only of the smallest and least important of its functions. It is a poor’s-relief association on an extensive scale. It has its labour-sheds for testing the genuineness of the mendicants that apply at the office, to say nothing of a real treadmill of its own. Moreover it proclaims its ability to offer suitable employment to _every_ able-bodied mendicant referred to it. The following is the Society’s method of dealing. The plan of the institution is to provide subscribers with tickets, which are intended to be distributed to street-beggars only, and which will insure admission to the Society’s office, where the applicant is examined by the sitting or assistant manager, who directs such immediate relief as in his judgment may appear proper.