* Camberwell 865 1,537 1,492 3,894 3,360 * Rotherhithe 288 638 518 1,444 1,338 Greenwich 1,447 2,799 2,314 6,560 5,933 Woolwich — 2,506 2,173 4,679 3,110 Lewisham 320 595 394 1,309 1,253 Total of South 8,588 16,865 16,601 42,054 40,244 Dist. Total of the 34,609 55,097 48,857 138,563 140,482 Metropolis * * * * * TOTAL PAUPERISM OF THE METROPOLIS. (Population in 1861, 2,802,000.) YEARS. Number of Paupers. Total. In-door. Out-door. Fifth week of April 1869 34,609 103,954 138,563 „ „ „ 1868 34,455 106,027 140,482 „ „ „ 1867 32,728 96,765 129,493 „ „ „ 1866 30,192 71,372 101,564 This as regards parochial charity. It must not be imagined, however, from this source alone flows all the relief that the nation’s humanity and benevolence provides for the relief of its poor and helpless. Besides our parochial asylums there are many important charities of magnitude, providing a sum of at least 2,000,000_l._ a-year for the relief of want and suffering in London, independently of legal and local provision to an amount hardly calculable. We content ourselves with stating one simple fact—that all this charity, as now bestowed and applied, fails to accomplish the direct object in view. If the 2,000,000_l._ thus contributed did in some way or other suffice, in conjunction with other funds, to banish want and suffering from the precincts of the metropolis, we should have very little to say. But the fact is that, after all these incredible efforts to relieve distress, want and suffering are so prevalent that it might be fancied charity was dead amongst us. Now that, at any rate, cannot be a result in which anybody would willingly acquiesce. If the money was spent, and the poor were relieved, many people probably would never trouble themselves to inquire any further; but though the money is spent, the poor are not cured of their poverty. In reality this very fact is accountable in itself for much of that accumulation of agencies, institutions, and efforts which our statistics expose. As has been recently remarked: “A certain expenditure by the hands of a certain society fails to produce the effect anticipated, and so the result is a new society, with a new expenditure, warranted to be more successful. It would be a curious item in the account if the number and succession of fresh charities, year after year, could be stated.