Mr. Labouchere is singularly unfair to a new profession. Beggary has long been a recognised profession, with its traditions, customs, and past-masters, and it is time that philanthropy should now be admitted to an equal status. There is no reason in the world why it should be left in the hands of amateurs, who muddle away funds by their lack of science and experience. Supposing a man sees his way to doing good--founding a home for incurables, or drunkards, or establishing a dispensary, or anything you please--why should he not make a living by it? What if he does get five hundred a year, is he not worth it, provided always the institution fulfils a useful function and is not a sham? Surely he does more for Society in return for his money than a Treasury clerk! Probably but for him--but for his wish to earn an income--the charitable institution would never have come into existence. Political economy already shows us how the individual's desire for profit brings humanity all its blessings, opens up new countries for it, and supplies them with wars and railways. If men did not buy shares with a view to a percentage on their savings, the march of civilisation would come to a halt. Since the philanthropy of percentage is so obvious, why should we not recognise the percentage of philanthropy? Charity has gone into business. Why not? [Sidenote: The Privileges of Poverty.] The only people who seem to escape the malady of the century are the poor. The _Weltschmerz_ touches them not; however great their suffering, it is always individual. The privileges of poverty are, I fear, insufficiently appreciated in these grasping times. It is not only income-tax that the poor man is exempt from. There is a much more painful tax on income than the pecuniary--it is the thought of those who are worsted in the struggle for bare existence. _Vae victis!_ Yet those who achieve the bare existence, who starve not, neither shiver, have surely enviable compensations. Not theirs the distressful, wearying problems of sociology. Far from feeling any responsibility for their fellow-beings, they do not even fulfil their own personal duty to society,--witness the breeding of babies in back streets. They have no sympathy with the troubles of any other class--they eat their hard crust and they drink their bitter beer without a thought of the dyspepsia of the diner-out, and their appetite is not dulled by any suspicion of heart-sickness in good society. Starvation other than physical they do not understand, and spiritual struggles are caviare. The state of the rich does not give them sleepless nights--they have no yearnings to reform them or amend their condition. The terrible overcrowding of the upper classes on Belgravian staircases wakes not a pang; they are untouched by the sufferings of insufficiently-clad ladies in draughty stalls and royal antechambers; and the grievances of old army men move them not. Not theirs to ponder