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The Freemason , SATURDAY , NOVEMBER 15 , 1873 .

Charity Elections.

CHARITY ELECTIONS .

The conference which took place , under the auspices of thc Lord Mayor , at the Mansion House , on October 30 th , came , as was somewhat to be anticipated , to the practical conclusion " it ' s

better to bear the ills we have , than fly to others that we know not of . " No one denies , that , as with all human institutions and arrangements , weaknesses may be

discovered and abuses may be found in our charitable institutions , but as it has been very truly said , it is " far easier to describe the evi than to point out the cure , and even if the cure

were obvious , " it is as often " still more difficult to apply it . " Our great charitable institutions have grown with the growth of this great country , are

peculiar to itself , and are so remarkably alike in their ori gin and their development , the personal and increasing benefits they convey to thousands

of our humbler sisters and brethren in the world ^ that they have attracted the wonder of foreigners , and are justly a subject of satisfaction to ourselves .

We confess , that , we do not think the preliminary treatment of this important subject has either been judicious or fair . In the first place , many of the most

conspicuous assailants of our charitable organisation , ( wc specially exempt from this criticism the worthy , and active , and philanthropic late Lord Mayor , ) know the Charities more in theory than

in practice , and their experience , or fitness for judging of the present working of these Association is " ex necessitate rei " not to be compared with that of those , whose kindly efforts have been

directed unswervingly for many continuous years to the efficient control and energetic usefulness of many of these much needed and most valuable institutions .

And 111 the next place a most unwise attack on the governors of these institutions has been made , attributing personal motives and sordid grounds to their resistance to the proposed changes .

Now this is manifestl y improper and unjust . Too much praise cannot indeed be ascribed to those many unknown and unnoticed persons , who labour on , year after year , calmly ,

unobtrusively , and with nothing of worldly recognition ) simply as an act of duty , and with an heartfelt wish to benefit their fellow creatures . It is far too much the custom , at the present

hour , in order to carry some supposed good or to compass some desired change , to asperse the actions of those who , on good grounds , deprecate the change and resist the alteration .

There seems a sort of idea amongst us all , that , " all is fair " as we say " in love and war , " and that if we only " cast a certain nmotint of dirl on others" some of it will at any rate "stick . "

Charity Elections.

Let us now see what are the changes proposed , and we will take them , as very clearly set forth in the Daily News , of October 30 th . '' The proposal of the Lord Mayor is not to take

the election from the subscribers , but to stop the traffic in votes , to discourage canvassing , and to abolish the public poll . The cases would , in fact , be submitted to the subscribers , as at

present ; but it would be done by the managers , who would send the description of the cases and their comments on them , and receive back the votes of the subscribers 3 the result of the poll

being declared by circular and advertisement . It is evident that this scheme would remove many of the abuses of charity elections without abolishing the system . "

And these changes are advocated on the following grounds , which are also equally clearly set before us in the same article of October 30 th . "On the very face of it , the system is

vicious . The object of charitable institutions is to help those who have fewest friends ; but by this method the very ground of choice is made to be that of having most friends . The most

deserving recipients of aid are those who are in the straitest circumstances and the extremest need j but those who get the help these institutions give are just those who can raise most

money or exert most interest . The candidate who has rich friends can make sure of election ; the one whose friends are all among the poor is almost equally sure of failure . Tliere is no

pretence of selection . No question can rise of the most deserving . Five or ten thousand subscribers cannot investigate a case ; and there are perhaps a hundred candidates from whom to

choose . There is therefore not only an entire absence of any guarantee that the charity is given to those who really deserve it , but the chances are , in every case , that the most needy and

probably the most deserving are rejected . It is true that in many of these institutions votes given one year may be counted in succeeding years ; but the advantage is , to some extent ,

illusory , since a person with but small resources may go on slowly piling up a few votes year after year , and each year a host of new candidates with larger resources may elbow their way past

him . Large numbers of philanthropic people have , in fact , come to the conclusion that it is better to make what effort they can to benefit a poor person privately than to attempt to . put into

the lottery of a charity election . " Now if this picture were correctl y limned in tself , if it were not rather a " wee bit" sensational piling up of the agony , " we should at once

say , make a sweeping change , even what the Daily News terms a " revolution , " but the truth is that many of these drawbacks are inseparable for many charitable institution , and are such as

at present seem to us purely unavoidable . For wc must remember that all candidates for the charities have already passed the ordeal of the House Committee . If they have not

properly investigated the cases , if they have done their duty in a perfunctory way , if any unworthy applicants are placed on the list , the fault lies

with them , not with the subscribers ; not with the charity itself . All candidates are supposed , prima facie , to 1 J . - equally necessitous , and equally deserving , and