The state was at length aroused to take in hand this entire mendicancy case, in common with that of crime. The two cases had a strong point of contact, and the management of the one merged substantially into that of the other. The great object of the Government, in facing the difficulties of this question was, on the one hand, the adequate and discriminative care for all real poverty or destitution; and, on the other, the entire abolition of indiscriminate, irregular, unsystematic charity. But it was not proposed, on the Government's part, to intervene as to either supplying the necessary funds, or assuming the management. On the contrary, no small hope of the new system was that it would eventually dispense entirely with the degrading and demoralizing public Poor Law, a hope which was, indeed, eventually realized.
The proposed new system consisted, substantially, of an adequate extension of the then best subsisting forms of "Charity Organization." The State inaugurated a Ministry of Charity, which included, for the time, the old Poor Law administration; and it thereupon summoned to its help both the philanthropic sentiment and the united systematic effort of the whole country. The great appeal was not made in vain. When adequate preparation had thus been effected, the Government issued their earnest exhortation, amounting, indeed, to parental command, that thenceforward all indiscriminate, all unsystematic charity should come to an end.
The State was in no way disposed to conceal what it was about; so that there was ample warning to the entire begging fraternity, of the revolution that was about to fall upon them. Nor was the warning
