gain in the towns. The action of indiscriminate and spasmodic charity,
which still prevails in London and other large centres of riches, is
responsible in no small measure for the poverty and degradation of city
slums.

"The far-reaching advertisement of irresponsible charity acts as a
powerful magnet. Whole sections of the population are demoralized, men
and women throwing down their work right and left in order to qualify
for relief; while the conclusion of the whole matter is intensified
congestion of the labour market--angry bitter feeling for the
insufficiency of the pittance, or rejection of the claim." So writes
Miss Potter of the famous Mansion House Relief Funds.

It is easy to see how the worthless element from our villages, the
loafer, the shiftless, the drunkard, the criminal, naturally gravitates
towards its proper place as part of the "social wreckage" of our cities.
But the size of this element must not be exaggerated. It forms a
comparatively small fraction of the whole. Our city criminal, our city
loafer, is generally home-grown, and is not supplied directly from the
country. If it were true that only the worthless portion of our country
population passed into our cities to perish in the struggle for
existence, which is so fatal in city life, we should on the whole have
reason to congratulate ourselves. But this is not so. The main body of
those who pass into city life are in fact the cream of the native
population of the country, drawn by advantages chiefly economic. They
consist of large numbers of vigorous young men, mostly between the age
of twenty and twenty-five, who leave agriculture for manufacture, or
move into towns owing to displacement of handicrafts by wholesale
manufacture.