| <The Saturday Review Jan. 12, 1861>
| <The Blunders of Benevolence>
| <Lord Robert Cecil>
| <pb n="34">
| The old complaint of the mismanagement of charitable 
| associations is beginning to be heard again.  The 
| tendency of jobbery, and that constitutional dislike of 
| audits which seems inseparable from the consciousness 
| of having other people's money to give away, will 
| probably continue to impede benevolent undertakings 
| so long as they are managed by large committees.  The 
| same easy temper of mind which enables a man to sit 
| through the discussions of a charitable committee gives 
| him a large-hearted and genial contempt for audits and 
| other checks against dishonesty, and jobbery is the 
| inherent vice of numerous bodies of electors entrusted 
| with the power of electing to offices of profit.  What 
| large constituencies can do in this respect the 
| Universities occasionally show us on a grand scale.  
| The only remedy, will be, according to the fashion of 
| the day, to submit all the office-bearers of charitable 
| associations to a competitive examination.  Candidates 
| for the place of committee men should be examined as 
| to their capacity for sitting several hours at a long table, 
| with their hands folded doing nothing, and wearing a 
| serious expression of countenance.  Secretaries would 
| have to be examined generally in their capacity for 
| unctuous eloquence, and would be selected according to 
| their ability to construct the most affecting appeal out 
| of the slenderest materials.  It might be expedient also 
| that they should be questioned upon the laws of honour 
| as applied to the subject of vouchers and receipts, and 
| should be required to exhibit the form of letter in which 
| they would resent the insult of an application for those 
| degrading instruments.  Auditors should be examined as 
| to the various forms of checking accounts applicable to 
| the respective cases of a patron, a friend, an 
| acquaintance, and an enemy.
| But the errors of benevolence are by no means confined 
| to abuse of patronage or unlimited trust in secretaries.  
| That want of the sterner element of business-like habit 
| and knowledge of the world which some men will call 
| innocence, and others greenness, produces far graver 
| evils than mere waste of money.  It is apt to encourage 
| hypocrisy and vice.  What, for instance, is likely to be 
| the practical working of the society which introduces its 
| difficulties to the world in the following advertisement:  
| ~~
| <q> </q>
| We will not dwell on the <hi rend="italic"> naivete 
| </hi> of the Society's account of its operations in Long 
| Annuities.  The termination of those securities has 
| evidently come upon them wholly by surprise.  They 
| speak of their losses <q> </q>, as they might speak of 
| losses by the failure of the harvest or of some promising 
| speculation ~~ a mysterious Providential decree, the 
| consequences of which they may fairly call upon the 
| benevolent to help them in averting.  But our complaint 
| is not of their finance, but of their professed object.  
| What do they expect to be the result of offering relief 
| exclusively to <p> "decided Christians?"  </p> 
| Competitive examinations are undoubtedly the rage, but 
| this competition of decisive Christianity beats anything 
| that has yet been attempted in this line.  How do they 
| distinguish between a decided and an undecided 
| Christian?  Is it the length of the face?  Or is there an 
| inimitable snuffle which an experienced Secretary 
| recognises at first hearing?  Do the candidates for a 
| certificate of decisive Christianity give in a return of 
| their attendances at church, distinguishing the days on 
| which they kept awake through the sermon?  Or are 
| they made to confide their experiences to the 
| Secretary's private ear, he marking <p> "regenerate" 
| </p> and <p> "unregenerate" </p> against their names, 
| according to circumstances?  Generally it is young 
| ladies of the scrupulous age ~~ seventeen to twenty-five
| ~~ who pour these gushing confidences into the 
| clerical bosom; in which cases, no doubt, they must be 
| very refreshing to a chastened spirit.  But from elderly 
| paupers of more than sixty-five years of age we should 
| think it would be insipid.  Besides, as the usual tests of 
| regeneracy ~~ abstinence from pink ribbons, dancing, 
| and play-going ~~ are not applicable to these poor old 
| folks, it must be difficult even for the most experienced 
| vessel to decide whether they are in a state of 
| justification or not.  But, whatever the Secretary's 
| shibboleth may be, or that of the clergyman to whom he 
| trusts, we are very certain that it must produce a crop of 
| hypocrisy out of all proportion to the hunger it relieves.  
| The set of poor women who go to Church regularly in 
| consideration of the weekly dole of soup from the 
| parsonage are very apt to be the worst characters in the 
| parish.  Madame de Maintenon thought she would 
| convert the French court by reserving the Royal favour 
| exclusively for<p> "decided Christians," </p> and the 
| result was, that she trained up the generation who were 
| the boon-companions of Dubois.  The experience of 
| pious parsonesses as to the expediency of reinforcing 
| the promises of the Beatitudes by promises of weekly 
| soup, generally coincides with the experience of 
| Madame de Maintenon.
| Another curious instance of the inconceivable 
| simplicity of mind which characterizes the benevolent 
| world is the mode in which it is the fashion to attempt 
| the evangelization of the Social Evil.  There is a perfect 
| <hi rend="italic"> furor </hi> just now for the 
| reclamation of these interesting creatures.  A 
| considerable proportion of the charitable schemes 
| which crowd the advertising columns of the 
| <hi rend="italic"> Times </hi> are projects of one kind or 
| another for Christianizing the Magdalens.  In itself this 
| is a very noble aspiration ~~ all the more noble that it is 
| not very likely to be realized, except on the very 
| smallest scale.  It has all the romantic grandeur which 
| belonged to Canon Townshend's expedition to Rome 
| for the purpose of Protestantizing the Pope.  The only 
| thing we object to is the mode in which it is to be done.  
| The Magdalens are to be made devout by exactly the 
| same process as that which is to manufacture <p> 
| "decided Christians" </p> in the neighbourhood of St. 
| Paul's.  The soup-conversions, the invariable refuge of 
| proselytists in despair, meet us here again.  The 
| Refuges and Penitentiaries are undoubtedly places in 
| which the best spiritual instruction is offered to the 
| Magdalen; but they are also places which present the 
| more carnal attractions of good clothing, warm fires, 
| plenty to eat and drink, and skilful medical attendance.  
| The hope is that the Magdalen will come to eat, and, 
| like the pickpocket in the story, remain to pray.  
| Theologians have divided with exact science, the 
| various modes in which religious anxieties are 
| re-awakened in hearts that have lost them; but they have 
| omitted to include the prospect of a good supper in the 
| catalogue.  Of course, reports differ as to the degrees of 
| success which this mode of propagating the Gospel 
| attains ~~ some putting it at zero, and some at 
| boiling-point.  But it is not to be wondered at if many
| <pb n="35">
| of the Magdalens treat the Penitentiaries as a sort of 
| paddock, in which they can turn themselves out to grass 
| for a time whenever their health begins to suffer or their 
| trade to slacken.  This, however, is not the only evil.  If 
| it were, we should simply have to regret that so many 
| estimable people were wasting their money in chasing 
| such a will-o'-the-wisp.  But it has a terrible tendency to 
| foster the vice against which it professes to contend.  
| Those who devote themselves so earnestly to minister 
| to the Magdalen forget that there are thousands of 
| maids-of-all-work in London who are not unobservant 
| spectators of the favours lavished on their erring sisters.  
| Let them try to look at the Penitentiary system from the 
| point of view of a maid-of-all-work, who drudges from 
| morning to night for half-a-crown a-week and her keep.  
| She knows companions of her youth, no richer than 
| herself, who flaunt up and down the street, dressed, as 
| she thinks, like any lady, enjoying unlimited freedom 
| and unlimited gin.  Naturally, she thinks this is 
| pleasanter than ten hours' ceaseless scrubbing, and is 
| strongly tempted to adopt the vocation which leads to 
| such results.  The only thing that comes in aid of her 
| principles to deter her is, that she has heard that it often 
| ends, after a few years, in broken health, destitution, 
| and an early death in the workhouse.  But the 
| acquaintances who are urging her to do as they have 
| done, are easily able to pacify her alarms on this head.  
| A number of religious gentlemen have kindly removed 
| all difficulties of this kind.  They have provided a sort 
| of Chelsea Hospital for the disabled of the profession, 
| in which her vocation can be laid aside whenever it 
| ceases to pay; so that she need trouble herself with no 
| fears of the death in the workhouse.  With principle on 
| the one side, and every earthly advantage on the other, 
| we leave the philanthropists to judge which is likely to 
| carry off the victory.  It is no theory, but a mournful 
| fact, that the contrast between the care lavished on the 
| wicked and the neglect which is the lot of the innocent 
| works deep and terrible results in the hearts of the class 
| from whom first the pavement, and then the 
| penitentiaries, are recruited.
| But the mania goes on merrily.  It has risen from point 
| to point till it has culminated in the midnight meetings 
| in St. James's Hall.  There is something exquisitely 
| thoughtful and refined in this last attention to the wants 
| of an interesting class.  There was something gross and 
| vulgar in the beef and mutton and costs which were the 
| bald attractions held out by the penitentiaries.  The 
| imagination requires food as well as the body.  Woman 
| has social instincts which are cultivated in every class 
| of the community, and from the gratification of which 
| the Magdalens ought not to be excluded.  Some women 
| satisfy it by going to evening parties ~~ others, more 
| precise and demure, content themselves with 
| missionary meetings.  Which species of entertainment 
| the Magdalens, as a body, would prefer, is, in the resent 
| imperfect state of knowledge with respect to them, 
| difficult to ascertain.  It was resolved, therefore, to give 
| them an evening party and a missionary meeting all in 
| one.  The most beautiful hall in London was hired, and, 
| in order to suit their peculiar habits, was advertised to 
| open at midnight.  When midnight came, 
| the brilliantly-lighted hall was opened, 
| and the fair guests flocked in, 
| some of them in costumes so elegant that an 
| enterprising publisher has since thought it worth his 
| while to give them to the world.  Conversation flowed 
| freely, tea and buttered toast were handed round ~~ the 
| most ethereal form of victuals in which a spiritual call 
| could possibly be disguised ~~ and several gentlemen, 
| renowned for their oratorical powers, contributed to the 
| entertainment of the evening.  We see that the 
| promoters of the <hi rend="italic"> reunion </hi> 
| declare that it was a complete success; and we 
| thoroughly believe them.  Those who happened to pass 
| through Regent-street in the small hours just after any 
| one of the entertainments was closed will entirely 
| confirm their boast.  It had obviously been a success.  
| The street was full of lively groups; and the gentle 
| subjects who had just been preached at were animated, 
| we had almost said frisky, in their spirits, and more than 
| affable in their bearing.  The experiment so 
| triumphantly made is likely to become an institution.  It 
| appears that a succession of <p> "midnight meetings" 
| </p> of a still more brilliant character are contemplated 
| for the present year.  There is only one thing now 
| wanting to their complete success.  If Magdalens are 
| remarkable for anything, it is for a proper reverence for 
| the aristocratic institutions of our country.  The 
| promoters of Penitentiaries have felt this so strongly 
| that they have founded a kind of hierarchy of refuges, 
| so that penitents may be accommodated according to 
| their birth, and miserable sinners of a higher class may 
| not be contaminated by having to weep in company 
| with miserable sinners of a lower.  We recommend the 
| promoters of the midnight meetings to do something 
| towards satisfying this laudable instinct.  Is there no 
| way of putting their entertainments under fashionable 
| patronage?  Can they not have a "respectable" midnight 
| meeting, like the <p> "respectable" </p> night at the 
| analogous institution of Cremorne two years ago?  It 
| would draw enormously.  Fashionable ladies would 
| eagerly throng ~~ as they did to Cremorne ~~ to enjoy 
| the excitement of standing about, laughing, talking, and 
| drinking tea in the very places in which the 
| <hi rend="italic"> demi monde </hi> were in the habit of 
| doing the same thing.  And then they might keep up the 
| illusion by having the same orators to address them; 
| and, if they liked it, the very same sermons too.  It 
| would be quite as <hi rend="italic"> piquant </hi> as 
| Cremorne.  Nor would its results be an unimportant 
| gain to the good cause.  Very few Magdalens would 
| like to be out of the fashion; and those who were 
| strong-minded enough to resist the fascinations of 
| buttered toast and damnatory eloquence would come 
| when they heard that duchesses had set the example.