Many of the recently arrived immigrants do not apply for relief but for tools for their respective trades. These are to a large extent persons who, when economic con ditions are favorable, eventually become self-supporting.
In the summer of 1899 a careful study was made by the manager of the United Hebrew Charities of the city of New York of one thousand applicants who originally asked for assistance in the fall of 1894. This investigation showed that 60 per cent did not apply after that year ; 73 per cent did not apply after 1895, 80 per cent after 1896, 85 per cent after 1897, and 93 per cent after 1898 — leaving 7 per cent of the original number still being assisted dur ing the year 1899. Of one hundred cases investigated, 12 per cent were found to be self-supporting, 22 per cent had removed from New York City, having been assisted grigi nally with transportation, and 66 per cent could not be found and were doubtless to a large extent self-supporting. These figures demonstrate both the exceptional conditions under which Hebrew families have been compelled to ask for assistance and the absence of a pauperizing effect in the aid given.
Perhaps the earliest Protestant church charity which became permanent is the Boston " Quarterly Charity Lec ture," formed in 1720 by a few persons who held quarterly meetings on Sunday evenings for benevolent purposes at which some member was invited to preach.' On March 6, 1720, Cotton Mather gave the first of these lectures of which there is a record. The meeting is now held annu ally. The collections made at this lecture and the income from two endowed funds, yielding from $1500 to $1800 annually, are distributed equally among four Congrega tional churches who dispense them according to the pre vailing custom of the charitable organization of each church.
The proportion of destitute families among adherents of the Roman Catholic and the Jewish faiths is larger than among the membership of Protestant churches. To a large extent, however, the Protestant churches have aided families whose connection with the church is a very shad 1 Chapter on " Charities of Boston," by George Silsbee Hale, in " Memo rial History of Boston," p. 660.
owy one, consisting oftentimes merely of the attendance of children upon the Sunday-school or even proximity of residence.
St. George's Protestant Episcopal church in the city of New York disbursed a poor fund in the year ending April 1, 1899, amounting to $2400, besides which $159 was sub scribed for Thanksgiving dinners for the poor ; a guild and employment society gave work through the winter to forty women who were paid $733.15 ; the Helping Hand Society
aided in providing hand sewing, as a result of which eight hundred and fifty-two garments were made by beneficiaries, and over $400 additional was paid in wages and in the form of dry goods and groceries ; a Seaside Cottage for summer excursionists, accommodating forty resident guests and from one to two hundred day excursionists at a time, was maintained for thirteen weeks at a total expense of $3295.62, all of which was contributed in the Easter Sun day collection. The chief items in the disbursement of the poor fund proper were : to pensioners, $420 ; to the sick, $411.28; to the poor direct, through the clergy and deacon esses, $325 ; medicine, $180.86 ; orthopedic and other appliances, $80.75 ; groceries, $738.84 (of this amount, however, $302.50 represents sales at low prices, and only the balance, $436.34, donations) ; coal, $48.35 ; meals and lodgings, $3.70 ; rent, $19 ; shoes, $48.65. This amount was obtained chiefly from communion alms in amounts varying from $11.36 in September to $202.01 in January. The number of families to whom groceries were given dur ing the year was one hundred and sixty-six, and about an equal number made regular purchases.
In Trinity Church of New York City and its eight chap els the appropriations for the poor, exclusive of those for the maintenance of hospitals in which the parish is inter ested, amounted to $5850.61. Of this over $1000 was for burials, and $631 for medical services to the poor of one of the chapels.
St. Bartholomew's parish, while disbursing a poor fund of smaller amount, has an even larger number of special enterprises for the elevation and improvement of the poor. The poor fund for the year ending November 1, 1899, amounted to $1725.27, of which sum $200.22 was from loans returned by beneficiaries. Except the sum of $227.35 this amount may be said to have been expended in the chari table relief of needy families, though it was for a variety of purposes, including nursing and medical aid, clothing, funerals, rents, cash loans, and payments of fees in the Employment Bureau maintained by the same parish. Be sides the poor fund the parish disbursed through its visitor $416 in the form of pensions, paid wages, etc., in a tailor shop amounting to $1632.74, enabling the shop to give away or sell at moderate prices 1248 garments. There was disbursed in fresh-air work $2000, and smaller sums hi other special ways. This church maintains also a Penny Provident Fund in which there are 2648 depositors who saved in the current year the sum of $1844.82.