A Treatise on Domestic Economy; For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School

had some opportunity of knowing how they will be spent. There are exceptions to this, as to every general rule, which a person of discretion can determine. But the practice, so common among benevolent persons, of giving, at least a trifle, to all who ask, lest, perchance, they may turn away some, who are really sufferers, is one, which causes more sin and misery than it cures. The writer has never known any system for dispensing charity, so successful, as the one which, in many places, has been adopted in connection with the distribution of tracts. By this method, a town or city is divided into districts; and each district is committed to the care of two ladies, whose duty it is, to call on each family and leave a tract, and make that the occasion for entering into conversation, and learning the situation of all residents in the district. By this method, the ignorant, the vicious, and the poor, are discovered, and their physical, intellectual, and moral, wants, are investigated. In some places, where the writer has resided or visited, each person retained the same district, year after year, so that every poor family in the place was under the watch and care of some intelligent and benevolent lady, who used all her influence to secure a proper education for the children, to furnish them with suitable reading, to encourage habits of industry and economy, and to secure regular attendance on public religious instruction. Thus, the rich and the poor were brought in contact, in a way advantageous to both parties; and, if such a system could be universally adopted, more would be done for the prevention of poverty and vice, than all the wealth of the Nation could avail for their relief. But this plan cannot be successfully carried out, in this manner, unless there is a large proportion of intelligent, benevolent, and self-denying, persons; and the mere distribution of tracts, without the other parts of the plan, is of very little avail. But there is one species of charity, which needs especial consideration. It is that, which