ABSTRACT
A London soup charity in the depressed winter of 1797 was feeding 10,000 persons a week till the summer. Victorian charity, whether as Casual Street tips or organised philanthropy, was very big business. The public emergency relief appeals launched in times of economic distress or severe winters could also degenerate into a welter of indiscriminate charity. The most notorious episode of misdirected charity was the Mansion House Appeal fiasco of 1886, followed by the Trafalgar Square scroungers' beano of 1887. The Charity Organisation Society spelled out the problem: indiscriminate and duplicated charity compounded by lack of liaison with the casual wards aided the Embankment scroungers. Soup kitchens should be merged into a single charity, buying food cheaply in bulk and selling meals at a low but economic price; free meal scroungers would be cut off, and unified management would end overlapping.
