A Guide to Charity and to the Philanthropic Work of Victoria (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from A Guide to Charity and to the Philanthropic Work of Victoria In 1888, the Charity Organisation Society published a short Guide to the Charities of Melbourne, but financial resources did not justify a repetition of the experiment in subsequent years. The Society had, accordingly, to rest satisfied with the small and somewhat scrappy Directory of Victorian Charities, which it compiled and issued yearly, until 1910, along with, and as part of, its Annual Report. It felt, however, that something more comprehensive and detailed would be of great assistance to philanthropic workers, and to the public generally, and that feeling led, a few years ago, to the planning of this Guide. Initial financial difficulties were at length cleared away by generous donations towards the cost of compilation and publication from the Trustees of the late Edward Wilson and from the Felton Bequests Committee. Further irritating delays were experienced by the inexplicable difficulty of obtaining from a remarkably large percentage of Victorian charities the particulars which the Editor thought it desirable to insert in the Guide. This, indeed, has provided the one regrettable feature in an otherwise interesting work. In many cases, requests had to be repeated time and time again before the information required was forthcoming, and reference to the body of the Guide will disclose not a few charities from whom no information whatever has been received. Indeed, only the desire to produce a Guide as nearly complete as human effort would permit actuated the persistence that eventually dragged from many secretaries the necessary information. Despite the great care that has been taken. and tit persistence that has been exerted, to render the information in this Guide complete, omissions may be discovered. The Editor will take it as a kindly act to have his attention drawn to these, likewise to any errors that may have crept into the text, so that they may be rectified in possible future issues. Care has also been exercised to exclude from the Guide agencies exploiting the poor and the public, or organisations regarding whose bona fides some doubt exists. A few have been included, however, that might come under the latter category, and it should accordingly be distinctly understood that the inclusion of any institution or society does not necessarily imply a recommendation of its merits or its usefulness. In many instances, two or more societies may be found to be doing similar work over practically the same area, and in arriving at a decision regarding their comparative utility, the reader must use his own judgment. If this does not satisfy him, however, he is invited to apply to the Charity Organisation Society, which may be of assistance to him in his difficulty. The financial assistance received towards the publication of the Guide has enabled the Charity Organisation Society to issue it to the public at a nominal price. It is earnestly hoped that the popularity and value of the Guide will be sufficiently great to justify the time and trouble that have been expended in its preparation. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.