Politicians, social administrators, economists, biographers and historians have shared the belief that the "Charity Organisation Society" effectively rationalized relief to the Victorian poor and illustrated the advantages of caring voluntarism over impersonal state handouts. Evidence has shown how, in provincial England, these impressions were illusory. The alleged sinful profligacy of other charitable bodies was persistently condemned by the Charity Organisation Society for fostering latent sin amongst the poor. By exposing how they failed in practice to satisfy their own prescriptions for appropriate poor relief, this volume asks whether the members of the Charity Organisation Society were themselves morally equipped to castigate other about sin.