Excerpt from How to Help Cases of Distress: A Handy Reference Book for Almoners and Others In this, the Introduction, the attempt is made to furnish such general information as a person desirous of assisting those in distress would wish to have at hand. Many are ignorant of the powers and functions of our public authorities in the administration of relief, and overlook the large and complicated machinery which the community has from time to time created for that purpose. To them an account of the duties and responsibilities of these authorities, and of the machinery which has been placed at their disposal, may be of service. On the other hand, to many who are more or less skilled in the administration of relief a short book of reference, which is written from their own point of view, and deals only with the facts with which they are primarily concerned, may be useful for consultation. The selection of subjects in this book is based on the needs of every-day practical charitable work. A case of distress might be cited as a reason for almost every paragraph. 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.