is used by the girls during the same period, and No. 10 by the younger boys. In these three houses 1,850 boys and girls slept in 1892, and the free meals given the applicants at the All Night Refuge numbered 11,285.

But the open door is not only for the little ones. At Nos. 622, 624 and 626 Commercial Road is the Labour House for Destitute Youths, where lads of from seventeen upwards are sheltered and tested for a few months, and if found to be honest, decent and industrious, have situations found for them at home, at sea, or in the colonies. There are over a hundred of these difficult subjects here as a rule, employed in chopping wood, and making boxes and mineral waters. During last year 665 of them were dealt with, 205 of whom were sent away as emigrants, and since the home was started twelve years ago, 3,000 lads have been helped here and given a fresh start in life.

The houses we have as yet mentioned are on the barrack system; for the girls, the cottage method is employed. At Barkingside, near Ilford, there is a model village of some 50 separate cottages, and five larger households, with accommodation for nearly a thousand inmates, each cottage being supervised by a "mother," who has from 16 to 25 girls under her charge. This pretty little settlement has lately been made more complete by the addition of one of the prettiest of children's churches, to be followed in due time, it is hoped, by a hospital and new schools.

Another brigade of the Barnardo army is encamped at Sturge House, in the Bow Road, where there is a Free Registry and Home for Servants, whence about 400 are sent to situations in a year or helped in other ways. For older girls there is another shelter in Alfred Street, Bow Road; and then, as coping with another difficulty, there is the Factory Girls' Club and Institute at Limehouse. In addition to these there is the Beehive in Mare Street, Hackney, to which go the girls above the Ilford age; and, further, there is the Rescue Home.

The infants used to be sent to Ilford, but there is no room for them there now, and to see them you must journey to Babies' Castle at Hawkhurst in Kent, where you will find about 100 in residence, some of them very young indeed. Of the 69 admitted last year, 18 were little mites less than a year old, and one of them had only been in the world 13 days.

Yet another branch, and that back again in Stepney Causeway, where is the old infirmary, rebuilt in the Jubilee year as Her Majesty's Hospital. Here there are 74 cots, and the inpatients for a year number 758, while the outpatients bring the total cases up to nearly 5,000, which share no less than 761 separate diseases amongst them, such is the multitude of our ailments, or the mystery of their classification.

Then, also in Stepney Causeway, is the City Messenger Brigade, 96 strong, the members of which are generally placed out in good situations before their stay of 18 months is over; and of much the same class is the Shoeblack Brigade in Three Colt Street, Limehouse. With these we

365

may group the Burdett Dormitory, in Burdett Road, where 60 or 70 lads sleep every night, and which is also used as an overflow branch from the Stepney and other Homes.

Then there are the Children's Free LodgingHouses, one in Commercial Street, Whitechapel, the other in Dock Street. Last year these two houses provided 50,000 free meals, and 36,000 free beds for those for whom no other door was open save the casual ward or the common lodginghouse. At these houses a three-fold work is attempted, girls and young women in absolute want are sheltered, children are given a temporary refuge, and those who have wandered from home are restored to their friends. Another outpost is in Grove Road, where the Children's Fold receives 100 little boys of 10 and under, until they are moved on to Leopold House. In Copperfield Road is the Working Lads' Institute, besides the well-known schools for the children of the district, nearly 800 of whom are under instruction in the week day, while the Sunday attendance exceeds 2,000. At these schools 69,000 free meals were supplied in 1892, besides over 5,000 gifts of boots and clothes.

In addition to all this, a vast amount of mission work is carried on among the men and women. There is the People's Mission Church at the Edinburgh Castle, which twenty years ago was a notorious gin-shop and music-hall, where the year's return shows nearly 300,000 attendances at the services, and over 100,000 attendances at the temperance, social and educational meetings. Then there are St. Ann's Gospel Hall, the Earl Cairns' Mission Hall, the Gloucester Place Mission Hall, and the East End Medical Mission in Shadwell, where the patients number over 10,000 a year and the prescriptions dispensed exceed 22,500; in addition to over 8,000 relief orders for food and coals. Besides all these, there are two homes for deaconesses, one in Limehouse, and one in Mile End Road, from which some 15,000 visits are made, and in connection with which about 1,800 religious services are held during the year, in addition to the distribution of 12,000 free orders for food, and hospital, and other tickets. The work also includes two coffee palaces, the Edinburgh Castle in the Rhodeswell Road and the Dublin Castle at Mile End, which are practically run as workmen's clubs, one of them having a good gymnasium.

But these are mere offshoots, necessary and natural; the main work is with the children. Of these 2,000 odd were last year boarded out in 118 rural centres, while over 300 of the weakly were treated for a change of air at the convalescent home at Felixstowe. Farther to the north of this, at Yarmouth, is one of the shipping agencies from which some of the bigger boys are found situations on fishing-smacks and small coasters. Another of these shipping agencies is at Cardiff, where berths are mostly obtained for them on long-voyage trading vessels. The number that go to sea is, however, very small. Last year only 113 were so disposed of, 45 going from Yarmouth, and the rest from Cardiff and the various London Docks. In other situations in this country, over 1,400 girls and

boys were placed; and these beginners in life are not lost sight of, but are encouraged to continue in touch with the institution, and one of the not least interesting events at the annual meetings is the distribution of prizes to some 200 or more old boys and girls who have kept their situations with credit, some of them for nine years.

But a large number of those that pass through the homes leave the country as emigrants. These are said to be "the flower of the flock"; only those are sent who are in robust physical and mental health, who have proved themselves to be thoroughly upright, honest, and virtuous, and who have been specially trained for colonial life either in the workshops or at the farm-school at Bromyard in Worcestershire, which Mr. Richard Phipps has maintained at his sole expense for the last twelve years.

In Canada the homes have three emigration centres. The girls go to the one at Peterborough in Ontario, the boys either go to Toronto or to Russell in Manitoba. Last year 596 boys and 131 girls were sent across the Atlantic to swell the army of similar young colonists, of whom over 98 per cent. were doing credit to themselves and their training and supervision, for these newcomers are not simply placed in situations immediately and left to shift anyhow. Their work and whereabouts are known for years, and they are visited and corresponded with until they are of an age to be left to their own guidance. The girls are mostly placed out in service, for which they have been carefully prepared; the younger boys go to Toronto; the elder are passed on direct to Russell to work on the Industrial Farm of 10,000 acres until they become able, under a special colonisation scheme, arranged with the Canadian Government, to take up a settlement of their own. All the emigrants do not go to Canada; some 440 odd have journeyed to the Cape and Australia, but these have either gone individually or in small groups. Canadian scheme is now worked with large parties numbering over a hundred at a time, and thus no moral influence is lost by too early a relaxation of the leading strings.

The

The secret in fact of this great success is the continuance of tone until the character is fully formed. The religious teaching throughout is on broad Protestant lines, and the candidates and their friends, or guardians, when discoverable, are told this while the enquiries are being made; and if there is any reason to suppose that the child is a Roman Catholic, they are advised to withdraw their application and seek assistance from their co-religionists. But occasionally these guardians are content to mislead and keep their religion in the background until it pays them to declare it. Then it is that we may hear of habeas corpus, and the vexatious legal proceedings arise, which happily have cost the charity nothing up to the present, inasmuch as their expense has been borne by a fund specially subscribed for the purpose among a select few, which fund has always had a balance on the right side.

And in fact every penny subscribed for the homes goes to the homes and is accounted for in detail, as are all the amounts received from the

industries and other sources; and every branch has its separate account of income and expenditure. The daily expense of keeping all the branches going is of course heavy; it is never less than 250l., of which 150l. is required for food. A large amount; but consider what is achieved with it!

Average out the cost per head of the recipients of this truly practical charity, and compare it with what is met with in so many quarters elsewhere. Send 107. to Dr. Barnardo and you will defray the entire cost of emigrating a boy or girl and placing him or her in suitable employment in Ontario, including outfit, rail fares and ocean passage. Send him 137. 108. and you defray the entire cost of supporting a boy or girl boarded out in some rural district. Send him 167. and you support a healthy child in his homes for a year. In short a child is fed, clothed, lodged and educated in Dr. Barnardo's Homes for less than tenpence three-farthings a day.

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“I

Truth Untold.

W. J. GORDON.

"If it were not so, I would have told you."

WOULD have told you." So He soothes the mind, Each doubting cry, each fevered heart-pulsation, By leading us, beyond His words, to find

In His own Self the deeper revelation.

He "would have told!" So faith already knows,
Claiming love's secret by abundant token,
While in His inmost heart we find repose

More perfect than from words He might have spoken.
He would have told us, if life's powers, so grand
In their achievement, grander in their yearning,
Through earthly years just waking to expand-
If all were only dust to dust returning.

If of His presence, which so helpful seems,
And years make brighter, dying could bereave us,
If all our spiritual growth were fed on dreams,
He would have told, for He would not deceive us.
Men's wistful glances 'midst the tears and strife
Had strangely moved Him; and where zeal untiring
Climbs strongly Godward, seeking larger life,

Oh, would He not have checked such vain aspiring?

It is not ours to gauge the vast unknown

By fancy drawn from reason's fitful groping,
Yet have His words and Self such wonders shown
That even the very silence sets us hoping.

So much has He revealed that we grow bold

In dream of love's more closely-hidden treasure, And while faith reaches toward the truth untold, By our own thirst we dare His fulness measure. So toil brings strength, hope brightens as we wa't, Secure we dwell where truth and love enfold us, Thoughts which His goodness only could createIf these things were not so, He would have told us.

FREDERIC MANN.

HAT is what Widow Goodger used to say of her donkey

THA

"Worth his weight in gold!" She meant, of course, that she thought a great deal of him. I am going to tell you how he came to be such a valuable possession.

There was nothing arrogant or boastful about him to lead you to suppose he was worth his weight in silver even. Indeed, his demeanor was particularly modest and retiring, as is generally the case with real merit. And if his best points did not absolutely force themselves on your notice at the first glance, but required a closer acquaintance to make them properly appreciated, they were certainly more perceptible now to the casual observer than when Jacob Pelter was his master.

It is possible that Jacob Pelter, being a tinker, and accustomed to give hard blows in the way of business, thought a like course of treatment good for donkeys. At all events, he thumped and banged poor Neddy about as much

as he did the invalid pots and kettles of the village housewives.

Not that he was industrious. He liked to spend the greater part of the day at the ale-house; and so it happened that often he did more harm than good, even to the pots and kettles; while, as for Neddy, he became the most miserablelooking donkey to be seen for many a mile round.

By-and-by, customers began to find they could get better served elsewhere. Jacob was obliged to sell his donkey; and as the cart was no use without something to draw it, he let the lot go cheap to Widow Goodger, who lived on the other side of the common.

Widow Goodger was almost as thin as her new purchase, very hard-working, and very poor; but it was a happy day for Neddy when he was conducted to her door, and left (with a parting whack from his old master) in her keeping. The entire family turned out to inspect and admire - I