In the cholera year of 'sixty-six, Mrs.
Gladstone, who was then, as she had been
for many years, a constant visitor at the
London Hospital, was much troubled at
the fate of the cholera orphans. When
the parents died, no one knew what to do
with the children. The sanitary commission
people had destroyed every article of
clothing they possessed; and it was a hard
thing to send to the workhouse those whose
parents had been of a rank above paupers.
On the first of August, Mrs. Gladstone
and some of the medical men connected
with the London Hospital held a consultation
as to what was to be done; and on
the second, she chose out of the convalescent
wards as many children as the House
of Charity in Soho could receive: making
this a depôt until a permanent Home
could be arranged. To show the extreme
destitution of these poor little ones, it
may be stated that they were taken to the
House of Charity wrapped up in blankets
because they had no clothes.

As the children were weakly, the doctors
recommended a spell of sea air before
their final establishment in a permanent
orphanage; so, as soon as they were all
clothed, they were sent down to Brighton,
and another batch was chosen for the
Charity House. This second lot being
more than the House could receive, Mrs.
Gladstone took two into her own Home.
In course of time, but after much delay,
the Clapton Home, in Brook-road, was
got ready; but there had been great
difficulties to overcome. No people would
let their houses for the purpose; and one
landlord, indeed, backed out of his agreement
after the house was really taken,
when he heard of cholera orphans and
convalescents. So Mrs. Gladstone was
forced to buy the Brook-road houses. On
the twenty- seventh of August, the cook
went down with a teakettle and some
borrowed chairs; next day the furniture
arrived—twenty-five beds and other goods
—a gift made by a certain furnishing
warehouse; nine dozen of port wine, three dozen
of brandy, and a donation of twenty-five
pounds, from a certain wine-merchant; and
other donations of all kinds, including
clothes, also sent in. Two days only after
the cook and the teakettle had gone down
came in the first two children, "Tommy and
Tiny." On the next day the first batch
of cholera convalescent adults arrived; and
so on.

The Home being thus started,
applications poured in from all parts — twelve
hundred of them. Every case was investigated,
the Home not being meant to
supplement the workhouse and relieve
the poor-rates, but, as was said before,
to keep from the workhouse those whose
original condition had been above pauperism.
From the twelve hundred applicants
one hundred and ninety-five were selected
as the most eligible Tommy and Tiny
leading the way. (This little Tommy, let
us add parenthetically, is an immense
favourite. He is to be a drummer in the
Guards, he says, and he always adds, " to
take care of the Queen." He has a sweet
pure voice, and one day, when in disgrace
and kept in bed for a punishment, he startled
a visitor to the Home by suddenly sitting
bolt upright after his dinner of bread-and-
water, putting his little hands together, and
chanting a grace.)

As Mrs. Gladstone could not take all her
twelve hundred applicants, Mrs. Tait chose
some of the girls for her Fulham Orphanage,
while Mrs. Gladstone filled one of her two
Clapton houses with convalescents, and the
other with orphans. But, as the cholera
diminished, so did the number of
convalescents, and by Christmas time of the
same year there were no convalescents,
and the Home was an orphanage. But
seeing the need of a general convalescent
Home, she established one at Snaresbrook
for men only in the beginning of things;
transplanted her cholera orphans to her
own orphanage at Hawarden, which she
has maintained for many years; and turned
her Clapton houses into Convalescent Homes
for women and children. After the
purchase of Woodford Hall, an immense place
capable of being divided into two portions,
the Clapton houses were closed, and all
the patients and furniture sent off to
Woodford; but in November of last year
they were opened again for six months, for
relapsing fever convalescents.

To show what can be done by will and
energy, we will give the dates of this re-
opening. On the seventeenth of November
a note from Mrs. Gladstone appeared in the
Times; on the eighteenth, the cook went
down to scrub and prepare the two empty
houses; on the twentieth, arrived the furniture
and the " staff" a lady who, like
all Mrs. Gladstone's superintendents and
staff, has undertaken the work for love; on
the twenty-second, the Home was ready;
on the twenty- third, arrived the first batch
of relapsing.fever convalescents. Between
the eighteenth and the twenty-second,
water and gas had been laid on, because of