by the sale of the tickets and donations, and
every farthing subscribed and given is spent in
food.

But the proper room of the little people is
upstairs, whither the matron kindly leads us. Here
are two long tables, and a small side-table
where the carving goes on; they are all covered
by clean white cloths, the knives, and forks, and
mugs, and salt-cellars are also clean; down the
centre of the principal table stand a few vases
with gay-coloured flowers, which give that air of
brightness and a perpetual fête that helps almost
as much as food; a musical box in the middle of
the table tinkles out the Perfect Cure; and by
the window is a pretty vivarium, made cheaply
and yet effectively with little jets of tiny
fountains. The walls are clothed with pictures
framed in the same manner as those below
stairs; there is a small Christmas tree, with
a few toys and baubles to delight the
wandering wondering eyes; and the whole thing is
an evidence of what care and taste may do with
the poorest materials and at the most trifling
cost. It is all pretty and gay, but a prettiness
and a gaiety quite appropriate to and attainable
by the poor; in which lies its special service at
Woburn-buildings—-in the heart of one of the
poorest districts of London.

How poor, but few even in the district itself
fully realise and understand! In a small court
close at hand, occupying about as much space as
a gentleman's mansion, it is calculated that there
are over five hundred children alone; and this
is under the estimate which one visitor made.
We need scarcely ask what manner of life these
hapless little creatures lead, pent-up in this
stifling atmosphere—-what poverty, what misery,
what squalid wretchedness of circumstance, and
what abject want make such a contrast as that
afforded by this bright and cheerful room and
pleasant nourishment of infinitely more worth
than many other things of wider scope and larger
pretensions.

Grace being said by the lady presiding (the
wife of the kindly founder and upholder of this
charity), the little hands folded together in that
sweet attitude of childish reverence, however
ignorant, the serious business of the hour sets
in. While she is carving for the children,
the younger ones needing to have their meat
"cut up," we will take a look round the table
to watch the faces of the small guests, and
speculate on character and future fate, as one
is always tempted to do with children.

For the most part pale, stunted, ill developed,
their looks alone show how much the charity is
needed, and how sadly poverty has already
stinted the fair proportions of life. The healthiest
are a family of three, to whom the lady
subscribing has given tickets continuously for
a year; so that they have quite a robust and
well-to-do look, so far as bone and muscle are
concerned, though it is a pity to be obliged to
add that they are the dirtiest in person and the
most poorly clad of the assembly. These little
creatures have two good dinners of meat, bread,
and potatoes twice a week (Monday and Thursday),
which is almost as much as some people of
means would think sufficient for such small
folks, a new belief creeping in among sundry—-
a reaction as much as a belief—-that we may do
too much in the way of feeding up, and that
"butcher's meat" can be used in excess. At
all events, two thoroughly good meals in the week
are a great advance on the normal condition
of a poor child's dietary table, and are immense
helps in other ways besides the way of food.
All the good and beauty that these poor children
see and learn, they see and learn at this
bi-weekly festival of theirs; and all the care and
cleanliness they get is what is compulsory here—-
clean hands and faces being absolutes, entailing
the loss of the dessert if not up to the
right mark. They are, at all events, partially
cleansed twice a week; they hear the clear
tinkle of the musical box—-that thing of wonder,
that voice of an imprisoned spirit, to a child's
mind; they see the pictures, and the flowers,
and the clean tablecloth, and the festoons of
coloured paper; they hear a few words of kindness
from the gentle voice of the lady; they hear
a few words of simple grace; and who shall say
that even so slight and so few means may not
be of incalculable benefit in the times to come?
who shall say what lovely memories of the
warmth and welcome and orderliness there may
not help in that ambition and desire to succeed
and do well, without which all human beings
sink down in the moral scale, no matter what
the original starting-point?—-who knows? All
germs are small, and the growth and power of
the tree cannot be fairly measured by the weight
and size of the seed.

Those who know the poor by personal acquaintance,
are well aware that dirt is no necessary part
of poverty. It belongs to ignorance and
helplessness and that terrible state in which people
have nothing to lose from public opinion, but it
is not integrally necessary to poverty. That
truth has a striking confirmation here. The
two cleanest children are the two of poorest
fortunes, yet they are as neat and well cared for
as if the mother had a nursery on the second
floor, and a nurse whose sole business it was to
attend to the young ladies. Their history is sad
enough. The father died immediately on the
birth of the baby—-he was found dead in his
bed one morning; then the new-born baby had
whooping-cough, and died. The younger of the
two now at table had also whooping-cough, and
was reduced to a skeleton by the disease. "It
made me almost cry," said the lady, "when the
poor little creature was brought in, wrapped in
a dressing-gown like a baby, so weak that she
could not stand; but we fed her up, and she is
now nearly as strong as she was before."

Since then the mother's health has given
way, and she is now dying. She has three
shillings a week to live on, and her two
children receive tickets for the sick
children's dinner-table. But they look almost too
good for anything in the shape of alms;
clean, tidy, their clothes well kept, their
hair smooth, glossy, and perfectly clean, they