better for their act of charity, but actually the
worse. Their market value has been demonstrated
unmistakably by this money which their
misery has extracted from the passer-by. The
effect produced by their wet feet and cold hands
has now been satisfactorily proved, and the
consequence is that they will be worked harder
than ever.

It might be one of the advantages of carrying
out Mr. Mill's proposition, and giving our
English mothers a right to exercise the franchise,
that they would perhaps refuse to vote for any
candidate who would not pledge himself to
make the alleviation of the sufferings of the
vagrant children of London his especial charge.

That we shall have to legislate for the
improvement of the condition of the infant
population of this town, is becoming daily a more
obvious fact. "Scarcely a day passes," says
the Times report of the doings at one of our
busiest police-courts, "in which children are
not charged with theft, and the parents in
almost every instance declare that they do not
know what to do with the child, and entreat
the magistrate to send it to a reformatory or
industrial school." And no doubt it is difficult
to know what to do with a child under such
circumstances. The father is away all day at
his work, and the mother is so entirely
engrossed by her numerous occupations as to be
wholly unable to exercise such supervision over
her children as every one knows is indispensable
to their well-doing. Under these circumstances,
what becomes of them? They are left to themselves.
They pick up such companions as the
chances of neighbourhood throw in their way,
and even supposing—which is supposing a great
deal—that their morals are good to begin with,
it is not long before these "evil communications"
do their usual corrupting work.

We have already done something for the
benefit of the vagrant child-population of
London, but our attempts to help them are still
on too slender a scale. We should not confine
ourselves to making a few efforts in old-established
ways, but should be ready to try all
sorts of experiments for the benefit of the class
which we desire to serve. In New York there
is a "Children's Aid Society," would it not be
possible for us to take a hint from some of its
arrangements? "Some twelve years ago,"
writes a gentleman who has made himself
acquainted with the working of this association,
"a number of gentlemen in New York formed
themselves into an association, the special object
of which was to seek out the homeless and
vagrant children of that city, and to find homes
for them in the families of the farmers of the
Western States. Notice was circulated
everywhere among the rural districts of those
communities that numbers of destitute children
would be sent, under certain specified regulations,
to the farmers, and a prompt and general
response was given to it. The children had, in
the mean time, been gathered into the industrial
schools of the city, or into lodging-houses,
which had been opened for them. The
influence of good homes on these children soon
justified the hopes of the promoters of the plan.
The association, during the twelve years of its
existence, has sent to the rural districts
upwards of nine thousand children; of these,
comparatively few have turned out badly, or in any
way, through crime or incapacity for work,
become a burden to the local authorities; and
numbers, we are assured, have grown up to be
respectable young men and women, some
farmers, some mechanics and tradesmen, or the
wives of these people. A committee of citizens
of the village select the places in which the
children are to serve; and the association has
agents, who constantly visit them. The
association is now sending out twelve hundred
children a year.

"The average expenses of settling each child,
including agents, salaries, railroad fares, &c., is
from three pounds to four pounds, while to
have kept any one of the children in an institution
of any kind would have cost from twenty
pounds to twenty-five pounds. One evidence of
the success of the plan is the reduction of
criminal offenders among the juvenile population
of New York, there being a decrease of forty
per cent among juvenile pickpockets, thirty-
three per cent of petty thieves, and forty per
cent of young vagrants. Connected with this
association is a large lodging-house for news-
vending boys, which is partly self-supporting."

It would, indeed, be something if we could
provide in some such way as this for our youthful
vagrant population No doubt in this
densely populated country we should have
difficulties to contend with which do not come in
the way of the philanthropists of New York.
We have not at our disposal those vast districts
which are found in the American continent,
where any increase to the population is
regarded as the greatest of blessings, and where
there is ample employment for any number of
hands which can be supplied. It would
probably be necessary, in organising any such
association, that a system of emigration should
be made one of its most prominent features;
but, at all events, no doubts as to what was
ultimately to become of these wretched children
need hinder us from making some attempt to
rescue them, since at least a better prospect
would be before them than that which would be
in store for them if they were left alone.

TWELVE MONTHS OF MY LIFE.

IN TWELVE CHAPTERS. CHAPTER IV.

"EH, bairn, but yon's a lovely woman!"
said Elspie, as she hugged me on the stairs.
"I lit a wee bit fire in your ain room, and put
her in there. She might ha' given us a word
o' warnin' to have anither ready."

I had thought of that before, but I had no
time to reflect upon it now. It was quite late in
the summer evening; darkness was beginning
to chase the yellow dusk from the passages,
and there was a slight chill in the air. My
room was shining with firelight when I entered,
and a white figure sitting by the hearth, the