Mr. Walker in a state of utter ignorance. He
had been born in a lodging-house, and never
had known even his parents. Ever since he
could remember he had been accustomed
to beg in the streets. He had never been at
church or at school, except when in prison,
and even then had never learnt to read.
He had heard of Christ, but never understood
what sort of a man he was. He had
never been a pickpocket, but what he stole
was all from shops and markets: he was
very clever at that business. He stole, on
one occasion, a set of drawing-instruments,
which he sold to a lodging-house keeper
for two-and-sixpence. The same night he
stole them again and sold them to another
and this trick he repeated three times over.
On another occasion, his trousers being very;
ragged, he stole from his bed-fellow at a lodging-
house a better pair, and ran away in the
morning, leaving in exchange his own rags '
that would scarcely hold together. In a few
days, at another of these infamous places, he
found to his dismay that he had again to
sleep with the friend on whom he had forced
an unwelcome exchange. That gentleman
resumed his trousers and secured them to
himself by quietly putting them on before he
went to bed, and our poor youth had to
take to his own again, though during his
short absence from them they had lost a leg.
He had not for three years owned a shirt!
Of this young man there are now very
favourable accounts from his master, a farmer
in America.

Another boy, at nine years old, stole his
first purse from a lady, with five pounds in it.
His second was one with a hundred and fifty
pounds in it, in bank notes; these he exchanged
to a receiver of stolen goods for
twenty sovereigns; ten pounds of this money
he invested in false coin, and then he went
through the provinces to pass it off—a business
known amongst the craft as stuffle-
pitching. His plan was to hide his stock of
bad coin, with the exception of one sovereign,
so that, if detected, he would have no more
in his possession. He would enter a retail
shop, say a draper's, at a late hour in the
evening, and say that his master had sent
him for a cheap handkerchief; upon being
shown one he would demand the price of it,
and, apparently determining to take it, lay
down a good sovereign, which the shopman
would take up and try; but before change was
given, a doubt would seem to arise whether
the buyer's master would give the required
price; the youth would ask to have the
sovereign back, while he went to consult him,
promising, at the same time, to return in a few
minutes. He would, of course, do so, and,
laying a bad sovereign down this time instead
of the good one, obtain from the unsuspecting
shopman both his silver and his goods. The
boy in question went the circuit of England
and Ireland in this manner, and passed bad
money for nine years. His progress was
frequently arrested by the officers of justice,
but, he was never long enough in prison to
learn to read and write. After seven months
of the usual protection under Mr. Walker's
hands, he emigrated; he has now lived
six years in one place in the New World,
and has enough of good money wherewith to
keep himself and a good wife in comfort.

Mr. Walker always has paid his attention
more especially to the helpless, and—if left
unhelped—the hopeless condition of the
discharged prisoner. He became known while
at Westminster to Mr. Davis, the ordinary of
Newgate, who sent many youths to him to
be sheltered at the Pye Street asylum, and
thence sent abroad into situations which they
might hold, and did hold, as useful members
of society. "My own convictions"—Old Bailey
convictions—Mr. Davis says, "have long
been that criminals when discharged are far
more likely to do well in small numbers than
when gathered together in large associations;
and the great secret of dealing with this class
of men is to set them to work, and try to
reform them by labour."

So we come back to the Industrial Nursery,
in which ten or a dozen, at most twenty,
discharged prisoners, discharging themselves of
the burden of their past lives, cheerfully
work together, and turn honest, as blanched
leaves turn green when growing plants are
taken from dark pits and dens to be set in
the light of the clear work-a-day sun.

It is good, too, to employ young men of
this kind in garden labour. The physical
gain from the change out of close courts and
filthy hovels into a place where there is eight
or nine hours' daily labour to be done in
fresh and wholesome air, is no slight moral
gain as well. It is much easier to be honest
when one's health is good than when a sick
body makes, as it always does, a sick brain,
and a sick brain more or less perverts all
mental impression and all processes of
thought. If the fiddle be not screwed to a
right pitch we get bad music, and a man is
able to yield music that may be little but
discord when his body has got out of tune.
When the pallor comes out of the cheek,
there comes out of the mind, also, much that
is ghastly; and the light that gets into the eye,
as bodily health improves, comes partly from
improvement of the soul speaking through
it. As gardeners, these youths improve
in health and body; after they have
been with him a month, says Mr. Walker,
they are so changed by the free draughts of
fresh air, the wholesome food and labour
without care, that their old faces seem to have
dropped off, like disguises.

Then, again, not only does employment in
the garden give the body health, and so
open a direct and safe road to the mind, but
there is special reason why these youths
should fasten pleasantly on garden labour.
They have led busy and restless lives, always
a-foot and about the streets,—set them to