KEPT AWAY FROM CHURCH
for about a year. But the evil righted itself, as the boys grew up and found employment. They and their sisters supported the family by their earnings, an act of self-denial which, I have no doubt, was of the greatest possible moral benefit to themselves. After a time Mr. A. found occupation not wholly incompatible with his dignity, as caretaker in a furniture factory, became a most regular attendant at church and a communicant. This is the history of many of these English arrivals in Toronto, more especially of those who come from London. They are generally fairly well-educated, are respectably connected, and in most cases, I believe, are “assisted” to this country by relations anxious to shift from their shoulders the burdens of directing or aiding their course. The parents are people trained to earn money, if at all, in a single groove, seldom in one available in Canada. They cannot, like our people, turn their hand to anything that presents itself. But for all that they form a valuable element in our city population, for their children soon get Canadianized, imbibe the Canadian idea of being self-dependent and form the best possible addition to our vastly increasing numbers. One of the greatest evils I have to contend against in dealing with this class is an absurd and bastard pride and love of keeping up appearances. A woman living in a rented room on Sackville street lost a child by death. I provided her out of the poor fund with a plain black coffin as the means of conveyance to the place of interment. Soon afterwards another woman lodging in the same house lost a child. I offered to do the same for her that I had done in the former case. The woman indignantly refused, but begged me to give her money to get a more expensive coffin. Now, I had in my pocket a small sum of money from the poor fund, which I had intended to give her, but which I felt compelled to withhold when I found it would but be spent superfluously on “the trappings and the suits of woe.” Still I felt sorry for the poor mother, in her desire to give a handsome funeral to her dead darling, though I could not conscientiously gratify her at the expense of those of my poor who needed food, not sentimental gratification. But when I came to officiate at the funeral I found she had provided a rosewood casket with white metal plate, a hearse and a carriage. Among my saddest experiences here are my visits to