MORE LESSONS TO BE DERIVED
from it than from any one of the numerous “lives” of great men which flood the book stores. “Failure” is written in every wrinkle of his clumsy clothing and in the sad lines of his face. It seems to me that the life history of such a failure would be as interesting as the details of a career of one whose whole life might be summed up in the word success. But the particulars of the existence of such men are buried with their bodies in the odd corner of a churchyard, and we can only guess at the foolishness, the blunders and the sins which have withered this man’s life. As I said before, this specimen of hospital flotsam and jetsam is suffering from no particular or specific disease, and there are a dozen around these grounds of which the same could be said. They bear about a blighted vitality which the romance-writers call a broken heart.
But we are looking merely at the sad side of the convalescent. There are many happy little scenes to be seen about. Men who have long lain on beds of pain, who for the first time in months have wandered out under the summer sky and sniffed the strong odor of the budding trees and blooming flowers. One almost envies these fellows the superior beauties they perceive in nature’s show. Others are being visited by friends and talking hopefully of going out soon and resuming their places amongst the toiling sons of men.
CHAPTER XXXI.
INFANT WAIFS.
Below the glittering surface of our beautiful civilization, drifting in the silent undertide is a current of guilt, injustice, and despair that has no voice to proclaim its misery. But its contagion affects the highest crest of the uplifted wave. The beings who dwell in these sunless depths of ignorance have been reached by no humanizing influences, and when events drive them into companionships that are new, with their imperfectly developed natures, the results cannot be otherwise than disastrous. It is from such conditions as these that the majority of our “unfortunates” and criminals come, and all the philosophic sentimentalism of the age cannot render a better account for them. With no means, so far known in this beneficent age, of staying this mighty current, the victims must be waited for near the bank of the whirlpool into which they are sooner or later destined to plunge in their mad career. For this kindly helpful purpose houses of reception, lying-in hospitals, and infant asylums are built and supported by civic and national governments, and benevolent, tender hearted men and women, of high social standing, give their time and attention to the management and direction of these institutions.
The infant asylums and houses of refuge in Toronto are many, and the most important ones are large and commodious. From the windows of one of these fall the softest, mellowest light, for lamps are shaded and turned low so as not to disturb the innocent sleepers. There are sixty children in the house all less than two years old. Some are in the arms of their mothers, some are in charge of some other unfortunate, and others lie in their little cots alone. Here is one resting as balmily as if the angel of household love and prosperity had presided at his birth instead of the darkness of disgrace and guilt. His cheeks are round and full and flushed with