“My work’s been easy enough all the time,” he remarked, leaning forward. “There were no end of labour-papers, but all being run either for the trades’ unions, or some special industrial branch. I started a labour magazine—Macheson found the money, of course—and I’m paying my way now. I don’t know whether the thing does any good. At any rate it’s an effort! I’ve been hearing about your colony, Franklin. I shall want an article on it presently.”
A tall, thin young man removed his pipe from his mouth.
“You shall have it as soon as I can find time,” he answered. “We’re going strong, but really there’s very little credit due to me. It was Macheson’s money and Macheson’s idea. We’ve got an entire village now near Llandirog, and the whole population come from the prisons. Macheson and I used to attend the police-courts ourselves, hear all the cases, and form our own conclusions as to the prisoners. If we thought there was any hope for them, we made a note, met them when they came out, and offered them a job, on probation—in our village. We have to leave it to the chaplains now—I can’t spare time to be always in London. We’ve two woollen mills, a saw-mill, and a bakery, besides all the shops, and nearly a thousand acres of well-farmed land. At first the people round were terribly shy of us, but that’s all over now. Why, we have less trouble with the police in our village than any for miles around. We’re paying our way, too.”
“You’ve done thundering well, Franklin,” Macheson declared. “I remember what a rough time you had at first. Uphill work, wasn’t it?”
“That’s what makes it such a relief to have pulled through,” Franklin declared, re-lighting his pipe. “I shouldn’t like to say how much I had to draw from Macheson before we turned the corner. Glad to say we’ve paid a bit back now, though. Tell us about your idea, Holroyd. They tell me it’s working well in some of the large cities.”
“It’s simple enough,” Holroyd answered, smiling. “It was just the application of common sense to the laws of charity. Nearly every one’s charitable by instinct—only sometimes it’s so difficult for a busy man to know exactly when and how to give. I started in one of the big cities, looking up prosperous middle-class families. I’d try to induce them, instead of just writing cheques for institutions and making things for bazaars, to take a personal interest in a family of about the same size as their own who were in a bad way. When they promised, all I had to do was to find the poor family and bring them together, and it was astonishing how much the one could do for the other without undue effort. There were the clothes, of course, and old housekeeping things, odd bits of furniture, food from the kitchen, a job for one of the boys in the garden, a day’s work for one of the girls in the house. I tell you I have lists of hundreds of poor families, who feel now that they have some one to fall back upon, and the richer half of the combination take a tremendous interest in their foster-family, as some of them call it. Sometimes there is trouble, but the world is governed by majorities, and in the majority of cases the thing has turned out excellently.”
“There’s the essence of charity in the idea—the personal note,” Macheson remarked. “How’s the Canadian farm going, Finlayson?”
“We’re paying our way,” Finlayson answered, “and you should see our boys. They come out thin and white—all skin and bones. You wouldn’t recognize one of them in six months! They’re good workers, too. We’ve nine hundred altogether in the North-West, and we want more. I’m hoping to take a hundred back with me.”