“Dear Miss Cobbe,
“... Your lecture on Vivisection was admirable—we must be ‘mealy mouthed’ no longer.
“Shall you and I have a conversation on your lectures and the ‘Duties of Women’? We shall not, I believe, have much difference of opinion; perhaps none. I approve them heartily, but there are one or two expressions which, though intelligible to myself, would be greatly misconstrued by a certain portion of Englishmen.
“I could give you instances by the hundred of the wonderful success that, by a merciful Providence, has followed with our Ragged children, male and female.[[27]] In fact, though after long intervals we have lost sight of a good many, we have very few cases, indeed, of the failure of our hopes and efforts.
“In thirty years we took off the streets of London, and sent to service, or provided with means of honest livelihood more than two hundred and twenty thousand ‘waifs and strays.’
“Yours truly,
“Shaftesbury.”
“July 23rd, 1880.
“Dear Miss Cobbe,
“I have had a very friendly letter from Gladstone; but on reference to him for permission to publish it, he seems unwilling to assent.