In a country so Christian, so philanthropic, can it be that childhood is abandoned thus? Asylums for the aged are to be seen in plenty, and is not youth still more interesting than age, and must it needs commit some crime before it has the right to enter some house of refuge?
I cannot tell you how sad the sight of those poor little beings, forsaken of God and man, made me feel.
But how shall I describe my feelings when, having drawn the attention of a Scotchman who was with me to one of these pitiful little creatures, I heard him say:
"Do not stop, the immorality of those children is awful."
No, it is not possible; it must be a bad dream, a hideous nightmare.
"It is a fact," said my companion, who knows Glasgow as he knows himself.
"But there is money in it."
It seems incomprehensible that these children should not be reclaimed, still more incomprehensible that no one seeks to do it. The money spent in statues of Wellington would more than suffice, and the Iron Duke would be none the worse off in Paradise.
Yes, this is what may be seen in Glasgow, in that city so pious, that to calm the feelings of some of the inhabitants, the literary and scientific lectures which used to be given to the people on Sunday evenings in Saint Andrew's Hall have had to be discontinued.
Heaven be thanked, Glasgow is not Scotland, and we can go and rejoice our eyes in Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Braemar, and elsewhere, and admire the lakes and the blue mountains.