There are four little girls at home besides. The cripple is in a very wretched state from want of food, but he has the use of his hands."
No. 2 (Edinburgh).—"Was never at school more than a year in his life, and never attended regularly two months together. He can neither read nor write, and has been neglected and often half-starved by his dissipated parents. His mother pawns everything she can get to buy drink, and the boy has little benefit from the wages he makes, which are about 5s. per week. Their house is miserably dirty, Mrs. —— (the mother) being always drunk or incapable on the Saturday and Sunday. The boy works at Mr. B——'s Pottery, P——. He is honest and industrious. He is more miserable at home of late since he is left alone with his mother. It would be a great advantage to the boy if he could be admitted to the Industrial Home at Kensington, where he would be well trained, and where he would be quite beyond his mother's reach."
No. 3 (recommended by a Clergyman).—"Has been very regular at our school, and has been attentive and got on very well. His mother, a widow, lives with her sons, all of whom she has brought up well. She is an industrious, honest woman, and receives no help from the Board of Guardians excepting an allowance made for the maintenance of the cripple, and which, in case of his being accepted at the Home, they have promised to continue to pay for his maintenance. I may add that the Board, when he was called before them the other day, gave great praise to his mother for the cleanliness and respectability of his appearance."
Poor, depressed, starved, neglected, hopeless crippled boys, how long will it be before they come here for shelter, for hope, and renewal of life? I should ask the question—though the answer could only be a guess—but I am suddenly diverted by the tremendous ringing of a hand-bell, on which one vigorous young cripple is ringing a peal, which is almost loud enough to announce to all Kensington that it is "tea-time." The sound has the effect of bringing all the forty from their work—a contingent of young carpenters staying behind for a little while to dispose of some waste shavings which have been swept out of some corner where they may have been in the way. Then they come trooping into the big room, where they present so strange a variety of height and appearance, and also so remarkable a diversity of twist and lameness and distortion, that we are impressed at once with the melancholy fact that every boy there is in reality a cripple, and yet with the cheering reflection, inspired by some of the lively smiling faces, that there are vast mitigations of such afflictions—mitigations that come so near to cures as to make our neglect of them a very serious evil, when the means lie near at hand.
In this big room, which is neither dining-room, nor kitchen, nor refectory, but a homely combination of all three, there is no ornament, no sign of luxury, or of unnecessary expenditure-plain deal forms or stools at plain deal tables, on which are arranged a regiment of full-sized mugs of good sound tea, and plates, each containing a substantial half-pound slice of bread from a homely two-pound loaf, spread with butter or dripping. For breakfast the same quantity is provided, with the substitution of coffee for tea; and dinner consists of a half-pound of roast or boiled meat, with plenty of vegetables, and dumplings, pies, or puddings; while bread and cheese, or bread and butter, is served for supper. For it must be remembered that these are working lads, and that they require to be substantially, and, from the nature of their bodily affliction, even generously fed, so that these supplies of pure plain diet are not by any means excessive; and they are such as one very ordinary kitchen can supply—a kitchen, by the bye, which will probably be superseded by a more convenient one when the new wing shall be finished. Yet there is something in these unadorned, bare, almost too plainly appointed places, which brings with it a reassuring conviction that the institution has never been pampered. The dining-room, which has to do duty for a school-room also—the play-room, which is a rather dim kind of retreat on this November evening—and the plain, rather bare, but still clean and airy dormitories (especially those in the big bay-windowed front rooms of the old red brick house), are evidences that the place does not belie its name; that it is really a home, but essentially an industrial home, where work goes on as part of each day's blessing, and the title to play freely and with a light heart is thereby ensured.
WITH THEM WHO HAVE NOT WHERE TO LAY THEIR HEADS.
There is a degree of poverty which, while it is not absolute pauperism, often has deeper needs than those which are alleviated by parochial relief—a destitution which is none the less bitter because those who suffer it cannot stoop to actual mendicancy, and shrink from the degradation of the casual ward and its contaminating influences.
Those of us who at this season of the year are surrounded with comforts, and can meet together to enjoy them, should feel that there is no sadder phase of the life of this great city than that to which our attention is called by the statistics of those same casual wards, and the accompanying certainty that every night there are men, women, and children, who, amidst surrounding luxury and splendour, have not where to lay their heads, and for whom the repellent door of the nearest union workhouse is closed, even if they could summon such courage as comes of desperation, and dared to enter.