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returned to town full of courage? Nor was his confidence misplaced. There are now forty-nine separate cottages and five larger households in that Girls' Village at Ilford providing accommodation for 1,000 girls.

That kind of coincidence is constantly happening. Remittances become due, his bankers refuse to increase his overdraft, there is no time for personal appeal; off goes the Doctor to his Prayer Telephone. Here is his report as to how it worked:

There was no time to appeal to friends; I must have the money in four days, or else very grave inconvenience and disappointment would necessarily ensue. I could only cry to God for help! Twenty-four hours before the very day when the first of these payments had to be made, the receipts, which had, as explained, fallen so low, were suddenly stimulated, and the tide turned. An unexpected legacy was paid, through the kindness of the executors, before the date on which I supposed it was due. A friend wrote offering to give a sum of money at once, which she had intended bequeathing to me by will, and on the next day, the date on which my Committee's cheques had to be sent off, the receipts were marvellously increased; so much so, indeed, that all the pressingly urgent payments were defrayed, and only one or two less important ones had to be kept over. Thus, in a moment, as it were, did the good hand of God lift off the heavy burden from His servant's heart and mind.

These things are happening to-day. There are two items chronicled in Night and Day for March, 1895. Dr. Barnardo, after mentioning the fact that he had only once in his life had enough money in hand to enable him to keep going for a month if no more subscriptions came in, says that it is very seldom he has enough in hand to pay for a week's expenses in advance. As his day is, however, so his strength shall be. But in December, 1894, he very nearly ran dry. From old experience, Dr. Barnardo always expects to receive one-sixth of his annual income in the last month of the year. He ought therefore, according to the law of averages, to have had £22,000 in December, 1894. Calculating upon this, he had arranged to make a great number of payments on December 31st, which could only be made if £22,000 came in. But on December 27th his monthly takings were only £15,787. We may depend upon it the Prayer Telephone was used to some purpose. The "calls" on the Central were incessant. But there was no response. The 28th came and went, the 29th came and went. On the morning of the 30th he was £4,500 behindhand. This was indeed running it fine. But the Central had heard the call, and on the 31st, £4,662 was paid in at the last moment by donors who for the most part had no idea why they were moved to pay up just then.

Dr. Barnardo claims for the Prayer Telephone that it differs from the ordinary contrivance, inasmuch as the Central arranges for calls before it is rung up. In support of this theory of anticipatory telepathy, a phenomenon familiar enough to those who experiment in the obscure regions of the sub-consciousness, Dr. Barnardo is accustomed to tell a very remarkable story, quite as wonderful in its way as that of the Oxford Ilford time-test:

"Several years ago," says Dr. Barnardo, "I had to raise £500 by June 24 or submit to the foreclosure of a mortgage. The 15th of June arrived and I had no money in hand. I had two friends, wealthy men, who had told me to apply to them whenever I was in great difficulty. I wrote to them both, only to hear that one was out of town for an indefinite period, and the other was too seriously ill to attend to any mandane affairs. By the 20th things had got worse. Νο money had come in, but instead there was an additional claim

for £50. The 21st passed: no money; the 22nd, ditto; on the 23rd the average receipts for the Homes were lower than usual. On the morning of the 24th all that arrived by post was 15s. Almost in despair I made my way to the lawyer's office in the West End who held the mortgage, hoping that I might induce him to grant me a postponement.

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Passing down Pall Mall, I noticed standing on the steps of one of the large clubs a military-looking man who stared intently at me as I came along. I glanced instinctively at him, and then resumed my way. In a moment or two I felt some one patting me on the shoulder. I beg your pardon," said my interlocutor, as he raised his hat, "I think your name is Barnardo," I said, "Yes, that is so; but you have the advantage of me." "Oh!" he said, "you do not know me, but I recognise you. I have a commission to discharge. I left India about two months ago, and Colonel gave me a packet for you. It contains money, I believe; for he is a great enthusiast for your work, and he made a large collection for you after a bazaar that his wife held. But I have not been long in London, and have not had time to go down and see you. Only this very morning, however, I was thinking that I must make time to call upon you, when, curiously enough, I saw you coming along. Do you mind waiting a moment until I fetch the packet?"

I gladly acceded to his request, and returned with him to the club. He ran upstairs, and presently brought me down a large envelope addressed to me, carefully tied up with silk, and sealed. I opened it in his presence. Imagine my astonishment and my delight when I found in it a bank draft to the value of £650! This had been sent from India rather more than three months previously, before I myself realised that I would have to make the special payment which was that day due. I cannot doubt that in the providence of God the bearer of the message was allowed to retain the package until almost the last minute, so that faith might be tested and prayer drawn out unceasingly. And then, just when I was in the greatest extremity, the mighty hand of God was thus held out in assistance to His servant.

Need I say I went at once to the office of the solicitors; not to postpone the payment, but to make it, and then I returned with a grateful heart to discharge the liabilities that had arisen within the past three weeks of short supplies. I found that when all had been done I still had in hand some £90 over and above my requirements!

I commend the philosophy of Dr. Barnardo to my readers. It does seem hard that he should be so nearly run aground for cash, but he says it is all right:

The manna that was stored up over and above that which was wanted for the day by the Israelites of old "bred worms and stank"; and it is only day by day in such work as ours that we can lay hold upon God. Ouly so can the work be sustained and the victory given.

Sometimes the time of trial is prolonged. On one occasion he sent off nine lads to Manitoba without having any of the £99 in hand to pay their expenses. It was not till twelve days after they had sailed that a gentleman in Kent sent in £100 "for defraying the cost of the Manitoba emigrants." So the bon Dieu had a ded £1 as interest for the delay in providing the money! On another occasion a sum of £300, promised for a special purpose, had been spent, when the donor suddenly discovered she could not afford the money. What was

to be done? He was at his wits' end. But the very next day a friend wrote saying they wanted to do something for the Homes-would he make a suggestion. Even when the letter suggesting the payment of the £300 was being written the friend came down to the office and at once assumed the whole liability.

Coincidences are they, or tests, or proofs, or miracles, or what? Let each reader answer it for himself. As for me, I will only say that these things are on all fours with the most marvellous records of Bible times. If it

was chance coincidence then it is chance coincidence now. If, on the other hand, the Prayer Telephone was in full circuit in Elijah's time, it seems to be still in working order to-day.

PART III.-THE OUTCOME OF JIM'S APPEAL. I. A FAMILY OF FIVE THOUSAND.

It is the largest family in the world. Fathers of families of five find themselves often put to it to manage their little ones. But Dr. Barnardo keeps the whole multifarious congeries of homes and houses and brigades and agencies in full swing from year's end to year's end. It makes the head ache to try to remember merely the names of all the institutions which have grown out of that first Home, founded as the result of Jim's message. I merely print here a list of the branches of that Tree of Life which Dr. Barnardo had tended so vigilantly all these years:

The following branches are devoted wholly to the rescue and training of children:

1. HOME FOR WORKING AND DESTITUTE LADS, 18 to 26, Stepney Causeway, London, E.

2. LEOPOLD HOUSE ORPHAN HOME FOR LITTLE BOYS, 199, Burdett Road, London, E.

3. NURSERY HOME FOR VERY LITTLE BOYS, Teighmore, Gorey, Jersey.

4. OPEN-ALL-NIGHT REFUGE FOR HOMELESS BOYS AND GIRLS, 6, 8 and 10, Stepney Causeway, London, E.

5. LABOUR HOUSE FOR DESTITUTE YOUTHS, 622, 624 and 626, Commercial Road, London, E.

6 to 54. VILLAGE HOMES FOR ORPHAN AND DESTITUTE GIRLS, Barkingside, Ilford, Essex.

55. BABIES' CASTLE, Hawkhurst, Kent.

56. HER MAJESTY'S HOSPITAL FOR WAIF CHILDREN, 13 to 19, Stepney Causeway, E.

57. SERVANTS' FREE REGISTRY AND HOME, Sturges House, 32, Bow Road, E.

58. RESCUE HOME FOR YOUNG GIRLS IN SPECIAL DANGER, Private Address.

59. THE BEEHIVE (Industrial Home for Older Girls), 273, Mare Street, Hackney, N.E.

60. CITY MESSENGER BRIGADE, Head Offices.

61. UNION JACK SHOEBLACK PRIGADE AND HOME, Three Colt Street, Limehouse, E.

62. WOOD-CHOpping BrigadE, 622, Commercial Road, E. 63. BURDETT DORMITORY, Burdett Road, E.

64. CONVALESCENT SEASIDE HOME, 5 and 6, Chelsea Villas, Felixstowe, Suffolk.

65. JONES MEMORIAL HOME FOR INCURABLES, 16, Trafalgar Road, Birkdale.

66. HOME FOR GIRL WAIFS, 3, Bradninch Place, Exeter. 67, 68 & 69. CHILDREN'S FREE LODGING HOUSES: 81, Commercial Street, Whitechapel, E. 12, Dock Street, Leman

Street, Whitechapel, E. 12, St. John's Place, Notting Hill, W.

70 & 71. EMIGRATION DEPÔTS AND DISTRIBUTING HOMES: For Girls: Hazelbrae," Peterborough, Ontario. For Boys: 214, Farley Avenue, Toronto, Ontario.

72. INDUSTRIAL FARM, Russell, Manitoba.

73. BOARDING-OUT BRANCH (with about 120 local centres), Head Offices.

74. BLIND AND DEAF-MUTE BRANCH, Head Offices.

75. BRANCH FOR CRIPPLES OR DEFORMED CHILDREN, Head Offices.

76. THE CHILDREN'S FOLD, 182, Grove Road, Victoria Park, E. 77. SHIPPING AGENCY, Head Offices: with branches at CARDIFF and YARMOUTH.

78 to 85. EVER-OPEN DOORS, Eight Rescue Branches in BATH, BIRMINGHAM, BRISTOL, CARDIFF, LEEDS, LIVERPOOL, NEWCASTLE and PLYMOUTH respectively.

Such a city of a family demands its own organs, and Dr. Barnardo, in addition to all his other cares, is editor

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of at least three magazines. Night and Day, the official organ of the Institutions, records the history and progress of the work, and abounds with interesting illustrations and incidents of the efforts carried on for the rescue and relief of Waifs and Strays. The Young Helpers' League Magazine is published in the interests of the Young Helpers' League, a world-wide union of young people on behalf of the sick and ailing children in the Homes. Bubbles (weekly number, one penny; monthly part, sixpence) is a unique coloured magazine which supplies illustrated accounts of the Homes from week to week. There are also other publications describing and illustrating special aspects of the work.

The Homes are open every afternoon, except on Saturday and Sunday, to any who choose to visit them and see for themselves the nature of the enterprise. Visitors to the Girls' Village Home are met every afterncon (except Saturday and Sunday) at Ilford Station by a conveyance, which awaits the train leaving Liverpool Street at 1.10 p.m.

As for the actual work done, I cannot do better than print here the latest figures kindly brought up to date for me by Dr. Barnardo. This is in bold statistics an outline of what came out of James Jervis being sent to tell of the tribe of the Don't-Live-Nowheres:Total number of children rescued, trained, and placed out in life by the Homes in thirty years, up to 30 June, 1896

Number of Waif Children dealt with during 1895
Fresh applications during the year.

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Children maintained, educated, etc., in the Homes in

1895

Average number in residence throughout the year Total number actually in residence on 31st December, 1895

Fresh cases admitted during the year

Children, included in the above, rescued during 1835 from circumstances of grave moral danger. Children rescued during the year from utter destitution, but of decent parentage Incurable cripples, physically disabled and blind children, or deaf-mutes admitted during 1895 Infants in arms admitted

Average number of children admitted every twentyfour hours during the year

Largest number of admissions in one day
Children boarded out in England on 31st December,

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30,193

12,696

8,286

6,911

4,517

4,558

2.501

1,251

1,250

71

87

804

38

1,401

1,590

733

8,048

30

Rate of mortality per 1,000 for the year
Children educated, partly fed or clothed at Free Day

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Schools.

1,003

Total number of children maintained in whole or in part during the year

7,914

Outside children under instruction in Sunday

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spiritual, social, intellectual activity, perpetually in motion. He began by caring only for the saving of the City Arab; he now finds the whole social problem on his hands. He is facing the whole vast complicated congeries of difficulties which baffle churches and Governments, and facing them also with marvellous success. Round his Homes have grown up a veritable Church Militant, the most amazing octopus of our time. Nothing that is human is alien to Dr. Barnardo. He imports cargoes of timber from the forests of Norway, and plants out human seedlings in the prairies of Manitoba. He is surgeon, editor, preacher, teacher, Jack-of-all-trades, and a past master in all. One day he brings 3,700 of his

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Letters and parcels dispatched from the Head Office during the year

197,657 The following trades are taught:-Baker, blacksmith, brushmaker, cook, carpenter, engineer, harness-maker, mineral-waters, matmaker, printer, shoemaker, tailor, tinsmith, woodchopper, wheelwright.

The doors of the Home stand open night and day for all children really friendless and destitute. No one with these qualifications is ever turned away. In one year young people were admitted from Berlin, Brazil, Cape Town, Constantinople, France, Illinois, Memel (Germany), Mexico, New Orleans, New Zealand, Russia, Syria.

II. SOME THINGS DONE DIRECTLY.

It is idle to attempt to describe all that Dr. Barnardo has done and is attempting to do. He is a centre of

children from all his Homes to the heart of the Westend. It is a small army-a larger army than that with which Britain has won many of her most brilliant victories. Under his able direction they concentrate at the Albert Hall to meet the Prince and Princess of Wales, bringing with them a vast paraphernalia illustrative of all their enterprises, their works and their sports. With a skill the late Sir Augustus Harris could not have excelled, he puts this gigantic troupe through a programme lasting nearly four hours, a programme that goes without a hitch, that keeps every one from Prince to pressman enthralled in unflagging interest, and that fascinates and delights every one with one of the prettiest spectacles ever seen in London. And the troupe, what is it? One and all they are children, some mere babies, but all, whether old or young, perishing frag

ments of shipwrecked humanity, snatched one by one from the maelström of our cities. But for him these little ones would have been in the workhouse, in prison, in the grave, or worse still, in the kennel and in the slum preparing before they were well in their teens to perpetuate their kind. And, then, after having given the world this gigantic object-lesson in organised philanthropy, the company disperses. The mammoth troupe of 3,700 silently and swiftly retrace their steps. As was the concentration, so is the distribution. In twelve hours all is over, the Homes are again full of teeming life, and not a child has been lost or has even missed its way. Those who have attempted to convoy a party of a score, boys and gir's,

nardo's system only two have died out of three hundred. He limits his operations to the first born illegitimate. He assumes, and rightly, that the woman who first becomes a mother without having provided her child with a lawful father has already suffered enough for her sin without being driven into hell as a collateral incident of a slip made often in ignorance and even in innocence. So this is his way of dealing with an application on behalf of the first and only child of an unmarried mother already in or about to be employed in service:

We first take great pains to ascertain whether the mother is really penitent and desirous of living a better life, and whether the assistance we are asked to render the child will tend

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from the circumference to the centre of London in mid-season alone can appreciate what was involved in the march of the 3,700 to and from Albert Hall.

Yet that spectacle, so prodigious, so enthralling, only represented one section of Dr. Barnardo's work. One of the most interesting and the most hazardous of his innumerable enterprises was not represented there. This is the good doctor's Remedy for Baby Farming, which, as the recent case of Mrs. Dyer shows, is usually baby slaughtering. For Dr. Barnardo is himself a baby farmer! Here is his account of what he calls his system of auxiliary boarding-out-a foundling hospital on a new principle, with results which are in amazing contrast to those achieved in the magnificent institutions of Moscow and St. Petersburg. In the State foundling hospitals 50 per cent. of the children die. In Dr. Bar

towards the latter result. Having satisfied ourselves as to these two pre-requisites, we then place ourselves in communication with a lady who is willing to give the girl employment, if only the burden of the child can be taken off her. After being quite satisfied with the bona fides of all concerned, and also satisfied that it is impossible for us to reach the father so as to compel him to maintain the child (this is with us an essential which we never overlook), we then authorise the mother to seek out some decent poor woman who will be willing to become foster-mother to the child. This done, an agreement is entered into by the mother that she will pay the foster-mother 5s. per week. We take into consideration the earnings of the mother, her state of health, and her stock of clothing, and we agree to assist the case to the extent of a sum which never exceeds 3s. 6d. per week, but which often is not more than 1s. This money is not paid to the girl herself, nor to the foster-parent, but to the lady, who

is thereby charged with some responsibility for the good conduct of the mother. Before we make each month's payment we have to be satisfied afresh that the mother is still in service, pleasing her mistress, and going on respectably. We also satisfy ourselves from time to time that the foster-parent is a suitable and proper woman to have charge of the baby, and that the latter is being well cared for and looked after.

While these conditions obtain we continue to pay our promised contribution towards the child's maintenance. The remainder has to be paid by the mother herself. If she pays 2s. 6d. a week, or £6 10s. a year, this leaves her, if she is earning £14 or £15 a year, enough to clothe herself if she exercises proper economy. It does not leave her free to live a careless, extravagant, or vicious life; and moreover, we accompany our contribution with this distinct warning, that if at any time she relapses into a vicious or immoral life, we will at once cease our payments, and she will lose all title to farther consideration. Meanwhile, having some portion of the cost to bear, and having constant access to her infant, the maternal instinct is awakened and kept alive and becomes in itself a potent factor in the permanent reclamation of the mother.

So well is this worked that of the three hundred cases dealt with up to date only in a single case has the mother lapsed into immorality, and in only two have the babies died. But for Dr. Barnardo at least one hundred of these mothers would have been on the streets or bearing other bastards, and at least one hundred and fifty of the children would have died under various forms of slow torture.

I only mention this because it is the newest of his many schemes, and because it is one which ought to be imitated everywhere.

A PALACE OF PAIN.

Dr. Barnardo is, as everybody knows, a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, and has always taken a keen interest in the Medical and Surgical side of his rescue work. From a very early date in its history he came to the conclusion that, other things being equal, the sick, or blind, or incurably-crippled "waif and stray" was in a more pitiable plight than his healthy brothers and sisters, and had stronger claims for relief. And so, while some doors of hope were closed against the street wastrel afflicted with, say, virulent ophthalmia, or a twisted backbone, or loss of vision, or partial paralysis, or any other of the ills of humanity that are often due to neglected childhood, his door was thrown widely open to all such, if only they were absolutely destitute. This last condition he insists upon in all cases as a sine qua non in order to gain admission. The practical result of this beneficent rule is that Dr. Barnardo's hands are always full of the lame, the halt, and the blind. When rejected at almost every door they come to him. To-day, quite five hundred children, all afflicted with some form of malady, are under his care, and his system of dealing with certain of these is, in many respects, worthy of more notice than it receives. Take one class of little sufferers, the cripples, for example— Dr. Barnardo won't segregate them. He writes: "Unless my cripple waifs are actually needing surgical or medical care in bed, I prefer to let them live and mix daily with healthy children of their own age. The deformed or crippled youngsters are thus taught almost to forget their affliction, instead of being always shut up with it as in a cripples' home. They pursue the active, happy, industrious life of their healthier mates, and the latter develop wonderful gentleness and generosity in dealing with their crippled chums.” To deal effectively and thoroughly with the vast mass of suffering childhood which appeals almost daily to Dr. Barnardo, he founded in Stepney

Causeway, near the Central Home, a Hospital for Waif Children, which was rebuilt in the Queen's Jubilee year, and hence entitled "Her Majesty's Hospital," although, I believe, the Gracious Lady who rules over this realm has never even so much as heard of the beneficent and Christlike deeds which are being daily wrought under cover of her name in the children's palace of pain in Stepney. The hospital has ten wards and eighty-four beds, a splendid staff of devoted nurses, a resident physician, consultant surgeons, etc., etc., and in a single year deals with close upon seven thousand little patients. It was to lift the financial burden of the maintenance and cure of his sick children off his shoulders that in January, 1892, Dr. Barnardo founded "The Young Helpers' League," of which T.R.H. the Duchess of Teck and the Duchess of York became respectively the President and Vice-President. Under such auspices the League has flourished and grown apace, 13,074 companions having paid their subscription last year and contributed the respectable sum of £6,567 to the Doctor's funds. Like the Primrose League, but with nobler aims, this league of well-to-do children has local habitations and lodges, each having its organisation and officers. The ambition of each habitation is to contribute annually the £30 needed for the up-keep of a cot in one of Dr. Barnardo's three hospitals.

III. SOME GREATER THINGS DONE INDIRECTLY.

I have referred to what Dr. Barnardo has done, directly and by his own right hand; but it is probab'e that the indirect result of his work is still more far-reaching. For the last twenty years there has been a great controversy between the elect and expert wisdom of the representatives of the English nation and this East-end surgeonphilanthropist-evangelist on the question of the outcast homeless child. The State had all its prestige, all its authority, all the experience of the Local Government Board, all its inspectors, Parliament in the plenitude of its authority, and local representative boards in all their wealth of detailed knowledge. On the other hand was one man, beaten by roughs, anointed with no ointment but that of the slop-pail, calumuiated by Roman Catholics, slanged by Sadducees and slandered by Pharisees. He put his opinion before the world, however, with courage. He said that the State was entirely mistaken in its method of dealing with destitute children :

Workhouse girls were turned out into a world of the daily routine of which they knew almost nothing; their ignorance placed them at an enormous disadvantage; people discovered that their education in household matters had been worse than neglected; their moral fibre was unequal to the strain of temptation, and when they came out from the hothouse atmosphere of the workhouse they were unable to endure the colder air of every-day life. The moral wrecks for which this vicious system cf workhouse training is responsible can be counted by the hundred and by the thousand-and the workhouse was not so very long ago practically the only refuge for destitute or orphan lower-class girls who found themselves thrown upon the world.

These two parties differed toto cœlo as to how to deal with the Child of the State. Dr. Barnardo, a mere nobody, was contemptuously silenced and left severely alone to work out an experiment in his own way at his own cost in his charming Village Homes at Ilford, and in his larger boarding-out scheme, while the State, so omniscient and so omnipotent, decided that the right way of dealing with the problem was by building great barracks which it called District Schools, into which it packed the unfortunates towards whom it stood in relation of Parent. It did so, it went on doing so, and

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