been done is a mere trifle in com

parison with what ought to be accomplished. Thousands of children roam about altogether unschooled, and thus in complete preparation for ruin body and soul. The case is a bad one; but the world cannot expect that a handful of benevolent people are to give half-crowns and guineas to educate all the children who come into existence. It is the public's business, and the public should see to it.*

A few weeks ago, in company with Mr. Walker, a city missionary, and Lord Kinnaird, I visited this densely-peopled part of the metropolis. Our first call was at a school where about a hundred and twenty children received gratuitous instruction; and from this we proceeded to the Juvenile Refuge or Ragged School, which has recently been set up in the neighbourhood, in Old Pye-street. Formerly a tavern of a disreputable kind, with a skittle alley behind, the house has been repaired and adapted for the purposes of an establishment for feeding, educating, and teaching boys of the most abandoned and destitute class. The Ragged School Union, a body of benevolent subscribers, which has other similar establishments in operation, is at the expense of the undertaking. The manner in which the school is conducted resembles what I had seen in Aberdeen and Dundee, with this difference, that a few boys, who have no proper home, are allowed to sleep in the house; with this exception, the pupils

get dinner and a little bread for supper. The utmost pains has been taken to render the place unattractive as respects subsistence; nevertheless, I was told that the temptation of dinner and supper, poor as it was, had an evident tendency to empty the no-food-giving schools-a circumstance viewed with justifiable alarm by the managers, and which will require to be closely watched and guarded against. My own conviction from the first has been, that unless conducted on a system of rigorous investigation, this class of institutions may, to a certain extent, prove demoralising, and seriously injure schools of a useful kind at which no meals are given.

There were nearly a hundred boys present at the time of our visit. The whole had just bathed, and were going through some bodily exercises to warm themselves. Of almost every one of

them some anecdote could be told: a history of crime, suffering, and less or more of reclamation. One was the son of a coiner, lately transported, and his early years had been spent in signalling the approaches of the police to his father's abode ; another who was pointed out was the son of a cab-driver, from whom he had habitually stolen all the money he could lay his hands on this boy was now reclaimed, vastly to the satisfaction of his parent. Some rather curious facts were mentioned :A well-known thief in the neighbourhood had brought his son to school, in order that he might not acquire his own bad habits. 'I lead a dog life,' said he, 'from which I would willingly preserve my boy; as for myself, I am too far gone to mend. Had there been such schools when I was young, I should not have been what I am. I propose giving a pound yearly to help the institu

The Ragged Schools.

A VISIT TO WESTMINSTER

BUT NOT THE ABBEY.

ABOUT ten o'clock in the morning as you walk down towards Westminster, it need not excite your surprise to meet a pretty considerable current of individuals setting out on their daily profession of begging-real or sham poverty-stricken wretches, blind, lame, or deformed; women in rags, hung down with infants; organists, fidlers, and hautboy players. All are going out on an excursion in search of daily bread, and respectively take themselves off towards the streets of the opulent and compassionate. Each has his beat. Mingled with this stream of mendicants may be observed numbers of individuals going forth, not to beg, but to seek for some species of honest employment workmen out of work, and pale-faced sempstresses who gladly toil the livelong day for a groat. Towards evening a different set of persons-shabby, but clever, ingenious, and up to anything-issue from the same locality. Bedouins of the streets, their line of business is plundering the rest of the community. The spot whence these various classes proceed is one of many such in the metropolis. Situated immediately to the north of Westminster Abbey, from which it is separated only by a thin border of decent-looking mansions, it consists of a cluster of narrow streets, lanes, and courts, the whole of which seem very much left to themselves in the way of scavengering. On the same principle that an Irishman in rags is more picturesque than an Englishman in a whole doublet, the scenery of these streets would form a favourable study for artists. George Moreland would have found subjects for his pencil in

every alley-windows broken, and partly mended with paper and old hats; pigs in one corner of a court, and a donkey eating cabbage-blades in the other; queerlooking men and women lounging at doors; viragos scolding children, whose amusement for the last hour has been throwing about a dead rat; nondescripts in halfmale and half-female attire selling decayed strawberries out of wheelbarrows-such would be the materials of the picture. The yells and smells to complete the piece could not unfortunately be put on the painter's canvass. And all this is going on within a stone's throw of one of England's proudest temples. How grateful to the wearied soul the sweet tones of the organ swelling through the aisles of the abbey ! How beautiful and appropriate to man's infirmity the prayers and litanies chanted by priests and choristers! How utterly valueless the fabric and all its contents, living and dead, as far as the Christianising and humanising of the neighbourhood is concerned !

Deserted pretty much by church and state, or left only to the perambulations of the policeman, the quarter to which I allude has latterly been discovered to be not exactly what it should be; and so far has improvement gone, that at present a strath of houses is in the course of clearance, in order to permit the opening of a new thoroughfare. But as nothing is correspondingly done to lodge the dispossessed inmates, it may be doubted whether the new and fine street will substantially lighten the bills of mortality. Another move towards improvement has been the introduction of schools for the loose surface children of the district. This move, as usual in such circumstances, has not come from the state; it has originated entirely in private benevo. lence. Yet the utmost which has

been done is a mere trifle in com

parison with what ought to be accomplished. Thousands of children roam about altogether unschooled, and thus in complete preparation for ruin body and soul. The case is a bad one; but the world cannot expect that a handful of benevolent people are to give half-crowns and guineas to educate all the children who come into existence. It is the public's business, and the public should see to it.*

A few weeks ago, in company with Mr. Walker, a city missionary, and Lord Kinnaird, I visited this densely-peopled part of the metropolis. Our first call was at a school where about a hundred and twenty children received gratuitous instruction; and from this we proceeded to the Juvenile Refuge or Ragged School, which has recently been set up in the neighbourhood, in Old Pye-street. Formerly a tavern of a disreputable kind, with a skittle alley behind, the house has been repaired and adapted for the purposes of an establishment for feeding, educating, and teaching boys of the most abandoned and destitute class. The Ragged School Union, a body of benevolent subscribers, which has other similar establishments in operation, is at the expense of the undertaking. The manner in which the school is conducted resembles what I had seen in Aberdeen and Dundee, with this difference, that a few boys, who have no proper home, are allowed to sleep in the house; with this exception, the pupils

By a statement lately published concerning Westminster, it is shown that out of a population of 57,000 persons, there are 16,000 children under twelve years of age, of whom 12,000 do not attend school. In Spitalfields and Bethnal Green, out of 112,000 persons, it has been found lately by examination from house to house, that 16,000 children of an age for school do not go to any, not even a Sunday school.-Third Annual Report of Ragged School Union.

get dinner and a little bread for supper. The utmost pains has been taken to render the place unattractive as respects subsistence; nevertheless, I was told that the temptation of dinner and supper, poor as it was, had an evident tendency to empty the no-food-giving schools-a circumstance viewed with justifiable alarm by the managers, and which will require to be closely watched and guarded against. My own conviction from the first has been, that unless conducted on a system of rigorous investigation, this class of institutions may, to a certain extent, prove demoralising, and seriously injure schools of a useful kind at which no meals are given.

There were nearly a hundred boys present at the time of our visit. The whole had just bathed, and were going through some bodily exercises to warm themselves. Of almost every one of them some anecdote could be told a history of crime, suffering, and less or more of reclamation. One was the son of a coiner, lately transported, and his early years had been spent in signalling the approaches of the police to his father's abode ; another who was pointed out was the son of a cab-driver, from whom he had habitually stolen all the money he could lay his hands on this boy was now reclaimed, vastly to the satisfaction of his parent. Some rather curious facts were mentioned :A well-known thief in the neighbourhood had brought his son to school, in order that he might not acquire his own bad habits. 'I lead a dog life,' said he, 'from which I would willingly preserve my boy; as for myself, I am too far gone to mend, Had there been such schools when I was young, I should not have been what I am. I propose giving a pound yearly to help the institu

A

tion.' What a revelation! man acknowledging himself to be a public depredator, offers to support a school which is to prevent crime! Can society do nothing to bring this generous and repentant thief back to virtue ?

Our next visit was to a model lodging-house, 25, Great Peterstreet. Various houses of this useful class have lately been established in London, with a generally good effect. Ordinarily, the establishments in which a poor person gets a night's lodging are of a very horrible character-dens of filth and disorder, the fertile sources of crime and disease. Not unusually from thirty to forty persons-men, women, and children, married and unmarried -are crammed into one apartment, without any regard to comfort or decency; and the scenes of confusion, fighting, and noisy disturbance they for the most part present baffle description. To supersede houses of this kind, it is not necessary for societies of benevolent individuals to do anything more than show, from a few examples, that a humble class of lodging-houses may be conducted on a proper footing by private parties, and yet be made to pay. This has been the view taken of the subject by Lord Kinnaird and his friends. They do not desire to arrest private enterprise, but only to give it a proper direction. Two houses of three storeys each, with a communication between, have been fitted up and rented; no expense for building has been incurred, the houses having been taken as they stand. One of the houses contains beds for single men, and the other has beds for families. Several beds are in each room; but those for families are secluded by intervening curtains. Nearly seventy individuals, exclusive of children, can be accommodated nightly. The beds ap

peared clean and neat, considering their character; and all else was in the best order.-Charge for a single bed 3d. for a double one 6d. For these charges, however, the inmates have the use of a kitchen, wash-house, and sitting-room, with every suitable accommodation for twenty-four hours. Conducted down stairs to the kitchens, I found several persons engaged in cooking. In the wash-house adjoining, several rows of small lockfast cupboards were pointed out, and each inmate can have the use of one on depositing 2d. for the loan of a key.

If deposits were not taken, many keys would disappear and be lost. Up stairs, on the street floor, is the general sitting-room, with the rules of the house inscribed over the fireplace, and a table in the centre, at which books and papers may be perused. The keeper produced a small stock of books and periodicals (chiefly our own publications), which he described as being read with avidity, and, it may be hoped, with advantage. Three things, we were informed, contribute to maintain perfect order in the establishment-firmness in enforcing the rules, reading, and devotional exercises. Morning and evening a chapter of the Bible is read, and a few comments or words of exhortation follow; an appropriate prayer is also offered up. The officiating minister is a town missionary; but sometimes the inmates engage in reading verses of the Scriptures alternately, for mutual improvement and edification. It is interesting to know that these pious exercises are well attended, and eagerly indulged in; nor can we entertain a doubt of their efficacy. I remember being told of a dissolute individual-a victim -who in a distant country had brought himself to the depths of misery by his misconduct, burst