favour with the Christian public. The house at Tottenham appeared to be quite full when ninety beds were set up in the antiquated rooms; but when these were placed closer together, and a hundred little fellows were received, the accommodation was occupied to the utmost limit, and numbers vainly asked for admission. While gratified at the success of their charity, the committee were perplexed, and even undecided as to the course of action they should pursue. Not that suggestions were wanting. Some would have set about enlarging the Home, others opposed patching up an old house, until the advice to seek an entirely new site prevailed, and that site was in time procured at Horton Kirby, near Farningham. In 1866 the Princess of Wales laid the first stone of what is now really an imposing little boys' village, including ten homes, with accommodation for thirty inmates in each, a chastely-built chapel (which has its pulpit supplied either by Dissenters or Anglicans), a large central building with workshops and the superintendent's house. There is also a cottage hospital, isolated from the main buildings. It was decided to adopt the family system similar to that in operation at Stockwell; and, like the Stockwell Orphanage, the homes are the gifts of individual donors, e.g.—

1. ALEXANDRA HOUSE. So named by permission of Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales, the funds being raised by the exertions of the Treasurer, Mr. W. H. Willans. 2. HANBURY HOUSE. The gift of the late President, Mr. Robert Culling Hanbury, and his family. 3. QUIET RESTING PLACE. The cost being contributed by the congregation of Hare Court Chapel, Canonbury, and thus named by them. 4. THE CHILDREN'S COTTAGE. The result of a subscription raised by the Honorary Secretary, Mr. A. O. Charles, amongst the children of England who have homes, and who desired to build a home for those who had none. 5. LADY MORRISON'S HOME. The gift of Lady Morrison, of the Hermitage, Snaresbrook. 6. KIDBROOK LODGE. The gift of Miss Peek, of Blackheath, in memory of her mother. 7. THE LITTLE WANDERERS' RETREAT. By a lady

who wishes only to be known as the "Little Wanderers' Friend." 8. THE LITTLE ONE'S REFUGE. The gift of Mr. and Mrs. L. Leaf, of Clapham Park, as a thank-offering for the restoration to health of one of their daughters. 9. THE THOMAS FINLAY COTTAGE. Erected by Mrs. Thomas Finlay, of Talbot Square, in memory of her husband. 10. THE GEORGE MOORE LODGE. The gift of Mrs. George Moore, of Kensington Palace Gardens.

One morning in early September, after alighting at the Farningham Road station, and walking about a mile through a pretty landscape scene, we duly arrived at the Home, of which we had lost sight since the sudden disappearance of the little boys from Tottenham in 1867. The master and matron, who reside in the central building, give all visitors a cordial welcome, and readily supply whatever information is asked regarding the plan and working of the Institution. We fared no worse than others who have preceded us, and after dinner we sallied forth on a tour of inspection, accompanied by our intelligent guide.

The family system is completely carried out. By living in separate families the boys are taught to help themselves and one another; and in as great a degree as possible their labour aids in sustaining the Institution. The freehold estate purchased by the trustees comprises an area of eighteen acres, and beyond this lies a farm of eighty acres additional. The yield of the land, which is cultivated by the elder lads and hired labourers, supplies the commissariat department with milk, pork, potatoes, and other articles of daily consumption. The farmer-in-chief is placed over one of the homes, and accordingly he ranks as a "father," and his wife as a "mother;" and in common with their compeers on the estate who have risen to a like distinction, this good couple have thirty youngsters to house and superintend. May not some of these strong-limbed lads desire to shine in the profession of agriculture? Some may become farm bailiffs; some may even rise to the dignity of farmers. In either case "father's" discipline is the very thing to aid their realising such worthy aspirations.

When completely carried out, as it is at the Home for Little Boys, the family system entails difficulties not easily overcome, and such as are unknown at the Stockwell Orphanage, where one matron only is needed for

each house, because the whole of the boys take their meals together in the common dining-hall. Kind-hearted, Christian, industrious matrons are happily not very great rarities; but when a married couple for each house are required, the case becomes more complicated. Any committee who need the services of such people will testify that married persons of the class required, who unite in themselves the indispensable qualifications for superintending thirty boys, by seeing after their physical comfort, as well as their religious and moral welfare, are not readily found. The man may inherit the necessary qualifications, while the wife is unsuitable, or vice versâ; but if, on the whole, the gains of the family system compensate for the anxiety and trouble incurred in finding suitable superintendents, the committee deserve our praise for having tested fairly what has been proved to be a success. The attention of the founders of the Little Boys' Home was first directed to the Christ-like work of rescuing youthful waifs and strays from a life of crime and misery, from the fact of there being no industrial school in existence quite after the model they desired to see. Police statistics prove that between three and four hundred street Arabs are arrested during each year in London: these are offenders against a law which they do not comprehend, or they are sinners whose infant years render it well nigh impossible to inflict upon them any severe punishment. The need of a suitable refuge was conclusively proved by the rapid growth of the one now founded, the number provided for during the first year being fifty, while seven years subsequently the number admitted was three hundred. Rapid growth, however, may not betoken unmixed prosperity. The rapidity with which the Home or village has arisen on the pleasant site among the hills of Kent is accounted for by the fact that many of the houses are the separate gifts of private individuals. The stimulus given to the progress of an institution of this kind by means of beneficence is a subject for congratulation, if, in the meantime, in consequence of such acts of liberality at the outset, the institution do not after a few years outgrow its means of support. Whether or not the Home at Horton Kirby is likely to outrun its income we need not speculate; we hope for the best, and have confidence in the generosity of Christian England, which has the welfare of the orphan and of the destitute child at heart. To tell the simple, unvarnished truth to such, is to make the strongest appeal; so that we need only say that the cash in hand at the end of last year was under £6. The committee need £6,000 a year to meet their engagements, and a little over half of this sum is provided by subscriptions on which they can depend, the remainder having to be raised by extraordinary means. A few of the inmates are paid for by private individuals; others are sent in by the London School Board, in accordance with the Act of Parliament, and the rate charged in either instance is 7s. a week.

Though the children admitted are not necessarily orphans, many of them are without earthly protectors. The candidate for admission need only be destitute, and under ten years of age. Of the character in general of the lads the reader can judge from looking over the first seven cases which occur in the list, and which are followed by hundreds of others similar in detail.

1. A. G., aged eight years and three months. Father dead. Has bad companions; lives with a grandmother sixty-one years of age, who earns a precarious living by taking in washing. Fulham. 2. A. J., aged six years and eight months. Mother dead. Seven children turned out of doors by the father, three of them dependent on an aunt. Tottenham. 3. B. W., aged eight years and nine months. An illegitimate child. Mother a domestic servant; boy hitherto kept by her aged parents; her father has been bedridden for the last two years; is now in great difficulties, and fears being turned out of his home. Islington. 4. F. W., aged nine years and five months. An illegitimate child. Given to pilfering. Expelled from three schools for violence to other children. Hitherto kept by his mother's husband. Paddington. 5. G. J., aged nine years and one month. Father dead. Mother a charwoman, in delicate health; has five young children depending on her. Marylebone. 6. G. J., aged eight years and nine months. Father died after three years' illness; death hastened through misconduct of daughter, who has since died of consumption. Widow in delicate health; left with seven children, four entirely

depending on her. Islington.

7. H. G., aged nine years and ten months. Father dead. Mother, five little children depending on her. This boy, the eldest, is beyond her control. St. Pancras.

The life histories of some of these lads, when told more fully, are fraught with sad interest, e.g.

"Regy tells how, when he was not five years old, his father, who was in a consumption, broke a blood vessel and died very suddenly. Till then he had had a very happy home, but now it was gone. His poor mother was broken-hearted. She had four children to look after, and was too ill to work herself. And then a kind doctor, who had visited them, told his mother about the Home, and she was very thankful for his help in getting him admitted. But Regy did not understand this then, and thought, because his mother was ill in bed, that he was only being brought away from her for a little while, and would soon go back. On the day he came his mother had two little babies added to her burden, and Regy wanted to be with them. He was then, he said, old enough to remember that one day his mother came to the Home and said she was going into the country, where some friends had promised to help her, and she was going to take him with her. He went, and his old friends heard nothing of him for some time. But Regy saw his poor mother very sad, for one of the babies died, and then she fell sick; and the friends she had gone to were so poor they could not do much for her. So she sent Regy back to London all by himself; and one day the bell at the old Home was rung, and when the door was open there stood Regy. The omnibus was just going from the door, and Regy had been put down by the conductor. On his arm there was a piece of paper fastened, and these words written on it: Will the guard of the train put the child into an Edmonton 'bus, and ask the conductor to see him safely inside the gate of the Home for Little Boys.' He had a little box with him, and on opening it there was another slip of paper, on which was written by his mother, but so badly as to be scarcely readable, Pray take him in, I am very ill. And thus the little fellow had come all the way from Norwich by himself, the guard of the train and the conductor of the omnibus being kind friends to him by the way. Here Regy's story for a time ended; but the boys knew that since they came to live at the Children's Cottage his brother Parry had come to be one of their family; and so they want to know more about their poor mother after Regy left. And then they are told that only three days after Regy came back she died; and that since then the other baby had died, and that Parry and his sisters were quite alone. Kind friends had been trying to get a home for him, and chanced to ask at the Home for Little Boys, not knowing that Regy was there, for no one knew whither the mother had sent him, and the friends of the Home did not know whom to write to; and when it came out that this Parry was Regy's brother, many of the children who had helped to build the cottage, voted to get him admitted, and there he is with his brother once more."

To walk round the Little Boys' village, and to note the order reigning throughout the institution is to gather some impressions of boy life not obtainable elsewhere. The very little fellows need a tenderer discipline than the elder lads, who divide their time between school, the workshop, and play, without which their education could not be complete. There are schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, each and all efficient in their spheres, and we were glad to find that the Bible is a book in constant use. But the educational discipline necessarily extends far beyond mere book learning. The basis on which the Home is founded is one of self-help. The lads' clothes are made, washed, and mended on the premises. There is a baker's shop, where some seven hundred quartern loaves are prepared weekly. Other trades are represented, each workshop being a training-room for such boys as choose this or that occupation. Peeping in at one door we find the menders and patchers busily employed, under the superintendence of a young needlewoman. Hard by are the tailors, while a little further on are the

painters, and also the printers. Some lads are employed in the bakehouse, others labour in the laundry, so that if these little fellows do not in after years distinguish themselves by industry, the fault will not lie at the door of their early friends. Each trade has its representative in an efficient professor of its art aud mystery, and to each of these, it is hoped, the boys will, under Providence, become largely indebted.

Visitors will leave the Home pleased with what they have seen, and grateful for the blessings which arise from such an institution. On the average, about fifty lads are dismissed into situations every year, and their places are filled by others, who, but for the reclaiming agency, would lead an aimless life, if not a life of crime. Who is ignorant of the vast sums which one chief may cost the community before his final capture and sentence to penal servitude? Alongside of such calculations, £6,000 is not an extravagant outlay for educating and equipping fifty boys for useful trades and honourable courses. Industrial Schools are not so costly as prisons, and reclaiming boys is a more satisfactory business than that of punishing men.

THE OLD HOUSE AT TOTTENHAM, THE ORIGINAL "HOME FOR LITTLE BOYS."

BY PASTOR C. A. DAVIS.

THERE, once lived an old gnat, who, when he was about to leave the world,

T called the young gnats found him, and spoke as follows: "Dear children,

I shall soon die; but before leaving you I must give you my last advice. Live in the sunbeams, and when the great sun goes down, go home; for in the abodes of men there is a false sun, which has destroyed many a deluded gnat. It caused the death of your poor uncle. Ah! I have never forgotten the day I saw him perish. Lay to heart my last warning, dear little gnats, and beware of the false sun." Having said this, he wrapped himself in his wings and died.

The gnats presently flew away. They danced round the head of a ploughboy returning from his work, and when he threw up his cap to get rid of them, they spun round the cap. They fidgeted a cow grazing in the meadow till she swished her tail so furiously they were glad to get out of the way. So

they spent the evening flying up and down and round about in the sunbeams that streamed over the hills, till the sun went down, and the gnats went home. But it happened that one of them strayed away from his brothers, and flying into an open window, alighted on the red curtain. After admiring its bright colour and surveying the things in the room, he fell asleep, and was presently awakened by the sound of voices and music. Looking up, and rubbing his eyes," Hey-day," said he, "is the sun up already?" and away he flew in the direction of the light. The next moment he was astonished to find he had reached it. Then the thought struck him, "This is the false sun father spoke of," and he retreated to the curtain to think. "I wonder if there is any danger?" he said to himself; "old folks are always over-cautious, and father was old. Perhaps he wanted to keep us from fine things. I hate those envious creatures that are afraid lest somebody else should see more than they have seen. That light may be nobody knows what. Why shouldn't I see for myself? At any rate, I want to explore it, and that is enough for me." So saying, he flew once more towards it, and went round and round. Poor dizzy gnat! soon, with a headlong rush, he dashed into the flame, and fell to the table on the other side, his wings and legs burnt off. Spinning round in agony, he gasped out, "Ah me! I perish! I die!"

Far away in the country there was a shady wood; the ground was carpeted in patches with velvety moss or long grass; here and there a bank of fragrant primroses and violets peeped into view, and tall trees held their arms aloft to protect the flowers from the blustering wiud. Hidden away in a tuft of grass, in the middle of the wood, was a nest, where lived a lark and his family. Every morning. before it was light, the old lark jumped out, ran along in the grass, and flew up through the tree-tops to sing his morning song to the sun.

Now the little ones were petulant and discontented, and therefore unhappy, as such people always are. They often quarrelled, they complained when their father went out of a morning; they would not fly with him, but chose to run about on the ground, saying they would much rather have a caterpillar to eat than go and see the sun rise.

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One day the father called them, and said. "My little larks, what is the matter with you?" They shook their shoulders, and looked cross. The father continued, "You were not meant to be always on the ground; if you would be happy, you must come with me for a morning flight." They said they did not want to get up so early. "How is it," said the father, "that I never hear you sing?" "We cannot sing." "You never will till you fly." "But we cannot fly." "You never will till you try," said the father; "larks are always dull if they neglect the sun: come with me to-morrow morning.' "But it is cold and dark." You will find it neither when you catch sight of the sun." 44 But we cannot fly so high." You mean you will not," said the father, and springing up, he flew off, and was soon out of sight. When he was gone, the larks began to talk together. “Why does father want us to go and see the sun ?" said one. "Well," said his brother, "I don't know, but it always makes him cheerful." Said another, "We are never so happy as father is." The fourth suggested, "Suppose we do as father says." This caused a general shiver, when they thought of the warm nest and the cold morning air; bat, nevertheless, they resolved to do so. Accordingly, the next morning off they started with the old lark, as soon as it was light, and flew up above the trees, higher and higher still, wondering at what they saw. The moon was fading in the violet sky behind them, and the east was bright rose-colour and yellow. The fresh air made them feel so strong and cheerful that when at last they saw the sun's face smiling at them, as if to say, "Good morning," they all struck up a merry song to greet him. After that they flew up to welcome him every morning, and were as happy as any larks in the wood.

Guess now, little friends, what my stories mean. Do you not think those who trifle with sin are likely to meet with a fate like that of the wilful gnat?