area twenty-five free schools, offering physical and moral training to the vagrant and destitute boy, not merely until he is qualified for a situation, but until a situation is found for him. Three years ago magistrates were empowered to send all children under fourteen, found begging or wandering in the streets, to a reformatory school, as well as those under twelve convicted of a punishable offence. My present business is, however, with an establishment devoted to the prevention of crime rather than the reformation of criminals; and before asking you to accompany me to THE BOYS' HOME in the Euston Road, I shall quote from a speech made by its president, the present Bishop of London:

"It is important," said his Lordship, "to bear in mind that it is not a reformatory, it is a place for boys who have as good a character as either you or I; and we have no right to look upon boys who are the inmates of this institution in any other light than we look upon other boys, our own children, or any others with whom we are acquainted. I see in the eighth paragraph of the report, that when this institution was opened, in February, 1858, it was intended to receive and train boys who would otherwise be destitute, and that it was determined to exclude all boys who had been convicted of crime.

"To this rule the governors of this institution have been able to adhere, and most rightly so, because they conceive that the lads who are the inmates of this institution have a right to be saved from the company of those who would be likely to corrupt them. With regard to the sort of qualifications for admission to this institution, we read that the boys are generally destitute' and 'vagrant.' These words have an ugly sound, but what do they mean? That the boys have no friends, and having no friends are obliged to wander where they can to look for some means of subsistence. And if it be added also that some of them are disorderly, I should like to know what boys, in what station in life, are not likely to become disorderly if they have not friends to look after them, and a home in which they are to live?"

But those who know the gradations by which the abjectly poor man becomes one of the dangerous classes, and how vagrancy and immorality in one generation create criminals in the next, will see the expediency, even on economic grounds, of sweeping the streets of the little Arabs congregated there. It is wicked extravagance to rear a race of expensive convicts, if by rescuing them in their youth we can convert them into honest and useful citizens. When visiting this Home, therefore, it will be well to bear in mind that every one of the inmates has been preserved from the evil companionship and certain contamination of such places as Church Lane, and that though unconvicted, and probably innocent of any offence, their ultimate corruption would have been as inevitable and as fully in

accordance with natural laws as that darkness should follow sunshine, and night day.

At that portion of the Euston (née New) Road where the lofty clocktower of the Great Northern station peers in stately fashion over the houses to your left; where the diverse roads to Pentonville, to the Islington Cattle Market, and to Gray's Inn are just discernible; where the heavily laden cabs and the whipped steeds speak of journeys to be made and trains to be caught; opposite, too, a lofty building, impudently calling itself a college, but which is in reality the head-quarters of a quack medicine better known twenty years ago than now-a building with a presumptuous and self-asserting marble lion in its front garden of twelve feet square, a lion professing to have been erected by penny subscriptions, but who has evidently strayed in the night from the great mortuary sculptor's lower down the road, and has found the central home of the much-vaunted pills so comfortable and well-appointed that he declines to return to his native yard,-where all these objects are to be seen by the observant, stand a couple of unpretending houses some eight feet from the road. Part of a row, and situate behind iron railings, the few trees between them and the broad thoroughfare are as feeble and delicate as the grass at their feet is dust-covered and brown. After passing these abortive agricultural efforts, you require neither introduction nor guide to gain admission to the Home. In answer to your summons a bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked lad of twelve or fourteen, clad in a suit of serviceable fustian, opens the door, and asks you to sit down while he takes your card to the master. Looking out into the yard or playground at the back, you note blue shirts hanging up to dry, which have been washed by the boys; blocks of wood carefully stacked, which were chopped and arranged by the boys; coals being carried by boys; while the sound of sawing on the one side, and the hum of voices on the other, proceed respectively from the sawing machine and the school, in both of which boys are hard at work. Through the various rooms with the master, and you find boys brushmaking, carpentering, and shoemaking, while the articles you see around bear testimony to the proficiency they have acquired. Carriage stools, easy chairs, invalid chairs, birdcage rests, occasional tables, dinner-trays, book-stands, book-shelves, and writing-cases, all made by the boys, and all for sale at very moderate prices, show how usefully the time of the inmates is employed, and how easy it is for the public to lend this institution a helping hand. There is not a house in London but has occasion, in the course of every twelve months, for some of the articles made by these poor children; and as an act of cheap and easy benevolence attainable by all, let me counsel a visit to the Euston Road the very next time it is intended to practise the rite of shopping, or to wile away an hour at a bazaar.

Further, if handy, useful lads be wanted for domestic service, or for employment on an estate, they can be recommended from this Home; and it is noteworthy that "doing well" is the invariable answer to all inquiries after the boys who have left it for situations. During my last visit a well-known nobleman came in, and gave, in my hearing, an excellent character to a youth he had taken into his service a few months before, adding that he was so much pleased with his industry, habits, and demeanour, that he now wished to engage another boy of like training, but who should be able to do carpenter's work on his estate. For it is skilled labour which the committee offer to employers. In the tailoring and shoemaking branches, boots and shoes, and clothes of every kind are made, and mending as well as making is carefully executed. In the household and fancy brushmaking department, every description of hair, hat, cloth ,shoe, and scrubbing brushes are kept on hand; while orders for special work are invited, their careful performance at reasonable prices being guaranteed. Under the head of carpentry, carpenters' and cabinet-makers' work is done in every variety, carpets are beaten and relaid, bedsteads cleaned and repaired, packing-cases and wooden boxes for chemists and druggists, for perfumers, grocers, and other tradesmen, are made. Firewood is cut on the premises and sent to any part of London, at 3s. 9d. per hundred bundles when delivered within one mile of the Home; at 4s. per hundred if within two miles; and at 5s. per hundred at any distance beyond that last named; and 560,400 of these bundles were sawn, chopped, tied up, sold, and delivered during the year 1864. Boxes of wooden bricks for happier children's building are sold at 3s. 6d. and 4s. a box; and visitors, be it always remembered, can at any time see this Home and its contents, or can give their orders by letter to the master. It should be mentioned here, that when a boy is considered too delicate for a residence in town, or displays positive incapacity for all the industrial pursuits taught at the parent Home, he is transferred to a branch establishment at Barnet. This is a farm of fifty-one acres, the cottage residence of which adjoins the church at East Barnet, and is some two miles from the Colney Hatch station of the Great Northern Railway. Twenty acres of the farm are laid down for hay, and about six acres are cultivated by spade labour, and stocked with potatoes, turnips, and mangel-wurzel. The necessary digging, the feeding and tending the pigs, poultry, and live stock, the milking of the cows, the cleaning of the houses, the mending and washing of clothes, are all performed by boys, thirty of whom are sheltered at East Barnet. Fifty-two are provided for in the Euston Road, making a total of eighty-two boys, destitute but never convicted of crime, who, rescued from starvation and open sin, are being lodged, clothed, fed, are receiving sound religious

instruction, and being trained to honest industry. When the Act empowering not only the police, but you or me, or any one, "to arrest ⚫ destitute and refractory' children, and to bring before a magistrate, for the purpose of being sent to an Industrial School, any child found wandering, and not having any home or any visible means of subsistence," was passed, the committee of this Home wisely submitted their schools to Government inspection, and obtained the certificate of the Secretary of State. By this means the Home was made eligible for children committed under the Act, and two-fifths of the Euston Road inmates, and three-fifths of those at Barnet, having entered under a magisterial order, an allowance is made by Government which defrays the cost of their food and clothing. The rest have been admitted on the recommendation of subscribers, but in every case the committee have refused to allow their institution for the destitute to be made a substitute for any child's natural home.

"It must not be supposed," says the report published a few months ago, "that strong boys, hungry but hearty, ragged but ready and willing, enter the Boys' Homes. Nothing could be more erroneous than such a notion; the new comers are almost invariably sickly and weak, as well as filthy, requiring immediate bodily care, and altogether unfitted for an immediate share of the hard work in which the older inmates engage cheerfully and well.

"Disease of the eyes and of the lungs, stomach disorders, cutaneous disease, are found among the new comers. Unaccustomed to regular, wholesome meals, unused even to beds and bedding, the vagrant London boy not only gives great trouble to his new teachers, but finds on his own part much difficulty and personal annoyance in conforming to the common rules and habits of decent, civilized life. A few weeks generally accustom him to his new mode of living, and in time he finds comfort and happiness in habits which were formerly to him a constant source of annoyance."

And any stranger can test the fidelity of the statement, for we read, “Although much of the valuable time of the masters and mistresses is necessarily engrossed in attending to visitors, they always cheerfully and gladly welcome them, and accept any repetition of a visit as a proof of kindly feeling and sympathy." The cost of maintenance per head in the Euston Road, including food, firing, washing, and clothing, is £11 9s. 4d.; and including salaries and school expenses, but exclusive of rent, £16 19s. 4d.; with which pleasantly significant fact I shall close this article. When we find that many applications are refused for lack of funds and accommodation, despite the good management and economy the above figures denote; and when we remember the horrible condition and surroundings to which we condemn all the boys who fail in gaining admission, we may ask with an earnest friend of the Home, Mr.

Thomas Hughes, whether God will not judge a nation which allows such things to go on. "It is very well," adds that gentleman, with startling truth-"it is very well for us to try to shake off the responsibility. Men have done that from time immemorial, and then, when the Judge has come, it has been, 'Lord, when saw we Thee a stranger, and took Thee not in? sick, and in prison, and visited Thee not?' And shall He say to us Englishmen and Englishwomen as He said to the Jews 2,000 years ago, 'Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to Me'?"