a systematic way that results in their being able to help themselves again.

Of course Boston requires the most extensive corps of "visitors" and dispenses the greatest amount of material. The relief department is in the People's Palace. I found it very picturesque. A series of rooms confront you, whose walls are hidden behind tiers of shelves and pigeon holes loaded with varied stores of commodities suitable to supply an urgent need. One room is a free dispensary. Another contains quantities of clothing, mostly second hand, neatly mended and folded with simple sewing material, shoes, and household textile supplies. Another contains groceries, wholesome but plain and substantial, supplemented by a well-stocked refrigerator. People were coming and going; old women, men, children, mothers carrying babes,- all bearing that unmistakable stamp of destitution. A few Army folk in their trim uniforms moved cheerily about behind the counters and tables, dealing out comfort with ready hand.

Thither comes the largest percentage of Boston's poor that is aided by any single institution. Hence goes out the daily flow of help that reaches other needy homes only through the scoutduty of visitation. A large corps of "visitors,"chiefly women, go out every day "into the byways and the hedges' to seek out the most desperate cases of need that exist. Each visitor has her

One

special bit of territory to work in, and she soon gets to know very well who lives in it and what happens there. Every case assisted is investigated and a record kept of the help given. case frequently leads to another. Reports of new ones are coming in constantly, while also more and more persons voluntarily avail themselves of its resources, so that the department grows as rapidly as it can be maintained. That fact suggests a sad tale, a harrowing tale of dark stairways, attic rooms, cold and dreary, houses devoid of even the bare necessities of existence, right here in New England, in which surroundings the devoted Army lassies spend the greater part

of the year in the effort to discover the poorest and minister to their needs, in humble imitation of "Him who went about doing good." Of the thousands supplied with provisions, medicine, fuel and shelter during this year, many have been saved from the actual grasp of death by starvation, illness or exposure. The need was supplied as it was seen, without regard to color, nationality or creed, and was accompanied by a cheerful smile. and a sincere "God bless you."

A great deal of relief has been needed during the last few months, and every day this fall an unusually large number of men and women have asked for meals at the various Army institutions. No person who seems really honest is refused a good square meal free. At the same time, the officers learn to practice a nicety of discrimination, for human nature being what it is, they are confronted with many an attempt at imposition.

Relief for the body, however, would be unsubstantial charity if it were not supplemented by practical means for making each family or individual selfdependent. So the army conducts an efficient free employment bureau which places clerks, teamsters, carpenters, nursery and other domestic servants in reliable positions. This bureau is especially adept in providing for worthy women and men whose best activities are expended, who yet can work as janitors, scrubbing floors, etc. Many such men are sent to the Industrial Home, where they can work at whatever craft or trade they may happen to know. To the industrial homes the Army "forage" wagons bring their heterogeneous collection of donations. There is broken furniture which must be mended, worn clocks which may be repaired, heaps of garments which may be freshened up and made wearable. There are dishes, tinware with holes that may be soldered, bric-a-brac that has grown shabby, old toys, games, torn books. There are even nails and common pins and bits of glass. Hardly anything is ever rfused by the Army agent at your door, you may remember

with amusement. But he knows that everything has some good use, and that the Salvation Army is able to discover that use. So the strange mass is finally dumped out on the floor of an industrial home, and some of the men who have found shelter in the hospitable place set to work to sort over and 'classify" the things. The men who have no trade do this work. There is plenty for skilled hands along almost every line of master craftsmanship. But it is not the lively, confident youth just out of his apprenticeship; it is the aged cobbler whose hands are slow in spite of their skill and whose body was bent with much weary stooping and who cannot get work elsewhere. It is the jeweler or cabinet maker or tailor who supposed sadly that their days of wageearning were all over and they must go to the poorhouse for lack of funds to guard their closing years. It is also the degraded man whom the world scorns.

The most conspicuous task a visitor sees going on in one of these homes is

many of the

Still

paper scrting. In cities the Army wagons have the privilege of collecting all the waste paper from a number cf cffice buildings and stores, so that enormous quantities of paper are gathered in daily. more is collected from private houses. The paper is sorted into several grades, manila, etc., each by itself. The various grades are bound up in bales and sent to the paper mills in Lowell. This item is important, for it pays most of the running expenses of all the various Salvation Army benevolent institutions in New England. Good friends, why not save some of the paper from your waste baskets, and instead of burning, donate it to the Army wagon?

Old glass and rubber furnish another source of income, though very small. Magazines of any value, books and the garments received are utilized in the relief work or sent to the Army secondhand stores, of which there are one or more in every large city. Boston has

For

four scattered through the poorest districts. Useful wares of every variety are sold at rates low enough to be within reach of a poor man's purse, while protecting his self-respect. example, a good coat would cost only five or ten cents. But here again the Army has to practice caution, lest unscrupulous petty dealers try to buy up the stock. So only a few articles are sold to any unknown purchaser at once.

It costs more than six hundred dollars a week to run the Industrial Home in Boston, but over a hundred men are constantly needed in the work there. Those who are able, sooner or later find "jobs," most often through the Army's efforts. Many thus return to independence and self-respect.

I asked whether it is possible to cure, permanently, people who have been degraded by drink and drugs. Colonel Gifford replied, "Oh, yes, we cure them, and they stay cured."

From his desk he drew a tiny phial which he said contained a curious mixture of deadly poisons he took cnce. from an unhappy physician in New York, who had planned to end his life, but on the way from a gambling scene to do that deed had chanced to pass a Salvation Army hall while a meeting was in progress and had wandered in.

It is interesting in this connection to note that such prominent persons as the consul to the United States from Sweden, M. Zagernant, is a Salvation. Army officer. So is Congressman

Cyrus W. Sulloway of New Hampshire, who has been in Congress for eighteen

years.

Other important departments of the Army work are its free legal bureau, to which very able lawyers contribute some of their time; the naval and military service, which includes visitation of the prisons, reformatories and pension homes as well as the regular navy yard and fort meetings, concerts, etc. Government officials have everywhere seemed very appreciative of this service and have opened dccrs as widely as possible and enlisted the aid of Army visitors again and again in problems of uplift. Many a discharged prisoner is helped to "make good" in this way. There is also the passenger

service: foreign or coastwise steamers, docking in Boston or Portland, and trains attended on arrival or departure by an Army officer in uniform, who usually has a very busy time helping frightened and confused women and children, even men, too, sometimes. Somebody told me of seeing Brigadier Shepard at a pier the other day. He was making his way slowly down stairs to the street with a fat baby under each arm and each hand grasping a bundle rolled up in a shawlstrap. A timid woman followed at his heels, leading another child and carrying some more baggage. The Salvation Army has authority now to book passengers upon any ocean liner and is thus able to look after a woman or child traveling alone

to any destination however distant, for the person is supplied with a button which identifies her to the Army cfficer who meets the boat at the foreign pcrt. A young man from Belgium who was too disabled to be in the army arrived here during October in care of the Army and is now with friends.

The educational department in New England is new but promising. Over in Newfoundland the Salvation Army schools are the chief schools of the island. In Boston classes for boys and girls in various trades and physical training have been conducted for some time. But there is an effort now to supply textbook instruction in districts where older people need but cannot otherwise obtain it.

Then there is the rescue work, a very active and devoted campaign throughout the length and breadth of the land. In Boston there is an excellent home, with hospital wards, on a pleasant hilltop overlooking Dorchester Bay.

Of course the most spectacular activity of the Salvation Army concerns its

preparation for holiday festival for those who would otherwise have no festive joy. Many people seem to think this the chief work; the Army regards it as incidental. But it entails an enormous amount of planning and work. Months before the feast days arrive plans are made. Wholesale houses with which the Army has its accounts are very considerate; timely notice of prices is given when they fluctuate lowest, so that sundry of the big orders may benefit. A generous donation from some kindly provision company is not infrequent. Then, during the weeks just preceding Thanksgiving and Christmas the final work is done. The "visitors" make out a list of all the most needy families who are to receive dinner hampers and supply them with tickets for identification. Those who cannot be fed in this way are invited to the dinner served in the largest Army hall in the city, the Auditorium of the People's Palace is used in Boston. This year there is to be a special dinner for three