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journals of the worthy man who so bravely stood the burst of the rough outset of the school.

"The beneficial effect was felt in the neighbourhood almost immediately after its establishment, by the shutting up of two notorious houses; one a coffee-shop named by the boys themselves the Dark Den, where they used to share the produce of their plunder, the other a house of ill-fame,* kept by the mother of one of the boys. The son and daughter of this woman we took into our school, and they were the means of breaking up this den of infamy. The son, about nineteen years of age, has been seen reading the Bible to them; and the girl has been led to see her own and her mother's wickedness, and by a stern opposition to their for

was astonishing." C was the third admitted into the Industrial School.

This house is now used as the Industrial School.

This girl went into service, and the following letter from the master, a respectable tradesman, to one of the teachers of the school, will show that the reform so far, had been lasting.

"DEAR SIR.-I am sorry to state that owing to Ann C- having such violent pains in her head, she is obliged to leave us and go to the Hospital. Her sister has filled her place with us. No fault to find with either of them. Yours truly, H. W-.

mer habits, succeeded in breaking up the establishment. One of the lads' mothers told me that she considered her son lost, and she should have reason, as long as she lived, to bless the friends of the school. I was told by another mother, who had three lads in the school, that her children now were not like the same: they were so kind and affectionate."

The school had been carried on at first by tradesmen who, out of their small means, gave both money and money's worth, namely their time, to this charitable work; but they were not long without assistance. I again quote the journal. "On the 24th of January, 1847, a gentleman who had long indulged the hope that he should one day have the opportunity of testing the Christian principles that he professed, arrived. On the day above stated, the poorest of the poor, and an agent who had cherished the same hope, met together," and if ever we may believe a special blessing from on High was extended to human endeavours, it was so here.

It was very soon perceived that the extreme poverty of many of these children rendered theft or mendicancy their necessary subsistence: they had not learned to work at any lucrative

employment, and if they got a few pence to-day by holding a horse or sweeping a crossing, they were again destitute on the morrow. Many of them had no place to sleep, and passed the night under arches or doorways. At last the plan which had been adopted at Aberdeen with so much success, was thought of, and by the help of increasing patronage, set on foot. The teacher from whose journals I have quoted, was a shoemaker, and he undertook to instruct three of the boys in his trade. These boys were supplied with food and lodging, as well as instruction in the trade.

"Two or three boys were in an indescribable state of destitution. Their father dead, deserted by their mother, and no friends but the teachers of the Ragged School, who previously to their

*The following autobiography was written by one of these boys at the request of the teacher:

"SIR, I will give you a short account of our lives from 1843 to 1848. Sir, I went to Liverpool with my father, and my father died there; I was there for some months. They gave me eighteen pence, and told me to go home again, and when I came home I was in great distress. I slept about in cabs and shutter boxes, and a many times in the street, till I gave myself up as lost. One day I went to Mr. - [the teacher] to tell him I was going to the workhouse, when he told me he had

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coming into the Industrial School set them up in the lucifer match trade. We have known boys to buy their stock of lucifer matches the last thing on the Saturday night, and go without food all the day on Sunday that they might secure food for every day the next week.

The industrial class was commenced on the 17th May, 1848, with the two G's and J. C. This last "had for some time past been known as a notorious pickpocket and petty thief; having been brought up under very disadvantageous circumstances. His mother was a drunkard of the vilest character and a pest to the neighbourhood. C-had been repeatedly imprisoned, and when taken into the class had neither shirt, shoe nor stocking, and the rags that hung on him

spoken to a gentleman about me, and he was a friend to me; and my brother was not given to thieving, nor had any wish for it, and I hope we never shall. We are very, thankful that we are where we are, for we have seen a plenty for our age. We have been very kindly treated by many gentlemen. All things work together for good to all that love God. We mean to try and love God. S. G. aged nineteen. G. G. aged twelve."

The elder brother after learning the trade in the Industrial School, is now with a shoe-maker: the younger is apprenticed to Mr., one of the benevolent teachers of the B-Street School. Both lads have conducted

themselves perfectly well.

were filthy. He was one of the mob who endeavoured to destroy the public peace in Trafalgar Square in March, 1848. He stated that he was tired of the life he was then leading, and begged hard of his teacher that he might be put into some better means of obtaining an honest livelihood."*

The conduct of these boys fully justified the selection; they were cleanly, orderly, and in all respects perfectly honest, and so sensible of the advantage they had derived from their in

* "Last January (1847) at one of our schools, it was determined that prizes should be given to the deserving. They were so badly off, that it was conceived best that the prizes should consist of fifteen pairs of boots. I was in the chair at the distribution. The schoolmaster told me that these boots would not all be given to the most deserving, because it so happened that some of these were not the most destitute; and some of these boys, of their own free will, went and requested that the boots might not be given to them, but to others who were in greater want. Now here was an instance of self-denial that it would be difficult to match in any other class of society; these boys, accustomed only to live for themselves, now entering into the length and breadth of the apostolic precept, 'Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others,' I would invite you to go and ascertain, by personal experience, the evil, and the mode and manner of the remedy; and it is for you to determine whether these efforts shall

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