boys, the visits of the friends of the inmates, and the domestic affairs of the Home generally. There are some severe cases of deformity here—club-foot, spinal curvature, and various distortions of the legs—and in many cases instruments are worn, but the Institution does not profess to provide these. Frequently they are procured by special contributions, and among the latest gifts of this kind is a serviceable wooden leg or two, which have had the happy effect of relieving their recipients from the necessity of using crutches; but it is distinctly insisted on that the Home is not a hospital, and is only curative in the sense of improving the condition of those who, having been pronounced incurable, are yet capable of {183} greatly increased activity and strength by means of nourishing and regular food, interesting occupation, and healthy exercise with companions who themselves are to be numbered among the halt and the lame, and yet are, in a very certain sense, made to walk and to leap and to praise God. For see, at the very moment that I am speaking, a little figure darts out of the passage yonder and scampers across the large open green space at the back of the house on his way to the new range of workshops that are now nearly completed, and are also paid for. Is it possible to apply the term cripple to such an elf, who is out of reach before one can ask his name? Yes; that very elf-like look is the result of a deformity which stops growth, though it leaves the limbs as active as you see them. But come up-stairs to the first of the present workshops, and you may note among the colour-stampers, sitting on their high stools before the dies and presses, cases of more decided deformity or of crippling by accident. These boys follow an artistic, pretty business, and visitors may do worse than give a small or a large order for notepaper and envelopes, stamped with crest, motto, or quaint design. So well is the work executed, that the Home has orders constantly in hand for the trade, and some of the dies are really beautiful examples of engraving. I think that in this long pleasant upper room, with its high bench running along the window, fitted with the presses and implements for the work, there are more severe cases of deformity than will be seen in either in the tailors' department on the same floor, or the carpenters' shop below. One reflects on the numerous accidents to which the children of the poor are liable, such as falls down flights of stairs; to the inhuman neglect of old women who are paid as "minders" {184} by mothers compelled to go out to work in neighbourhoods where no infant crèche, no babies' cradle home, has yet been established, or in country towns where such institutions have scarcely been heard of. One remembers with pity the scores of poor little creatures who have to nurse and tend children almost as big as themselves, so that they and their charges too often become deformed