No. 3 (recommended by a Clergyman).—"Has been very regular at our school, and has been attentive and got on very well. His mother, a widow, lives with her sons, all of whom she has brought up well. She is an industrious, honest woman, and receives no help from the Board of Guardians excepting an allowance made for the maintenance of the cripple, and which, in case of his being accepted at the Home, they have promised to continue to pay for his maintenance. I may add that the Board, when he was called before them the other day, gave great praise to his mother for the cleanliness and respectability of his appearance." Poor, depressed, starved, neglected, hopeless crippled boys, how long will it be before they come here for shelter, for hope, and renewal of life? I should ask the question—though the answer could only be a guess—but I am suddenly diverted by the tremendous ringing of a hand-bell, on which one vigorous young cripple is ringing a peal, which is almost loud enough to announce to all Kensington that it is "tea-time." The sound has the effect of bringing all the forty from their work—a contingent of young carpenters staying behind for a little while to dispose of some waste shavings which have been swept out of some corner where they may have been in {188} the way. Then they come trooping into the big room, where they present so strange a variety of height and appearance, and also so remarkable a diversity of twist and lameness and distortion, that we are impressed at once with the melancholy fact that every boy there is in reality a cripple, and yet with the cheering reflection, inspired by some of the lively smiling faces, that there are vast mitigations of such afflictions—mitigations that come so near to cures as to make our neglect of them a very serious evil, when the means lie near at hand.