"A precious babe died, and the mother, too poor to bury it, sent for a parish coffin. The child was very dear to us, and we had named her our nursery Queen which had degenerated into 'Queenie.' It was a sore trial to us to see the golden curls mingled with sawdust, which is all that was placed in the coffin; and yet we could not spend public funds on the funeral, and feared to do it privately. In a few hours a mother came and said, 'Come and look at your Queenie now.' We went {124} and saw that loving hands had softened all the harsh outlines. A little bed and pillow had been provided, a frill placed round the edge, and some children had lain fresh-gathered flowers on the darling's breast. The cost had been 9½d., paid for by those mothers, and although so freely and lovingly given, it was the price of more than a meal each." If every mother in London with a well-stocked larder would give the price of a meal for the sake of a living child—but, there! my duty is not to beg, but to describe. {125} WITH LOST LAMBS. Only quite lately I had to write about the old French colony in Spitalfields, and of the changes that have come over entire neighbourhoods which were once associated with what is now a failing industry, or rather with one which, so far as London is concerned, has nearly died out altogether. Not that the public has ceased to hear sundry reports of those quarters of the metropolis of which the name of Bethnal Green is an indication as suggesting dire poverty, neglected dwellings, poorly-paid callings, and constant distress. Some few years ago it became quite a fashion for newspaper special reporters (following in the wake of one or two writers who had begun to tell the world something of the truth of what they knew of these sad regions) to make sudden amateur excursions beyond Shoreditch, for the purpose of picking up material for "lurid" articles about foul tenements, fever, hunger, want, and crime. Bethnal Green became quite a by-word, even at the West End, and certain spasmodic efforts in the direction of charitable relief were made by well-meaning people, so that for a time there was danger of a new kind of demoralisation of the "low neighbourhood," {126} and the price of lodgings, even in the wretched tenements of its notorious streets, were expected to rise in proportion to the demand made by emigrants from other less favoured localities, to which the special correspondent had not at that time penetrated. One good work was effected by the attention of sanitary authorities being called to the fever dens during a time of terrible epidemic, and a certain provision of medical aid, together with purification of drains, whitewashing of rooms, and clearing of sties and dustheaps, was the result. This was but temporary, however; and those who best know the neighbourhood lying between Shoreditch and Bethnal Green, and disclaimed by the local authorities of both because of its misery and dilapidation, are