leave them hungry, cold and forgotten. Our representative who has for two years taken the greatest interest in this work writes as follows: "This is the size of the baby's shoes. The mother had put the baby's foot on a piece of paper marking around it with a pencil and forwarded it to Mrs. Booth with the above explanation. The baby got the shoes. There is no way however in which we can mark the size of the hearts that went out in pity and compassion to bring a happy Christmas into the homes of hundreds of poor mothers and little children where the man of the house was gone. Often the little ones had said, 'Oh! mamma, where is papa?' The mother with aching heart and tearful eyes gave an evasive answer, for the father was in prison. Whatever may have been the guilt of the man behind the bars, there can be no doubt about the misery and wretchedness of these poor creatures, bereft of the bread winner. The struggle to keep the gaunt wolf--poverty--from the door was greatly enhanced last winter by the scarcity of coal. In nearly all the houses I visited in New York City the fire was out. In some coal was only a memory--driftwood, broken boxes and cinders from ash heaps having been used. Some children doing nothing but search from morning till night for anything that could be made to burn. "In one family the old grandfather, too old to work, keeps the house, a boy of thirteen works in a Broadway store and he is the sole support of the family. Another brother of seven forages for fuel all day, and the little sister of five goes to school. "On the upper east side, among other things we gave a little girl not only a doll but a beautiful little trunk full of clothes that had been sent with it. Her brother of ten received a sled and they both got new clothes. These two children simply went mad with joy. Running into a back room, they stood and screamed aloud to vent their feelings and the good woman, a hard worker, said with tears in her eyes, 'My man will be home this time next year.' For five years she had fought the wolf alone. This woman walked the streets of New York (being evicted the very day her husband was sentenced) all night long, with her two little children clinging to her skirts. Finally she procured a room--a wash tub and an old stove, and she and her little ones lay upon the bare floor every night for six weeks with nothing to cover them but the mother's skirts.