Did space permit, we should like to give some characteristic examples of instances where the indigent have been raised to a state of independence by the well-advised action of the Society, and tell how the workhouse itself has been made to yield material with which to work so happy a transformation. Some reference, too, would be justified to the numerous special questions in connection with which the Society has seen cause to take action. But we have said enough perhaps to effect our immediate purpose and indicate the nature of the Society and the scope of its operations. A considerable literature has grown around the Charity Organisation Society, and this is accessible to all who visit the central office of the institution, 15 Buckingham Street, Adelphi, London, whither all communications to the Secretary, Mr C. L. Loch, should be addressed. THE DENSCHMAN’S HAD. A LEGEND OF SHETLAND. From Widwick to Hermaness the cliffs rise steep and high from a deep ocean, so deep that a large ship might float alongside of the crags without danger of scraping her keel. What would be the fate of such a vessel, if she were carried by the might of that sea against that iron wall, I leave you to imagine. The rocks are broken all along their range by fissures and caves, inaccessible from the land, and scarcely approachable from the sea. He is a bold voyager who brings even a boat to thread the ‘baas’ and ‘stacks’—submerged rocks and needle-crags—which guard the way to those haunts of sea-fowl and seals. One of the caves is named the Denschman’s Had. I ought to explain that a ‘had’ means the den of a wild beast, his stronghold; and ‘Denschman’ is ‘Dane.’ In old days, Shetland (or Hialtland) was nothing more than a ‘had’ of vikinger, those pirates of the North who have so often been confounded with the noble sea-kings of Scandinavia; but while the islands belonged to Norway, their inhabitants were under powerful protection, and suffered little inconvenience from the uses to which the sea-rovers turned the sheltered voes and secluded islets. It was only when Scottish rule came in that the vikinger of Norway and Denmark turned their weapons against their brother-Norsemen of the Shetland Isles. During the times of the Stuarts, Scotland had enough to do to look after itself, far less to extend protection to an outlying dependency that was more plague than profit. Indeed, the Scottish kings and nobles seem to have regarded Hialtland as fair game, and robbed and oppressed the people after as cruel a method as that of the northern pirates. Between the two, those islands had a hot time of it; and the islanders, once a prosperous community, sank into poverty and hopeless serfdom.