In the vast obscurities of London there is a neighbourhood known as Golden Lane and Whitecross Street, intimately associated with the progressive improvement of costers and their donkeys. A kind of oasis in the desert, this neighbourhood, which is now considerably improved in appearance, shines forth as an important central mission, to the merits of which we can but feebly do justice. We have often had occasion to remark how much good is unostentatiously done by one man, through mere force of character and persevering vigilance. The one man in this case has been Mr W. J. Orsman, who for a series of years has earnestly devoted himself to the amelioration of the condition, moral and social, of the poor street-dealers clustered in and around Golden Lane and Whitecross Street. He acts as honorary secretary to the Costermongers' Society; he edits a little periodical, known as the _Golden Lane Mission Magazine_; and he fosters and helps to maintain many small sub-societies, if we may so term them. Among these are a 'Share Barrow Club,' for lending barrows to men who possess neither donkey-carts nor hand-barrows; a Sick and Burial Club, to which the men pay fourpence a week each; a 'Coster's Friends' of Labour Club, through the aid of which the men can put out small sums at interest, or borrow small sums for limited periods; an 'Emily Loan Club' (named, we believe, after a daughter of the Earl of Shaftesbury), for the benefit of respectable female street-dealers; a Penny Savings-bank; a Maternity Fund; a Soup Kitchen; a Coal Fund; a Clothing Club; a Donkey Club (for purchasing donkeys by means of small instalments), besides others for educational, moral, and religious improvement.