He bears a cross, we know; and legends say Has borne, in memory of a wondrous day, When love wrought miracles, in stress and strife, And sick were healed, and dead men raised to life. Since when, 'twixt hard knocks, hard words, and hard fare, He and his owners both their cross must bear. The Earl, who loves his race, loves other races; He has sought evil out in darksome places, And bravely grappled with its many arms, And tamed its strength, and paralysed its harms; Brought aid to weakness, moved dead weights away, That crushed the soul down, deep in mire and clay. The greatest, by descending, may ascend: The peer who is the costermongers' friend, Dares on the platform stroke an ass's ears, Rises above the level of his peers. As an evidence that the endeavours to improve the London costermongers morally as well as physically, have not been thrown away, we may add the following anecdotes. In 1872 a costermonger named Darby, plying his itinerant trade in the densely packed and comfortless region immediately eastward of the City of London, was one day driving his donkey-cart, laden with cheap fish from Billingsgate. The poor donkey accidentally put his foot into a plug-hole, fell, and broke his leg between the knee and the fetlock--pitching his master out of the cart, and seriously bruising him. His brother-costers advised Darby to kill the animal at once, as no one had ever heard of a donkey's broken leg being healed. But Darby would not listen to this. He took the donkey home, and made a temporary bed for him in the only sitting-room. The man and his wife tended the poor animal, which often groaned with pain. The wife was a washerwoman at the East London Hospital, but she did not grudge to the poor donkey a little of that time which was so valuable to her. A kind lady then undertook to take charge of the donkey until cured, at a place twelve or fourteen miles from London. With bandaging and careful treatment, aided by the benefit of pure fresh air, the leg became sound in eighteen months; and Darby had a good reply to make to those companions who had said to him: 'Kill it, old fellow; it will never be able to get up again. First loss is the best; nobody can set a donkey's leg. Kill it, old fellow, at once!' The kind-hearted costermonger became known as 'Darby, the donkey's friend.' A testimonial was presented to him by the Ladies' Committee of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; and he is justly proud of it.