instruct new or inexperienced visitors in the nature of their duties and the principles they were expected to adopt. Each visitor had to keep a book, in which the name of every applicant was entered, together with the information obtained about him through the local branch of the Charity Organization Society. An account of all money given to him by any charitable agency, and a short notice from month to month of the events in his family were also entered. Each book contained the facts relating to residents in one court or street only, and was always in the hands of the visitor of that court, temporary or permanent; an alphabetical index enabled her to turn at once to the account of any given family. The result of this system was to train a body of visitors in judicious and organized modes of work. The light thrown upon cases of applicants by the Charity Organization Society, the advantages afforded by practical work under an experienced committee, and the power of watching individual cases of distress through a long period of their history (a power which small districts and written records materially increase), were all important elements in the education of these visitors. When this system had been in operation two or three years, it became clear that these volunteer visitors might be valuable to the relieving officer, if they could be brought into communication with him, and that a mass of information had been collected in their district-books, which might be of service to the Guardians if it could be made available at the right moment. But the attempt to bring them into direct communication with any official would have been open to many objections. Confusions might arise when visitors were absent; new visitors would occasionally have to be appointed, and to have their work explained to them. No relieving officer would have time to undertake this duty, nor even to communicate with so large and fluctuating a body as that formed by these volunteers. The Guardians, therefore, resolved to recognize one of these volunteers as representing the whole body. The referee would be a connecting link between themselves and the visitors, and through her only, all communications would pass. I was asked to fill this position with relation to the Guardians, for one reason, because I was already a member both of the Relief Committee before mentioned, and the committee of the Charity Organization Society, and the recognized medium of communication between these two bodies.