The question of providing penny dinners for the children of the London poor has received pretty ample discussion. Everybody can form an idea now of the difficulties which will have to be surmounted by the central committee of School Board managers and teachers.... The vital principle of the scheme is that the dinners shall be supplied on a self-supporting basis. In some places the work has been undertaken with more zeal than knowledge, and there has been quick disappointment. The Vicar of St. Mark's, Walworth, who seems to doubt whether the scheme can be carried out on purely commercial lines, tells us how fastidious are the children of the poor. They turn from macaroni; they dislike the flavour of cabbage boiled up in a stew; they will have nothing to say to haricot beans, lentils, or salads; they mistrust soup; and are generally most attracted by suet dumplings and jam or currant puddings. THE DEATH OF GORDON (1885). =Source.=--Sir Reginald Wingate's _Mahdiism and the Egyptian Soudan_, pp. 166-172. (Macmillans.) Soon all that had been in the commissariat was finished, and then the inhabitants and the soldiers had to eat dogs, donkeys, skins of animals, gum, and palm fibre, and famine prevailed. The soldiers stood on the fortifications like pieces of wood. The civilians were even worse off. Many died of hunger, and corpses filled the streets; no one had even energy to bury them.... We were heartbroken; the people and soldiers began to lose faith in Gordon's promises, and they were terribly weak from famine. At last Sunday morning broke, and Gordon Pasha, who used always to watch the enemy's movements from the top of the palace, noticed a considerable movement in the south, which looked as if the Arabs were collecting at Kalakala. He at once sent word to all of us who had attended the previous meeting, and to a few others, to come at once to the palace. We all came, but Gordon Pasha did not see us. We were again addressed by Giriagis Bey, who said he had been told by Gordon Pasha to inform us that he noticed much movement in the enemy's lines, and believed an attack would be made on the town; he therefore ordered us to collect every male in the town from the age of eight, even to the old men, and to line all the fortifications, and that if we had difficulty in getting this order obeyed we were to use force. Giriagis said that Gordon Pasha now appealed to us for the last time to make a determined stand, for in twenty-four hours' time he had no doubt the English would arrive; but that if we preferred to submit then, he gave the commandant liberty to open the gates, and let all join the rebels. He had nothing more to say. I then asked to be allowed to see the Pasha, and was admitted to his presence. I found him sitting on a divan, and as I came in he pulled off his tarboush (fez) and flung it from him, saying, "What more can I say? I have nothing more to say; the people will no longer believe me; I have told them over and over again that