saloons, in which they are ever welcome? Is it not sad that, besides these, the only other places to which they have the entrée are the ‘sing-song’ rooms connected with the larger public-houses—snares and traps of the evil one to ruin both body and soul? The haunts of vice and folly are open nightly to our factory girls, but should the Church of Christ leave it to the world, the flesh, and the devil to care for them?” The Churches and Parliament together answered that question now, as it had not been answered before, with an emphatic _No_. They were not going to allow these mothers of the future to be tempted thus. The outcome of this pamphlet had been the excellent Shaftesbury Institute; for the writer had pleaded: “We have quite a sufficient number of volunteers to make the effort a success, and nothing hinders our entering on it except the lack of premises.” These had been long ago supplied, and excellent work was carried on within them. But the plea of “lack of premises” was not now anywhere to be allowed; so men sternly determined. Lack of premises, when there were churches and chapels with vestries and school-rooms, which the people’s money had paid for, shut up all the week? It would have fared ill with any one in the new times who kept the good work of rescue waiting, while complaining of lack of premises. But it was such endeavours as those of the author of “Only a Factory Girl” which had brought the happy change about. And the new Parliament passed two short and simple rules which had an immediate effect. The first provided that no one was to employ a girl in work of any kind who did not pay her for her labour wages enough to enable her to live respectably. And the second made it actionable for any one to take rent without being assured that the rooms were only occupied by the right number and the right kind of persons. Of course, there was a terrific howl from the quarters of vested interests. But this Parliament was as strong and sturdy as that of Oliver Cromwell, and a great deal more enlightened; so it simply closed its ears to all noises, and went straight on, doing its duty. Its courage was in nothing more evident than in the very stringent liquor law which was speedily passed, and which attacked drunkenness as a deadly disease, and punished those who had been accessories. It also insisted that for a third offence a drunkard could be taken to a Home for Inebriates, and kept there until cured.