Here is an illustration of the sort of case with which these Slum Sisters have to deal; perhaps, I should say, the easiest sort of case. An old man and his wife whom they visited, lived in a clean room. The old woman fell sick, and before she died the Slum Sisters gave her a bath, which, as these poor people much object to washing, caused all the neighbours to say that they had killed her. After his wife's death, the husband, who earned his living by selling laces on London Bridge, went down in the world, and his room became filthy. The Slum Sisters told him that they would clean up the place, but he forbade them to touch the bed, which, he said, was full of mice and beetles. As he knew that women dread mice and beetles, he thought that this statement would frighten them. When he was out selling his laces, they descended upon his room, where the first thing that they did was to remove the said bed into the yard and burn it, replacing it with another. On his return, the old man exclaimed: 'Oh, my darlings, whatever _have_ you been doing?' They still clean this room once a week. The general impression left upon my mind, after visiting this place at Hackney Road and conversing with its guardian angels, is, that in some of its aspects, if not in all, civilization is a failure. Probably thoughtful people made the same remark in ancient Rome, and in every other city since cities were. The truth is, that so soon as its children desert the land which bore them for the towns, these horrors follow as surely as the night follows the day. THE PICCADILLY MIDNIGHT WORK GREAT TICHFIELD STREET I visited this place a little before twelve o'clock on a summer night. It is a small flat near Oxford Street, in which live two women-Officers of the Army, who are engaged in the work of reclaiming prostitutes. I may mention that for the last fourteen years the Major in charge, night by night, has tramped the streets with this object. The Titchfield Street flat is not in any sense a Home, but I saw a small room in it, with two beds, where cases who may be rescued from the streets, or come here in a time of trouble, can sleep until arrangements are made for them to proceed to one of the Rescue Institutions of the Army.