Well was it that Miss Edith Sellers of England, of her own free will, visited relatives of the inmates of a London workhouse, hoping to carry back to the latter place the joyful tidings that they were wanted in families. Alas! out of 528 such inmates only 221 had any relatives, and more than half of that number knew that, if they went to their kinspeople, they would not be taken in. Some who had felt sure of a welcome were bitterly disappointed. "Old folk give no end of trouble; keeping them clean takes up all one's time. Besides they must have somewhere to sleep," was generally answered. One grown-up daughter, supporting herself, her mother and brother in two rooms, one no better than a cupboard, grieved she could not take back her father. Other sons and daughters, by blood or by law, waxed indignant at being urged to receive their kinsmen, even for the sake of the shillings. They had neither room nor food for them; each generation must care first for its own children and not take up burdens of parents, worse still of grandparents, aunts and cousins once gotten rid of; especially, if they were of the drunken variety, as was too often the case. Fortunately Miss Sellers found a few other homes which promised to receive a pensioner for the sake of his pension, or from real affection. After all the bitter work-a-day life in these narrow homes, attics, cellars, two or three rooms at most, would have been more wretched for the pensioners to bear than their blighted hopes. "To work a bit harder," in order to take in one's aged mother, is not possible in thousands of cases. Better to remain a workhouse pauper and be sure of warmth, cleanliness and food than to wander forth uncared for or to be an unwelcome burden on an overworked child. Therefore is it that the English Old Age Pension Act does not solve its own problem, for the infirm or sick must still be sheltered in some refuge which should have no workhouse taint of pauperism attached to it. However much there may be among us of similar reluctance to take home aged pauper relatives, it has not yet become a matter of public investigation, though, if it were, it is possible that there would be as much unwillingness manifested here as in England. Certainly many of our almshouses and homes for the aged poor suggest that there will be the same forlorn hopes shattered, if pensions should ever be conferred instead of legal residences in almshouses. Fortunately for us, old age is still an individual question. All the more, then, should elderly people not let themselves get crabbed. Of course, if other people would not nag one with being old, one would not be,--quite so old!