No philanthropic work in London will be more likely to attract the attention of Americans, than that done by the Peabody fund in the construction of the model lodging houses, where three rooms, comfortable and clean, can be hired for five shillings a week. The buildings in the various districts where they have already been erected are five stories in height, well lighted, well ventilated, and calculated in every way to make desirable homes for the very poor. Since the gift of Mr. Peabody, the corporation of London has given land and six hundred thousand dollars for the erection of model dwellings for the working people. Before them in this benevolent work has been the Baroness Burdett-Couts, whose heart has seemed to be as large as her purse. A morning spent in exploring the vicinity of Columbia Square Market showed us her four large blocks of neat houses surrounding a court all occupied now by a clean, orderly class of people. The adjoining market, built to accommodate the neighborhood on the site of the old “dust heap” was also her work. The place was one of the most filthy and pestilential haunts of vice and degradation in the city of London. Its refuse heaps were almost as high as its hovels, and foulness, moral and physical, made the spot a breeding place of disease to body and soul. These are only instances of what may be done, of what must be done, indeed, if cities like those of England and America are ever to be lifted from the pauperism that destroys soul and body alike. And the traveler, who makes his journey without securing a knowledge of what is stirring in other countries to solve the problem of helping people to help themselves, misses both the truth as to the realities of human conditions and the inspiration that comes from seeing what has been already done. The great consideration is time, which is always and everywhere too short. Our quartette labored faithfully and well, but, like other travelers, saw once what they wanted to see a dozen times, heard their favorite music in snatches and their favorite preachers sometimes once and sometimes not at all. They crowded ten objects of interest into the time fairly due to one, and left London with the feeling of a hungry man at a railway station whose bell rings just as he has taken the first bite of his dinner. “Who was it, in Mother Goose, that ‘whipped his children and made them dance out of Ireland into France?’” asks the scribe of the quartette, lifting her pen with a characteristic motion that betrays an inclination to put it behind her ear. “’Twasn’t anybody,” answers the scholar, gruffly, who feels a coming talk in the air and does not like to be disturbed at his book. “Yes, it was!” persists the scribe, “and whoever he was, the chief is just like him. Here he is fairly lashing us about Londontown to drive us over to France.” Behind his newspaper the chief smiles. “You will be glad I hastened you, when once you are there out of this wretched fog.”