But what of the children whose only nursery is the streets and whose only nurse is a sister but little older than themselves? Well, I believe a great many of them have a happy childhood though they are denied some of the privileges of more gently nurtured children. The little girls with tattered frocks who dance so gaily to the wandering barrel organ no more suggest despair than their brothers who, of a Saturday afternoon, come to play noisy cricket and football outside my window. Nevertheless we cannot afford to be complacent about them. We have only to think of winter borne with poor food and decaying boots; of the appeals for comforts from the poorer parishes of the big towns where the children’s wants make education almost a mockery till they can be to some extent filled. An Italian, or was it a Spaniard, once commenting on our country said: “You have a society for the prevention of cruelty to children: we have none in Italy because it is not necessary. No Italian is cruel to children.” This was possibly an exaggeration, for there are fiends in all nations; but it is a blot on our country that such a society should be so vitally necessary to counteract the harm that poverty and ignorance can do to the precious young lives in whom lies the hope of the future. Dirt and ignorance, drink and vice, these are the enemies of little English girls and boys. The very excellence of children’s upbringing in the upper and middle classes make the backwardness lower down all the more a disgrace. It is a disgrace which we all share, for the responsibility for improvement is incumbent on us all. In education alone is there any hope. All honour therefore to those men and women who by the institution of baby clinics and mothers’ classes endeavour to mitigate the evils that should never exist. The spoiling of one Englishwoman would be a grievous thing, yet thousands are spoiled every year by ignorance, overcrowding, and bad example. The first few chapters of William de Morgan’s “Alice for Short” are not the work of a romantic imagination, but of an observant mind. How far is that wretched mite, who lived in a damp cellar with two drunken parents, from the Alice of “Alice in Wonderland,” who is the very soul of England’s childhood! Absolute equality, no matter what some socialists say, can never exist, but the chances for the two Alices should not differ by so vast a measure. The burden of lessening it must be borne by us all, and no sudden remedy will be of any use. One thing which English parents will never allow is the assumption by the state of the duty of bringing up their children. Nurseries wide enough to hold all the children in England might be built with enough English nurses to staff them, clothes might be provided, toys and even food, but it would be in vain. The cry of pauperisation, or tyranny, or militarism, or some other cry would go up, but the root of the matter would be that Alf Smith and Emma