Strange experiences have been the lot of Mr. Charrington during this part of the work. On one occasion a young man was about to commit suicide, and had a bottle of poison in his pocket. Mr. Charrington wrestled with him upon the floor of the room and took the bottle from him by force, thus saving his life. So much for my own experiences. Let me conclude this necessarily circumscribed account of the living, burning activities of the Great Assembly Hall at this day, by telling my readers that upon Lord Mayor's Day, when the Chief Magistrate of London holds his Civic State in the grand old hall in the city, two or three thousand of the very poorest are also entertained at the Great Assembly Hall by Mr. Charrington and his co-workers, on behalf of the Lord Mayor, the Sheriffs, and the City Companies. The poor have enjoyed this banquet for twenty-six years in succession, and I take a typical account of one of these feasts from the columns of a daily paper published in 1902. "There was a pleasing though pathetic scene witnessed last night in the Great Assembly Hall, Mile End Road, when a large number of London's destitute poor were entertained to supper. As the people of all ages trooped in to take their seats at the long benches laden with good things, many a wan face brightened, as it had probably never brightened before, at the prospect of a good and nourishing meal. For the most part the people came with freshly washed faces, and nicely combed hair, and to one who did not know the vast metropolis and its slums, it would be impossible to believe that these were the people--or at least, many of them--who practically lived in the streets, and helped to augment their own and their parents' incomes by selling matches, flowers, and other articles along the kerbside. There were about two thousand guests, and when they once 'fell to' there was almost a silence. This gradually increased into a murmur, then into a general clatter of tongues as the good fare began to warm them. Then, here and there, came a merry peal of laughter. By the time the meal was finished, every one was gay and happy; each was in a veritable fairyland, and quite oblivious of the life of the morrow. But even such a momentary ray of sunshine into the lives of toil and trouble may help to fashion a character and teach not a few of them what can be done by kindness and well-dispensed generosity, while those who were responsible for the feast were amply recompensed.