"That is one means of getting rid of children," said Dr. Barnardo, after he had told me the story of Frank, "but there are others which might almost amount to a respectable method. I have received offers of large sums of money from persons who have been desirous of my receiving their children into these Homes _without asking any questions_. Not so very long ago a lady came to Stepney in her carriage. A child was in it. I granted her an interview, and she laid down five £100 notes, saying they were mine if I would take the child and ask no questions. I did not take the child. Again. A well-known peer of the realm once sent his footman here with £100, asking me to take the footman's son. No. The footman could support his child. Gold and silver will never open my doors unless there is real destitution. It is for the homeless, the actually destitute, that we open our doors day and night, without money and without price. It is a dark night outside, but if you will look up on this building, the words, '_No destitute boy or girl ever refused admission_, are large enough to be read on the darkest night and with the weakest eyesight; and that has been true all these seven-and-twenty years. "On this same pretext of 'asking no questions,' I have been offered £10,000 down, and £900 a year guaranteed during the lifetime of the wealthy man who made the offer, if I would set up a Foundling Institution. A basket was to be placed outside, and no attempt was ever to be made either to see the woman or to discover from whence she came or where she went. This, again, I refused. We _must_ know all we can about the little ones who come here, and every possible means is taken to trace them. A photo is taken of every child when it arrives--even in tatters; it is re-photographed again when it is altogether a different small creature." Concerning these photographs, a great deal might be said, for the photographic studio at Stepney is an institution in itself. Over 30,000 negatives have been taken, and the photograph of any child can be turned up at a moment's notice. Out of this arrangement romantic incidents sometimes grow. Here is one of many. A child of three years old, discovered in a village in Lancashire deserted by its parents, was taken to the nearest workhouse. There were no other children in the workhouse at the time, and a lady visitor, struck with the forlornness of the little girl waif, beginning life under the shadow of the workhouse, benevolently wrote to Dr. Barnardo, and after some negotiations the child was admitted to the Homes and its photograph taken. Then it went down to the Girls' Village Home at Ilford, where it grew up in one of the cottage families until eleven years old.