much under State supervision as we have put the Board Schools.

The best part of education is to teach the child how to make his education practical.

As John Howard said, "Make them diligent, you will make them honest."

and

I would like to see these great Elementary Schools of Labour all over the land. To set up these might require capital, raised possibly by a rate, but even that would pay, for we should soon empty the prisons and workhouses.

By spending a little more on education, and a little less on Reformatories and Unions, we should exterminate the class for which these oppressive drains on the public money exist.

89. And here you must not suppose that I speak in ignorance of, or unthankfulness for, what has been done for children. Young criminals are provided for by the Reformatory Acts. Wandering children are cared for under the Local Government Act. Children of outdoor paupers can be educated under Denison's Act. Children of the wage-earning poor will be sent to school under the Education Act. Children in factories or workshops come under the Factory Act and

the Workshop Acts. Children working as street shoeblacks or messengers are specially regulated by the Street Traffic Act. Orphans, idiots, blind, cripples, foundlings, and deaf, have all special Asylums. (See "Ten Thousand Street Folk," by Rob Roy.) All this has been done, and yet there is room; and were any proof wanting of this, it is that "Rob Roy," in a paper read at a meeting of the Charity Organisation Society (Nov. 21, 1872), computed that there are about 10,000 young persons employed in match and newspaper selling, &c., about the London streets, who are still unprotected by lawwithout discipline or education, with no combination, public body, or voluntary agency to secure them from a life of beggary or worse.

90. Then how would I deal with these, our street Arabs? Of these street Arabs at least 4,000 are bona fide children in the streets of London. They have no particular home; they are not vagabonds, they are working bees. They pick up a livelihood by selling newspapers and match-boxes, flowers, or anything they can get you to buy; and if they cannot get you to buy, they will just as soon pick your pocket, or steal

your umbrella. If ever there was a public question, this is one. It is a question for you.

Any one who has any influence in the vestry of Marylebone, for instance, should turn his attention to this question. The first thing is to reduce this population to facts and figures.

Collect all these waifs and strays, and organise their labour. I don't want to suppress them. The policeman is always moving them on, because they have no settled place. I should like to see them in places where they could not be moved on; at kiosks or stalls fixed and appointed by the parishes. Then they would not only be useful to the neighbourhood, but we should be able to bring some influence to bear on these little waifs and strays.

91. Something has been done here. The Shoeblack Brigade helps to some small extent. The street-sweepers are organised, and at night there are a few homes like the "Newsboy's Home" in Gray's Inn Lane. But, as "Rob Roy" says, "What can we effect if we drill a mob at night who were a mob all day and will be a mob to-morrow?" You must know where to find them by day as well as by night

if

you want to educate, improve, or even keep themout of the criminal classes.

92. I say, then, let each parish organise its street Arabs. They are worth it. Ask Lord Shaftesbury what he thinks of the raw material of the streets. He will tell you that it is not so black as it is painted, that the rocks upon which these poor children have foundered are bad conditions. Whereas the children of the upper and middle classes have had favourable conditions, these little waifs and strays have been thrown into the streets at a tender age to shift for themselves. What can become of them? Suppose they steal, whose fault is it? Who taught them better? When do they first come under discipline? Often in a police court. And what a discipline for a child no worse, perhaps, than your child!

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93. There are 28,000 children (see the "Gaol Cradle ") appear annually as prisoners at the bar." This is a most dreadful thought to me.

I think we are quite wrong in our treatment of these little ones. We treat them like criminals.

We ought not to call any children criminals.

How can they be? They are the victims of bad example. In their infancy their characters are formed for good or evil. You have to form

them.

94. A little child on some cold night takes a hot potato. He steals one when he is hungry, and the policeman is down upon him, and treats the poor little creature as a thief. At all events he is put into the van with drunkards and thieves, lodged in a felon's cell, and taken before the magistrate for seizing this potato. Perhaps he never even knew that it was wrong.

Well, he is sent to prison. What a dreadful thing is that for a child of nine or ten years of age! 28,000 children are annually taken before our magistrates and locked up like common criminals!

I declare that is not the right treatment for them.

You rivet upon the child's mind vile associations.

You cast a stigma upon its life which it will never afterwards shake off. Worst of all, when it comes out it will perhaps be proud of having been in prison. Such things are. But I say