t, in the name of the
homeless cur of the street. And I heard the story of little Mary Ellen
told again, that stirred the souls of a city and roused the conscience of
a world that had forgotten. The sweet-faced missionary who found Mary
Ellen was there, wife of a newspaper man--happy augury; where the gospel
of faith and the gospel of facts join hands the world moves. She told how
the poor consumptive in the dark slum tenement, at whose bedside she daily
read the Bible, could not die in peace while "the child they called Mary
Ellen" was beaten and tortured in the next flat; and how on weary feet she
went from door to door of the powerful, vainly begging mercy for it and
peace for her dying friend. The police told her to furnish evidence, prove
crime, or they could not move; the societies said: "bring the child to us
legally, and we will see; till then we can do nothing"; the charitable
said, "it is dangerous to interfere between parent and child; better let
it alone." And the judges said that it was even so; it was for them to see
that men walked in the way laid down, not to find it--until her woman's
heart rebelled in anger against it all, and she sought the great friend of
the dumb brute, who made a way.

"The child is an animal," he said. "If there is no justice for it as a
human being, it shall at least have the rights of the cur in the street.
It shall not be abused."

And as I looked I knew that I was where the first charter of the
Children's rights was written under warrant of that made for the dog; for
from that dingy court-room, whence a wicked woman went to jail, thirty
years ago came forth the Children's Society, with all it has meant to the
world's life. It is quickening its pulse to this day in lands and among
peoples who never spoke the name of my city and Mary Ellen's. For
her--her life has run since like an even summer stream between flowery
shores. When last I had news of her, she was the happy wife of a
prosperous farmer up-State.

The lights on the river shone out once more. From the pier came a chorus
of children's voices singing "Sunday Afternoon" as only East Side children
can. My friend was listening intently. Aye, well did I remember the wail
that came to the Police Board, in the days that are gone, from a pastor
over there. "The children disturb our worship," he wrote; "they gather in
the street at my church and sing and play while we would pray"; and the
bitter retort of the police captain of