and says she can never
be thankful enough to the kind friends, who, being connected with the
Children's Aid Society, sought her out, and provided her with a
comfortable home in the country, far removed from the temptations, and
vices, and miseries of a city like New York. I would say that she has
not been to school the past summer, and that she had made little
progress in penmanship during her attendance last winter, and that she
is not now able to write you herself, but I think will be able to do so
when you wish to hear from her again.
"'Respectfully yours,
"'WM. K. L.'"

----

FROM THE GUTTER TO THE COLLEGE.

"YALE COLLEGE, NEW HAVEN, OCT. 11, 1871.
"Rev. C. L. Brace, Secretary Children's Aid Society:

_"Dear Sir_--I shall endeavor in this letter to give you a brief sketch
of my life, as it is your request that I should.

"I cannot speak of my parents with any certainty at all. I recollect
having an aunt by the name of Julia B----. She had me in charge for some
time, and made known some things to me of which I have a faint
remembrance. She married a gentleman in Boston, and left me to shift for
myself in the streets of your city. I could not have been more than
seven or eight years of age at this time. She is greatly to be excused
for this act, since I was a very bad boy, having an abundance of
self-will.

"At this period I became a vagrant, roaming over all parts of the city.
I would often pick up a meal at the markets or at the docks, where they
were unloading fruit. At a late hour in the night I would find a
resting-place in some box or hogshead, or in some dark hole under a
staircase.

"The boys that I fell in company with would steal and swear, and of
course I contracted those habits too. I have a distinct recollection of
stealing up upon houses to tear the lead from around the chimneys, and
then take it privily away to some junk-shop, as they call it; with the
proceeds I would buy a ticket for the pit in the Chatham-street Theatre,
and something to eat with the remainder. This is the manner in which I
was drifting out in the stream of life, when some kind person from your
Society persuaded me to go to Randall's Island. I remained at this place
two years. Sometime in July, 1859, one of your agents came there and
asked how