ionately poor and interesting. Among its
members in the last century was Henry Raine, a brewer, who in 1719
founded two schools for the free education of fifty girls and fifty
boys, respectively. In 1736 he founded and endowed a new school,
called the Asylum, for teaching, clothing and training forty girls to
domestic service, the girls to be chosen from among the children of
the lower school. In this latter school each girl stays four years,
and the system has worked so well that the scholars are greatly sought
after as servants. At the age of twenty-two any girl, educated there,
who can produce good testimonials while in service, may become a
candidate for a marriage-portion of one hundred pounds. Six girls draw
for it on May Day, and six on the Fifth of November, the unsuccessful
ones being entitled to draw again from time to time until they get it.
The drawing is preceded by a special service in the parish church,
the boys and girls from the lower schools being present, and going
in procession from the school to the church arrayed in quaint,
old-fashioned costume. The former wear a half-nautical costume, the
neighborhood being in many ways connected with sea-pursuits:
the latter are dressed in blue stuff gowns, a white apron and a
handkerchief folded over the breast, and a small white cap bound
round with a Blue ribbon. Every one, from the gorgeous beadle to the
youngest child, has also a bouquet of flowers on this occasion. The
beadle is an "institution" that has disappeared in America, but which
still looms in awful official grandeur before the mind's eye of every
London-bred child. On these occasions he is in all his glory: his
military costume and silver-headed staff are the very embodiment of
dignity, and to the less awed spectator of riper years he fills in a
niche of old-time conventionality very picturesquely. The service is
followed by the wedding of the successful candidate of the previous
occasion, so that each of the two memorable days becomes a double
festival. The bells strike a merry peal, and the procession forms once
more and goes back to the Asylum, where, in a curious apartment, the
walls of which are covered with the names of donors to the charity,
the drawing takes place. The girls of the Asylum enter the room and
begin by singing a short hymn, accompanied by an old-fashioned
organ. The treasurer of the Asylum Fund, in exact compliance with the
explicit directions of the founder's charter, takes