his, a writer says: "The mental change caused by one day so spent
must not be undervalued. Whatever the circumstances, the children learn
the meaning of fields and woods, so that descriptions of country scenery
in the books they read, which before conveyed no impression, become now
intelligible."

One day in the fields and woods, if they are lucky enough to be picked up
by the people who try to help! And they are being born faster every day
than they can be carted off to the fields and woods for the one day in
their lives. One day! In all their lives, one day! And for the rest of
the days, as the boy told a certain bishop, "At ten we 'ops the wag; at
thirteen we nicks things; an' at sixteen we bashes the copper." Which is
to say, at ten they play truant, at thirteen steal, and at sixteen are
sufficiently developed hooligans to smash the policemen.

The Rev. J. Cartmel Robinson tells of a boy and girl of his parish who
set out to walk to the forest. They walked and walked through the never-
ending streets, expecting always to see it by-and-by; until they sat down
at last, faint and despairing, and were rescued by a kind woman who
brought them back. Evidently they had been overlooked by the people who
try to help.

The same gentleman is authority for the statement that in a street in
Hoxton (a district of the vast East End), over seven hundred children,
between five and thirteen years, live in eighty small houses. And he
adds: "It is because London has largely shut her children in a maze of
streets and houses and robbed them of their rightful inheritance in sky
and field and brook, that they grow up to be men and women physically
unfit."

He tells of a member of his congregation who let a basement room to a
married couple. "They said they had two children; when they got
possession it turned out that they had four. After a while a fifth
appeared, and the landlord gave them notice to quit. They paid no
attention to it. Then the sanitary inspector who has to wink at the law
so often, came in and threatened my friend with legal proceedings. He
pleaded that he could not get them out. They pleaded that nobody would
have them with so many children at a rental within their means, which is
one of the commonest complaints of the poor, by-the-bye. What was to be
done? The landlord was between two millstones. Finally he applied to
the magistrate, who sent up an officer to inquire into the case. Since
that time