picuous. Hence they have no chance to see
or know what really takes place. Had they even seen the whole process
of getting that four shillings and tenpence they would have noted that
most of the money really came from the Salvationists forming the ring,
who threw their pence, or sixpences, gradually, in the hope of inciting
others to do likewise.

As it is, I fear, many go their way "disgusted at the whole thing,"
because of the little scrap of it they have overheard.

But, pray, what is the essential difference between the call for
"twopence to make up a shilling," and the colossal call made in the name
of some royal personage for "an additional ten thousand pounds" to make
up the L25,000 needed for a new hospital wing? Surely, a hospital, whose
value and services commend it to the entire population should need no
such spurs as subscription lists published in all the papers, or even
the memory of a world benefactor to help it to get the needed funds. But
it does, and its energetic promoters, be they royal or not, deserve and
get universal praise for "stooping"--if it be stooping--to any device of
this kind needed to get the cash. Do they get it? is the only question
any sensible person asks.

And nobody questions that our "stooping" Officers and "begging Sisters"
get the twopences and shillings and pounds needed to keep The Army
going, in spite of all its critics--whether of the blatant
street-corner, or of the kid-gloved slanderer type.

If we reflect upon the subject we shall see how sound and valuable are
the principles on which all our twopenny appeals are based.

From the very beginning The General always set up the standard of local
self-support as one of the essentials of any real work. Whilst labouring
almost exclusively amongst the poorest of the poor, he wrote, in 1870:--

[Illustration: Emma Booth-Tucker

Born January 8th. 1860. Died October 28th. 1903.]

"The entire cost of carrying on the Mission at present is about L50
per week. The offerings of the people themselves at the various
stations are now about L17 per week; indeed, nearly every Station
is paying its own working expenses. Thus the poor people themselves
do something. This they ought to do. It would be wrong to deprive
them of the privilege of giving their mite, and if they prize
the instrumentalities that have been blessed to them, and are
rightly instructed, they will cheerfully give, however smal