oors day and night, without money and
without price. It is a dark night outside, but if you will look up on
this building, the words, '_No destitute boy or girl ever refused
admission_, are large enough to be read on the darkest night and with
the weakest eyesight; and that has been true all these seven-and-twenty
years.

"On this same pretext of 'asking no questions,' I have been offered
L10,000 down, and L900 a year guaranteed during the lifetime of the
wealthy man who made the offer, if I would set up a Foundling
Institution. A basket was to be placed outside, and no attempt was ever
to be made either to see the woman or to discover from whence she came
or where she went. This, again, I refused. We _must_ know all we can
about the little ones who come here, and every possible means is taken
to trace them. A photo is taken of every child when it arrives--even in
tatters; it is re-photographed again when it is altogether a different
small creature."

Concerning these photographs, a great deal might be said, for the
photographic studio at Stepney is an institution in itself. Over 30,000
negatives have been taken, and the photograph of any child can be turned
up at a moment's notice. Out of this arrangement romantic incidents
sometimes grow.

Here is one of many. A child of three years old, discovered in a
village in Lancashire deserted by its parents, was taken to the nearest
workhouse. There were no other children in the workhouse at the time,
and a lady visitor, struck with the forlornness of the little girl waif,
beginning life under the shadow of the workhouse, benevolently wrote to
Dr. Barnardo, and after some negotiations the child was admitted to the
Homes and its photograph taken. Then it went down to the Girls' Village
Home at Ilford, where it grew up in one of the cottage families until
eleven years old.

One day a lady called on Dr. Barnardo and told him a sad tale concerning
her own child, a little girl, who had been stolen by a servant who owed
her a spite, and who was lost sight of years ago. The lady had done all
she could at the time to trace her child in vain, and had given up the
pursuit; but lately an unconquerable desire to resume her inquiries
filled her. Among other places, she applied to the police in London, and
the authorities suggested that she should call at Stepney.

Dr. Barnardo could, of course, give her no clue whatever. Eight years
had passed since the child had been lost; but one t