set fire to the place at any
time, he applied to the Charity Organization Society to know what could
be done. We offered the woman and children shelter at the Electric
Sewing {206} Machine Rooms, until the boy could be sent back to Owing's
Mills and the other children committed to the Henry Watson Children's Aid
Society, and advised that the man saw wood at the Friendly Inn until he
could get work. The man refused to go, but the woman and children came
to the Electric Rooms, and with the cooperation of the Society for the
Protection of Children, the imbecile was returned to Owing's Mills.

At this juncture the daily papers interfered with our plans for the
children by publishing a sensational account of Gamma as a most
industrious shoemaker, who had always supported his family until the hard
times of the last year had thrown him out of work. Money was sent to the
papers for the family. Gamma, who had consented to have two of the
children placed in good country homes by the Henry Watson Aid Society,
changed his mind, and the old story of indiscriminate charity and
indiscriminate filth and neglect began all over again. The gentleman who
had given them shelter thought they ought to have another trial. They
had had six years' trial already, but this last one was of short
duration. In four months their champion returned to say that the Charity
Organization Society was right and he was wrong; that he had found Gamma
drunken, lazy, and insolent; and that the children raised under his
influence must become paupers and criminals. Again the family were
ejected, and this {207} time, before public sympathy could interfere, the
two older children were committed to the Henry Watson Aid Society, and
only the baby left with Mrs. Gamma.

Our advice to Mrs. Gamma was to return to her mother, who offered her a
home. But the advice was not taken. Established in another part of
Baltimore, Gamma renewed his attack on the clergy, and told one minister
that he was a hardened criminal who had served a term in the
Penitentiary, but, after hearing one of his sermons, he desired earnestly
to reform. The latest news about the Gammas is a bit of information in
which the charitable public will have to take an interest, however
reluctantly, before very long,--there is a new baby.--"Charities Record,"
Baltimore, Vol. II, No. 8.

_A Success._--The second family consisted of a respectable, middle-aged
woman who had been twice married, fou