e the ticket agent at Albany, and
called for a ticket to R----, a small place fifty miles distant. He got
the ticket. After a few miles' walk from R---- he reached his new home
safely, and there he proposed to stay. He said he would take to the woods
if his uncle came after him again. This happened ten years ago.

About a year ago a letter came from the young fellow. He is now an active
Christian, married, and worth property, and expects in a few years to have
his farm all paid for.

A hundred benevolent enterprises have clustered about the Fresh Air Fund
as the years have passed, patterning after it and accepting help from it
to carry out their own plans. Churches provide excursions for their poor
children and the Fund pays the way. Vacations for working girls, otherwise
out of reach, are made attainable by its intervention. An independent
feature is the _Tribune_ Day Excursion that last summer gave nearly thirty
thousand poor persons, young and old, a holiday at a beautiful grove on
the Hudson, with music and milk to their hearts' desire. The expense was
borne by a wealthy citizen of this city, who gave boats, groves, and
entertainment free of charge, stipulating only that his name should not be
disclosed.

Other cities have followed the example of New York. Boston and
Philadelphia have their "Country Week," fashioned after the Fresh Air Fund
idea. Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and other cities clear to San
Francisco have sent committees to examine its workings, and deputations
have come from Canada, from London and Manchester, where the holiday work
is doing untold good and is counted among the most useful of philanthropic
efforts. German, Austrian, and Italian cities have fallen into line, and
the movement has spread even to the Sandwich Islands. Yet this great work,
as far as New York, where it had its origin, is concerned, has never had
organization or staff of officers of any sort. Three well-known citizens
audit Mr. Parsons' accounts once a year. The rest he manages and always
has managed himself. "The constitution and by-laws," he says, drily, "are
made and amended from day to day as required, and have yet to be written."
The Fresh Air Fund rests firmly upon a stronger foundation than any human
law or enactment. Its charter was written in the last commandment that is
the sum of all the rest: "That ye love one another."

The method of the Fresh Air Fund was and is its great merit. Its plan,
when first prese