my," well up in advanced arithmetic, and quite capable
of discussing the books she had read. Yet the family had been born in
an apology of a house, they had graduated in the slums, but not in the
gutter. Their widowed mother had worked interminable hours and starved
as she worked, but no attendance officer had ever been required to
compel her children to school. It would have taken force to keep them
away. But what of their future? Who can say? But of one thing I am very
sure, and it is this: that, given fair opportunity, the whole family
will adorn any station of life that they may be called to fill.

But will they have that opportunity? Well, the friend that was with me
says they will, and he has commissioned me to act for him, promising
me that if I am taken first and he is left, the cultured family of the
slums shall not go uncared for. And amidst the sordid life of our mean
streets, there are numbers of brilliant children whose God-given talents
not only run to waste, but are actually turned into evil for lack of
opportunity.

Here and there one and another rise superior to their environment, and
with splendid perseverance fight their way to higher and better life.
And some of them rise to eminence, for genius is not rare even in
Slumdom.

One of our greatest artists, lately dead, whose work all civilisation
delights to honour, played in a slum gutter, and climbed a lamp-post
that he might get a furtive look into a school of art.

All honour and good wishes to the rising young, but all glory to the
half-starved widows who shape their characters and form their tastes.
To the old shoemaker good wishes; may the small pension that a friend
of mine has settled on him add to his comfort and his health, may his
beloved minor poets with Dickens and Shakespeare long be dear to him,
and may his poor little home long continue to be peopled with bright
creations that defy the almost omnipotent power of the underworld.

If any who may read these words would like to do a kind action that will
not be void of good results and sure reward, I would say lend a
helping hand to some poor family where, in spite of their poverty and
surroundings, the children are clean and intelligent, and have made
progress at school. For they are just needing a hand, it may be to help
with their education, or it may be to give them a suitable start in
life. If the mother happens to be a widow, you cannot do wrong.

If one half of the money that i