AN INFANT HEROINE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5481, 21 October 1878, Page 3

AN INFANT HEROINE.

(From the Olabc.) The battle of life often begins at a very early date among the children of the humbler classes, at a period when the offspring of the well-to-do people would, feel completely helpless if thrown on their own resources. But it is seldom that even among the poorest a child is called upon to wage the eternal war under such cruelly hard circumstances as lately befell Mary Sheriff, aged nine years. Her mother dead, her father in gaol, this little girl seems to have been left alone in the world except for the companionship of a brother a trifle older than herself. And by soma mysterious means she prolonged the struggle for six weeks, regularly going to a board school, besides doing all that was in her small power to keep the wolf from the door. The brnto managed, however, to gradually force his way in, with the result that his victim waxed thinner and thinner and fell into rveak health. Even then, Mary Sheriff refused to surrender, nor does she appear to have ever complained until one morning, when she went to school in tears. This unusual depression attracted the attention of the 'schoolmistress, who soon ascertained that her little pupil was suffering from starvation. Indee Iso far had the process gone that the ,ehild could not for some time partake of the tea and other light refreshments which were instantly set before her. But for the fortunate discovery of her condition at this time, it seems likely enough that Mary Sheriff's fortitude would speedily have ended in her death. She is now in an Industrial Homo, through the interposition of a clergyman, and thus her battle of life ends, for the present, not unhappily, although the brave little lass may possibly mourn over the loss of her independence, and the deprivation of her mother’s companionship. Had Dickens written this story, he would have been accused of “piling up the pathos," by 1 gross exaggeration. The truth is that the inhabitants of great towns know very little about what is passing around them, and we doubt not the good people of Leeds were as much astonished as horrified on learning that an infant member of their community had almost died of starvation in an unaided struggle for existence.