“THE SILVER LADY”

Shannon News, 21 June 1929, Page 4

“THE SILVER LADY”

LONDON’S ANGEL OF MERCY

AMONG DESTITUTE.

A girl who might be described as a Florence Nightingale of the Streets, is carrying out a wonderful mission among London outcasts. Two or three times a week she sets out at midnight from her London flat in her two-seater car with pity in her heart and a bag of silver in her hand. She visits the haunts of the destitiite end gives them money, or tickets with which they can obtain beds or food at Salvation Armv shelters. She visits the crypt of St.-Martin’s Church, which is crowded with homeless men and women, the Thames Embankment, and the dark railway arches at Oharing Cross, where scores of destitute sleep in the bitterest weather, wrapped in old newspapers. ‘ Miss Baxter, who is known to some of the outcasts as the “Silver Lady,” r, a daughter of Mr Paget Baxter, of Hove, and she is carrying on a work among outcasts that her grandfather, the late Rev. Miehael Baxter, started many years ago. In addition, Miss Baxter feeds daily, free of charge, 500 homeless and destitute men at a canteen she runs in Webber street, Lambeth. All through the bitter weather of the past winter, Miss Baxter carried on lier night errands of mercy, and as a result of exposure was laid up.

"The colder it was the'more anxious she was to go out at night," one of her helpers says. "She used to.say,' ‘the poor things must be suffering so.' " "I should like you to say that the money I spend is not my own," Miss Baxter 'explained modestly. "It is partly money left by my grandfather for the purpose, and partly money subscribed by sympathisers.

“I start my night journeys at midnight and finish about 4 a.m. One morning, at 3 o’clock, I distributed £S in shillings to 115 outcasts in Covent Garden, and afterwards provided all oT them with food at a coffee' stall.” The only occasion on which Miss Baxter received a rebuff was when she woke a somewhat shabbily dressed man on the Embankment and put a shilling, in his hand.

He was said to be a millionaire staying at the Savoy Hotel!,