HARMLESS CHARITY.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 279, 5 June 1873, Page 6

HARMLESS CHARITY.

(From tlie "Ecko.''J A crowd was collected outside a veuy small and uniinposing door in a narrow street in the South of London. There were all the usual events in a crowd — hustling, shouting, squeezing, female cries, and the music of disturbed babies, but no member of the throng was more than 5 feet high ; indeed, a yard measure would have outtopped most of them. They were children waiting for their dinner, and at half-past 12 o'clock those tvho were crushed nearest to the door began hammering upon it, each using a penny-piece as a knocker. They had not long to wait ; in a few minutes the door waa opened a little way by a young lady in a large apron, aud one by one the children were admitted, each depositing; a penny in the soupplate which she held out. After GO had come in the door was shut again for the present, as the little room was entirely filled. There were five tables in the room, a cooking stovo at one end, and windows which would open. The tables were covered with clean cloths, aud looked inviting enough ; a young lady presided over each, and another superintended the cooking. And now the work began in earnest ; large soup-plates, filled with good Australian mutton and potatoes, were set before the children, and they were each allowed two halt* slices of bread. They Avere sorted as nearly as might be according to age. At the first table were boys from about eight to fifteen years old, and at the second were girls of the same ages, most of whom had charge of a baby brother or sister, still in arms, which baby was I liberally fed from the sister's plate. The other three tables were filled with ! smaller cHldren. j What a hubbub, and what rags; but what clean clean shining faces. ! Even the hands were as clean as one washing could make them, for one of the rules of the dinner is that all hands aud faces must be washed. There is one boy who has overlooked ! this rule ; he is in unpleasant contrast ito his neighbors on each side, and ' they soou notice the difference. ! " Missus, here's a boy that doesn't t know, how to wash hisself," is shouted to the presiding genius, and she, after a little silence has been made, speaks gravely, but encouragingly, to young Grimos, who blushes through his dirt, and will never appear in it again, at least on a dinner table day. Surely this is the formation of a healthy public opinion. " Missus, that boy stealed my bread," is the next steutorian annoucement, and then follows a short discourse upon honesty. Meantime, at the next table, where order is more easily maintained, the elder girls are being aaked whether they go to school, or can read and write. In a lamentable number of cases, the answer.is, " No, mum, but I should like to ; and they are then, if too old to go to any regular school, irvited to one which is being organised especially for them, and to be held in the same room. Wild girls they are, and utterly neglected, but there are two things by whichyoucanwin them easily. They are one and all anxious to learn, and they are all devoted to the babies under their charge. You have only to admire the baby's incipient nose or microscopic mouth, and the sister is bound to you at once. If these girls can be tamed and made tidy, and- put into respectable situations, it is surely

unmixed good. These plates are soon emptied, earnest appeals for second helping are regretfully refused, the children sent out by the opposite door to the one at which they entered, and he room is filled again and then again. Now we hear a great deal about the harm of charity, and the sin of helping j those who ought to help themselves, and no doubt the truth is mainly on tbe sicle of tLese Lard statements ' but | here, at least, is a way in which the evil is certainly more than counterbalanced by the good. The dinners really cost, we believe, about 3d. or 4d. each, buJ there is not a child in the roouf who does not think the meal has been fairly bought by the payment of the penny ; thus there is no early introduction to pauperism connected with the eating of it. The deception may be considered a venial sin. The rule of payment of the penny is never broken, though it is painful enough , sometimes to keep to it. Often two little " Arabs " will come haud-in-hand with only a penny between them, and i neither will leave tho other outside, so that both have to be sent away ; but experience shows it is best to be firm, and. the little ones enjoy their dinner j all the more for a little difficulty in obtaining it. The poor parents are not relieved of the charge of their children, for the dinner only takes place twice a week ; but the visible improvement in the pale faces and stunted forms, after they have come regularly even for a few weeks only, must be satisfactory to all who think that a sound mind mind cannot dwell in a half-starved body.