Daily globe., 1883-06-03
READS LIKE "A ROMANCE.

READS LIKE A ROMANCE.
| a Story Of London Life that MiqIt be
Worhed Up at Greater Length.
London Telegraph.
The gardeners of South London public
park had on more than one occasion dis
| covered that la-cenous liberties had been
| taken with the newly arranged beds of
snowdrops and crocuses, and set watch
| for the delinC uent, who was an early morn
ing visitor. The watcher had noticed a
small girl, poor little ragged urchin of
| seven or eight years old, who frequently
came through the park as soon as the
gates were open; but as she always
emerged at the gate of exit empty
handed, and her scanty skirts showed
no sign of bulging pocket be-
meath, suspicion did not attach to her.
Nevertheless, she proved to be the offender.
1t was notremarkable, since her attire was
made up of mere makeshifts of odds and
ends, that she should wear an old bonnet
many sizes too large for her. and it was
in the capacious crown of this article
of head gear that the stolen flowers were
bestowed. The gardener saw her pause at
a bed, and, after looking warily about, pro-
duce from her bosom piece of slate fit
/ for digging with, and then she knelt down,
aud, taking off her bonnet, to which half a
| dozen tiny roots were rapidly transferred,
she placed it on her head again and went
| on her way, to oe presently stop
ped IN fright and accused of
the petty robbery. II was useless to deny
it, nor did she attempt to do so. She went
| down on her knees, however,--this time
xuit L.
| of slate,-and begged the park keeper not
to take her to the police station, because,
| if her mother, who was i'll in bed, came to
hear what she had done it would kill her.
| Presuming that it was much more likely
| that the child's story was but an artful
pretense, and that probably her mother
| had sent her to steal the flowers to be af-
terward converted into button hole bou-
quets for sale in the streets. the
little girl was taken before a magis-
| trate and put back while for
| inquiries to be made. The address she
gave was at a house in squalid back
| street In the borough-at least couple of
| miles from tho park where she had pur-
| loined the snow-drops, and it was soon dis
| covered that the tale the child had told
AS to her mother being ill was quite true.
4
| her bed i'll a dark and miserably fur
nished back room, and there she had lain
| dying of consumption since last winter set
in. The father was in prison, and the sick
| woman's only means of support was her
two children, respectively two and four
years older than the child in custody,
and they all earned few pence
each daily by selling cigar lights near
/ I,nn hrIH
dent what had become of the stolen flow
ers. A piece of board was fastened
shelf-wise across the foot of the sick
woman's bedstead, and on it, i'll three or
four old gallipots were as many punches of
crocuses, snowdrops and wall flowers, each
in setting of green grass. The Joor in
! valid had not the least suspicion that they
: had been dishonesty obtained, and the
| person inquiring being i'll unofficial
| costume and perceiving her condition
| charitably refrained from enIightening
her. "You are looking at my garden,
sir" her white face lighting with a
wan smile. "They are wild flowers, sir, SO
my little gal tells me, but she has to go
ever so far to pick 'em. When the winter
weather went away and the sun came out
began to feel that craving for the sight
express if l tried. 1t is through lying here
so many weeks so dreary and dull and so
many hours all by myself, | suppose; but
L knew it was no use thinking about 'em
at the price they are when they first come
in the spring, though I couldn't help talk
ing and saying that if [ had few felt
sure they would do me more good than all
the physic. And so without saying a word
about it to anybody, my little Kitty
mere mite of z, sir-she gets up at 5 in
the morning, and before breakfast time
she's back with as pretty bunch as ever
you set eyes on. They didn't last very
long, poor things, in this stuffy little room,
and it seems almost a shame to bring 'em
here out of the fields where they grow, but
there's thousands of 'em there Kitty tells
me, and l don't think that those who have
their health to go and see 'em growing
would grudge me Just few brought away
for my share" "No one certainly would.
supposing the little girl you speak of
comes by them honestly" the visitor ven
tured. s'No fear about that,
sir" replied the sick mother, conf
IDENTIFY. Why, 1 happened only
to hint something like what you Just said
when she brought home the first lot, and
she fell crying SO that l didn't know what
to do with her," Sothe kind hearted park
Official came away with his original pur-
pose unfulfilled and the magistrate being
informed of the circumstances discharged
the terrified little prisoner with a caution.
Whether she ran home and made con-
fession cannot say; but unless she did
so within week it was too late, for at the
end of no longer an interval she was moth
erless, and 1T was my privilege to assist in
placing Kitty and her two sisters in a
country home, far removed from the vice
and temptations of London streets, and
where wild flowers in plenty may be had
for the picking.
The Tewksbury Inquiry.
Boston, June 1.-Ex-G Governor Rice tes-