Daily Kennebec journal., 1899-02-18

of heaven. which descends alike upon
the just and the unjust.
The subject of friendless boys
| touches me in a soft spot. My good
| old father, who is past 20 years of age.
| whose head is growing white with the
frosts of many winters. was one of the
frendless boys of his. time. At the
early age of years he was thrown
upon the mercies of IA cold world. and
after that date he never saw the inside
of a school room. as rccollect. and his
|. lack of early opportunities to acquire
an education has been a handicap to
him all through his life. He has been
/ obliged to spend his life as common
| laborer he has toiled hard all his life.
he has to work hard in these days. and
yet l know that when | go home and
| tell him that | stood up in this hall and
voted in behalf of this resolve in favor
of this Home for Frendless Boys. he
| is going tn take me by the hand and
say, Well done. my SON" | say the
matter of friendless boys touches me
in a tender spot. For no class in the
community do I have more sympathy
than | do for these poor little fellows
who have no home but the street no
| bed but the earth. and no covering but
| the canopy of heaven. | have had some
| experience in the matter of boys With
| out home, in my own town. 1t was
| one year ago in October that the dep
| uty sheriff i'll my town brought into
my office a small. defn;'med under
sized French boy whom he had found
the night before with scarcely more
clothing on his form than Adam had
on in the Garden of Eden-he found
him sleeping on the cold ground urder
an old building. in the chill October
weather. An investigation of the facts
showed that this hoy had no friends or
relatives in the entire country. no place
to lay his head. no relatives or friends
except sister who vas earning the
magnificent sum of $50 a week as
domestic III Il family. | took him to
the priest of the parish and asked him
if there could not be some place found
somewhere III which this boy might be
taken care of. and after n good deal of
work he did succeed in finding place
where he could be sheltered. Last
winter my attention was called to an
other street Waif. boy of s years. of
French birth. whose mother was dead,
whose father is Il worthless vagabond.
| and this little fellow was wandering
around on the streets with no place but
an old hut by the railroad track in
which to lay his head. subsisting only
| through the Kindness of the keeper of
| the principal hotel in the village, pro-
| curing clothing only through tae kind
| ness of the travelling men who visited
| and stopped at that hotel. ] wrote to
| my gold friend the Hon p. C.. keegan
Il l,;,, II
! not possible to procure place for him
in that grard Home at Saint Bazile for
orphan children, ard the answer ca me
I back that thers, were no vancancieS. /
wrote over to the Good Will Farm. to
which the gentleman from Dresden re-
| fers. and inquired if a place could not
be found for him there. The answer
| came back that there were no vacant
| cies. ] wrote to his Reverence. the
Roman Catholic bishop of the diocese
| of Portland. and asked him if some
| where. in some place, there was not a
| place where this boy could be taken
care of. and the answer came back that
\ there were no vacancies known at
! that time: and it was only through the
fact that an aunt of this boy happened
to come to our town from Boston. that
! he was provided for: and she took him
| home with her,
Now there re hundreds of Just such
cases in the State of Maine. hundreds
| of these friendless boys who have no
nome and no place to stay. am one
| of those who believe in the boys and
girls OF the Scite of Maine. Although
! am getting to be an old man and |
| nave neither chick nor child on the
broad face of the earth. yet ] say that