The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-06-02

Mrs. walpole looked puzzled for mo- ment.
 How did you get money enough to buy a ticket to come to Birmingham she asked presently.
 'I sold off a whole lot of my chickens I had raised, said the girl. and then at night I run away from home.'
 Mrs. Walpole invited the girl into the
 Rest Room at the station and began a slow process of persuading her to return ito her home.
 "But, lady" pleaded the girl, T don want ter go back to the country. There s 13 more at home jes' like me, and l
 runned away because l hated 1t so.' In the end Mrs. Walpole induced the
 girl to go back+-baclS to the people who loved her-instead of going adrift in q
 great city like this, with no money, no l friends. no anything to back her, and
 where there is no demand for woman
 who can ''hoe and blow and pick cotton. l And so the first outgoing train that
 afternoon saw the laxen haired country | girl in the "tacky' cotton frock. trimmed
 with Succotash Braid. speeding towards 1 the country, where she belonged and ] where she again landed, thanks to the
 kindly offices of the Travellers Aid Sec
 retary.
 This young, iliterate, uniformed, untu-
 tored girl from the back woods,' without
 money and without possible chances of
 employment is but one of the myriads 1 who drift daily into the Terminal sta
 ton of Birmingham practically resource l less and totally ignorant of the place to
 which they are coming.
 These people would eventually be 1 thrown upon the citys charity, after un-
 told suffering and want and disgrace, it l it were not for the prompt and consid- 1 crate help given to them by the Terminal | Station Matron, Mrs Walpole, and her 1 clever assistant, Mrs. Annie Dudley. | One of these two good women is always
 lon the job
 1 They never falter in their work; they
 are never neglectful. never careless. al ways patient kind and holding forth the hand Of Christian fellowship to the way ward girl or woman who needs them. l Preventive Philanthropy, as l am pleased to term it, has not more fruit | ful field of endeavor than this one where tragic situations can oe averted so ire
 quently by taking them in time and lend 1 ing the necessary aid
 Mrs Walpole and Mrs. Dudley are just | the women for the position they occupy They have thrown so much genuine inter 1 est and zeal into their work, and have
 seen it grow and thrivc under their man
 agement, and today they have many ] human QOtuIDtltS that itatAAN to tihS PNt' | manent good they have accomplished. | The nature of the help accorded is as
 various as the needs of the individual:
 who profit by it.
 Oftimes it is only the wise directing oi some aged and infirm old woman who has
 lost her way in the hurry and confusion l of the incoming and outgoing trains more often still in the buying of ticke | that has been stolen or lost, or the sup plying with food of some penniless wan
 derer the protection at night of tn, young girl who has come to the city t' meet the brother who fails to show up. In this day of what we call American i itis.', which is new coinage for plair old unrest" when foreigners who canno sneak our language and the native bori
 as well are fiocking hither and thither
 from city to city and state to state ans country to country, and this restlessnes | Is gaining strength and scope and whei | the .sWanderlust' is taking greater ans | greater numbers of former home-abidin' and contented people and driving them t
 seek new opportunities in strange field | and other climes, the importance of th' work done by the Travellers Aid cal | scarcely be overestimated.
 It is one of the most important and nee