LONDON CHARITIES.

with black rags, bare-footed and bare-headed—with claws for hands, and
with voices hard and harsh as those of costermongers.

We are in the receiving room of a night refuge—the home of the
ragged scholars whom Lord Shaftesbury has befriended—of the wild young
clients of the devoted City missionaries. A worn-out, prostrate Arab—
a baby in years—has been dragged in from the wintry streets. His face

is livid yellow; his lips are black; and when they uncover him, we see how
hard the world has been to the little heart. His infant fellow-sufferers
look on, while he lies upon an old man's knees, and one of the officials
(the outer world does not know how gentle and compassionate these
poorly paid servants of the poor are, as a rule) pours out a restorative.
Another officer gently puts his hands upon the backs of the boys, and