THE LAW BREAKERS.

Press, Volume XLVIII, Issue 7778, 4 February 1891, Page 2

THE LAW BREAKERS.

By Ootda.

Nancy Lawrence was a pretty little girl of ten years old. She was as fresh as a daisy, though she lived where bo freshness was nor any daisy bloomed. She had a round, bright face, and very fair hair, and eyes the colour of forget-me-nots. Her father had been a stonemason down in a little green Tillage in Berkshire, who, in an evil day, had been bitten with the City craze which draga so many country people into the squalor and stink of the sown. He had died very soon, and his widow, with five children, had been left to make ends meet as best she could. Nancy was the middle one of the five, but the strongest and brighest and best; was the mainstay of her mother, a grave, genial, kindly woman, who was out all oay "charing," but who could leave the children, and the two little close rooms in which they lived, in perfect safety to the child's careful painstaking and faithful devotion. The two eldest were boys, and brought nothing in, whilst they took a pood deal out of the slender maternal purse; for they were always at school, and puzzling their brains over arithmetic and geographical mysteries, and brought home only acting heads and peevish tempers. The two youngest were £irls—Laura and Annie—eight and six, and very merry and hungry, and troublesome and mischievioue. It was Nancy who amused them and kept them in order; who swept, and washed, and " tidied" up everything, and got such food as they could indulge in ready in the best way she knew; and kept herself and the little girls clean and neat, with that magical genius for order which i 3 here and there Inborn in a female creature and is the precious birthday gift of a fairy blessing her and hers. Hie place they dwelt was a long, narrow, sunless, loveless road in one of the outskirts of Londoncheap houses run up by scamped work and thieving contractors, but * 'respectable in its way, though very poor. The population was hard-working, honest, law-abid-ing ; often hungry but always peaceful; with no thieves among them except the tax-gatherers and the house agents, who visited them with merciless punctuality. Nancy, who could remember their country home, pined to see the grass and the hedges and the wide fields once more; but she said little abont it, because, whenever she did speak of it, her mother always "Couldn't we go back, mother V she said once, wistfully, and her mother had ''I'd go oack to-morrow, dear, if I could: but we naven't a penny to move with, and I d*reni leave the little sure work I gets here." So Nancy had foreborne to press the subject; but in her heart she cherished the memory of that big, broad, sweetemelllng place where in her remembrance the sun was always shining, and the larks were always singing. There was a lark here in the dark-faced narrow street, in a wretched cage, and with dirty draggled feathers and. a broken heart. It made Nancy sad to see it beating its little breast against those rusty wires, and fluttering its useless wings, which would hare borne it up to the blue heavens if men had not laid their curse on it. *• She's such a feelin* child," said her mother apologetically to the neighbour, knowing that excuse was needed for such a useless thing as pity, and such an odd thing as selfish sorrow. " She was a feelin! child." Nature had made her with that share of tenderness in her that some characters have, to their own infinite distress, throughout life. Nancy's quick little sympathies were never apealed to in vain by any created creature. There was only one thing—one set of people—that she hated fiercely : School, ana all persons directly and indirectly connected with it. The boys, who might have been of such use to her mother, were taken away by the school, and made useless; made cross, too, and sickly, and always complaining of their heads; whilst she herself had been dragged there sorely against her will. "They were such a pack o , silly questions," she said to her mother. " They must be' datt' like. They says to mc like this: " If you sees a apple barra', and you runs away with a dozen apples, and the barra' man says as how you ye took one* and-twenty of his whole, how many apples was there on the barra' afore you touched 'em % ' And I says, says I,' I don ? t never take no apples, nor notain , as isn't my. own, so you ye no need to be 'suiting* of mc/ Then, to go o'there—they spears at you and arsts how many wives had Henry tke Heighth; and I says, says I, • I didn't never hear o* the gentleman; but if so as he's got more nor one wife, t Iβ a case for perfice and beaks, it is; and anyhow'tis for the families o* the wives he's took to see into it. . Then they calls mc cheeky. I don't mean to be cheeky, mother ; but they are such sillies, and to, bedodderin'oversuchapack o nonsense when there's such a heap o' work to ao at home—it just make mc wild, it do; and you can ask Tom and Neddy, fie always the same kind o , rubbidge—there's never a wordY sense in schools?* "I suppose you must learn to read, dearie," said the mother; " but however "Readf said Nancy. *'Lor*, mammy, that aren't o' no use. Lias Bean, she read beautiful, like a parson, and all she's ever o' readin' of his murders and that like. ' m make yer blood creep,' says she, and she do; and she said 'tother night she'd read about murders till she never see a tableknife as she don't feel somethin' inside her o' tellln' her to use it on some-, body. And ever sin' Neddy's read so much he's gone that white, and he says he can't sleep 'cos the letters and the words all ge twiriin' inside hie head like a merry-go-round, and he's always being drove mad about Africky." "Africky V repeated Mrs Lawrence. "Afncky," said Nancy, "andhe has to know all the places in it. . Neddy I—who can't tell you what's at the end of this street—-and the names aren't like par names, bat all prickly and crackjaws, till they buzz in his head like bees. They! won'c never make no jßcholard o* Neddy; then wberefe the use o' hammerin', hammerin*, hamsnerin' all that Africa and book-learning into him! It's wicked, mannyr ghe was passionately fend of Neddy—a gentle boy whom she had helped to nnrse through various illnesses; acd Neddie, who, like her, remembered Berkshire, only wanted to keep sheep. That was his one ideal in life, and whenever a flock of sheep were driven by, on their way to Smithfteld, the boy would creep near them, and, if he could, feel their wool and emell at It. Poor Neddie could never master the meanderings of the Congo and the N user, but be could have made a good and kindly shepherd on .the Sussex or Wiltshire downs. So great was Nancy's hatred of Board schools, and so great was* the need of her at home, that she did not go there, as the law decreed that she tbooTd. " And indeed why should she ? " said her mother to the neighbours. " She can earn

up in her head so quick all 'o herself that; nobody could cheat her o' a fa? thing; and tho* shfrdon't read to! speak jff, she sews righfe beautiful; attu , aifie is tKft good—that «ood—that twenty schoolgirl* in one wOuldnts do half the work Wapcy gets through in a day, singing over It ail the time," , . . _ Bat utility, kindliness, tndestry, devotion, obedience *re all old-fashioned, mbbishy things that the achool-boarde diecountenance. They stiU have the Fifth Commandment printed up in their churches, and written down in their catechism, because It would seem odd to eflace it; but they discourage its practical application. To Tfcnow fractions and the rule of three, and to be acquainted with the course of the Congo is all that is really of any Importance to any child of man. A hungry stomach, a sick father, a pair of wet feels, a worried mother, an aching head, the money gone in fees that was bo surely wanted fo* shoes, for shirts, for coals—for the very bread of life: all this is of no importance whatever. The child roust know compound fractions, and trace the course of the Congo. "They'll have you up," said a tailorshoemaker, who lived near to them. " They'll have you up, Mrs Lawrence, if you don't send her to them stinking schools."

"How can I send her?" said the poor woman, desperately. " I can scarce find the fees for the boys—we goes without a scrap o* meat on Sundays to do it; and who's to take care o' the place and the babies? 1 can't stay at home—you know that; if I leave my place there'll be no bread in the house. The boys don't bring in nothing. The Lord knows its hard enough to keep body and soul together without all their worrittins, and fee'ln and fWin."

"Ay, it is," said the cobbler. "They tak' 'em away and cram their sculls full o , rot, and make 'em o* no good to nobody, ana they calls that pack eddication! Had mc up afore the beak last year. Yes; my Dick and I spoke up. and I sees to *im—ses I—'You're ruinin the children with your rubbidge, and you're a teachln' of 'em as it's onlawf ul to work for their fathers and mothers; and where be the Commandments; and where be the good o' crammin' a little cove wid learnin' as they cram a pullet's crop, when he can't git hlseelf a bit o' tread, or earn a penny for his keep?" But, Lord bless yer! that warn't o' no sort o* ase. The beak he wanted to commib mc, 'cos I bounced *im, and they fined mc all the same a power o , money, and I had to sell fold ehist o'd drawers to pay it —a chiat as had bin in my fam'ly more years nor the Queen's on the throned." Mrs Lawrence burst out crying: "I knows.—oh! I know I They've summoned mc afore, and they'll summons mc again, and if they drag Nancy away in the daytime I'll have to give up the charm,' and we won't have bit nor sup, nor bed, nor board."

" That don't matter a rap to them," replied the cobbler. " They're all folks well to-do, and eatln' till they bust, and they make the laws for the poor and the rich. ' Ye're all ekal,' said the beak to mc, ' all ekal afore the law.' And there's a lie ! Would they sell a earl's castle over his head 'cos hs didn't teach his childer booklearnin' quick enow ? Would they fine a duke for speilin' bad ? It's all their rot; it's the Radical rot —that's what 'tis."

The cobbler was a man who liked to hear his own voice,! and could thus in a manner solace himself for his wrongs: but Mrs Lawrence, Who was a woman'ot few words, had no euch consolation. She was a very poor woman indeed, and she and her children had a hard life at all times, but as long as she could do chairing, and Nancy mind the cripple, the baby, and the house, they were cheerful and contented, and were a happy, very innocent and affectionate family. Tom, to be sure, was troublesome, and Neddy was sickly, and Charlie was lame ; but so long as the elder girl was there things went right, and when the kettle boiled, and the lamp was lighted on a Sunday evening, they were cheerful and contented. "When I'm big I'll make a heap o' money, and we'll all go back to Thorpe," Nancy said, a hundred times a year; and their mother would tell them tales of her country life in girlhood, and they all looked forward to it, and looked up to Nancy as to a leader who would take them to the Promised Land.

She had a little savings bag, in which she put by, when it was possible, a farthinar or a halfpenny! which she called her country money, it was the beginning of a fund. .

She could sow and knit very well, and she made a few pence doing work for the neighbours when her own house work was done, and the young ones were asleep, "I'll take them all back to Thorpe some day," she promised herself ; and she then gave redoubled energy to her small fingers, and hope to her mother s sinking heart. The cobbler, like most prophets of ill, was right in his prophecy. Summonses teemea in on Mrs Lawrence not only for Nancy but for Roafe. The police-court was a good three miles away from their street, and she lost a day's work whenever she had to tramp there and back again. Her modest plea that Bosie was sickly, and that Nancy was the mainstay of the family was put aside with that fine disregard of facts by which all School Board legislation is distinguished. As she was neater and more decent-looking, even in her poor, darned patched clothes, than those surrounding, ehe School Board officer and the magistrate singled her out for separate ceneura. Even the lamb-like heart of Sarah Lawrence turned at this.

"As I'm a llvln , women, gentlemen," she said, desperately, "If you take Nancy from mc we'll all be dray* out o' our senses. She do all the work of the place and mends and makes and nurses and tidies up, and

" You should do that yourself," said the magistrate, severely. "You have no right to leave your home and your children."

"But if I stay at home well starve," protested the poor souL "My cnarin's the only thing we have to live on. You've took the lads from mc as might have been a'ready earnin' eometnin." "These low people always want to live on their children s earnings," whispered the School Board officer to the magistrate., " This Lawrence is a very bad offender; she has been fined several times."

" A very bad case, a very bad case," said the magistrate. " You are evidently very fairly off," he said; adding to the offender: "you must stay at home Instead of gadding about; you must give proper educacation to your unfortunate children, for whose welfare you are responsible before God and man. 1 '

Then he fined her very heavily: ordered the attendance of the two little girls; and, bidding them .turn the woman out of court, proceeded with the next case of law-breaking, which was a very bad case Indeed. A poor family had taken in a street puppy out of charity, and they had not taken but a license for him—a crime so enormous that the Constitution of England was threatened by it: they were ordered to pay the amount of the dog license and twenty shilling?! fine. " They'll sell mc up, I suppose," said the man who had sheltered the dog—he was a poor dock labourer. " I can't pay the money nohow. The poor beast a foUer*d mean a bitter cold night, and I hadn't the 'cart to shut the door on him ond leave him in the snow; and he proved a droll chap and the brats are fond o' him. Lord, what a life they do lead us I—what fools we are to be honest and peaceable!" For of legislation for the poor it may be said that its true name would be suppression of all homely virtue of Act of Parliament.

" Whatever shall Ido I Whatever shall I do t" said Sarah Lawrence, with great tears running down her cheeks, as she groped her way blindly through the pitiful crowd of wet, ragged, hungry people gathered there, to be fined like herself for not understanding the beauty of compound fractions and African geography. Many of them had tramped, like her, through rain and slush, in miserably thin garments, losing a day's work, and knowing " no more'n the dead," as they phrased it* where to find the> money for the school fines levied on them.

She reached home she scarcely knew bow, and Nancy was waiting on the stairs for her.

*♦ Oh, mammy, haven't they let ue off? " the child shrieked, as her mother, white and quivering, clang to her, speechless for her sobs. " No, dearie, joa.ll have to go, and Bosie too; and then Til have to give up my places, and the winter comin* on and there's a tpower o , money to pay; and— and—and " Sarah Lawrence, etek with hunger, and fatigue and terror, wet to the bone, and palsied by the fear which was upon her,' clung for another moment frantically to her child, then swooned anon die narrow stair for the first time in all her hard-worked life.

" Quite a sight o' money to pay I Such a sight o' money to pay," she moaned again and again, when her consciousness returned to her. She bad done no harm that she knew o* in all her days; but she was a criminal in the sight of the law* Lamentation and woe were the only guests of their once cheerful little room that night. The charing at the grocer's and the draper's had to be given up, and Nancy must drag feeble littly Bosie somehow or other to the schools, and tor the feea-—

there was still locked up the Sunday-go-ing suit of the dead man, being kept as Ift relic, uncle Tom could wear It —It would have to be sold to pay the fees, if it would pay them. " I always telled ye," said the shoemaker, loosing in, ••They've no bowels o , mercy, them school hyenas han't. If we rot, we rot. They don t care. They jabber and jabber about tbeir third standards and their sixth standards, and all their gammon; and while they jabber the poor are robbed o' their last cruat to pleaae "etn."

" And they says we is depraved and die-so-lute>" said the shoemaker, " 'cos we ■want; to keep our children to ourselves. Wβ feed 'em, and clothed them, and brought 'em into the warruld, but we're not to hey a word iv their bringin' up ; but we're to go and pick oakum like thieves if we don't sell the bed from under us, to pay the fees and fines." Nancy had thrown herself on the floor In a paroxysm of despair. She haa been 80 proud of all she did to help her mother and keep the family, and now they were going to take her and shut her up in a room and make her into a useless, miserable, book-crammed, good-for-nothing, while the home went to racK and rula ia her absence. Her mother calmed herself, to sooth the child's distress and agitation. "Get up, Nancy, she said, stooping to touch her curls." "It isn't like you, Nancy, to give way like that. You'll have to go, my poor dea"r, or worse'll happen to us, and you'll have to carry Rosie, for she can't walk through all them streets." Nancy was obedient and docile. She gob up with her small breast heaving, and her eyes blazing through their tears. "If you give up your charm, , mother, how'll the rent be paid?"she said, iv a hushed, awed voice, " The good Lord only knowb, dear," said Sarah Lawrence. " They do say as He fed the ravens ; but that must be a rare long time ago, and I think He's forgot us all here down b«low —birds, and beasts, and human bein , ." " I won'c go ; I won't go, if they kill mc 1" oried Nancy, her blue eyes flashing, and her round face nowred with fury and then pale with terror. "But you must go dearie—you must, or they'll sell every stick in the room, and end in puttin , mother in prison," said Sarah Lawrence. "The Lord knows I'll lose my right hand in losing of you, and we'll perish o' hunger and cold afore Candlemas day; but go ye must, my Eretty, or they'll do wusa to us—the rutesl" " But I can't, I can't, I can't!" cried the child, in an agony of despair. " Who'll do all Ido her! And what good is their cypherin* and book-gammon to mc? I want to take care o baby. If you stay here, mammy, you'll earn nothin'; and nobody'll eat nothin'; and the boys '11 run away and do bad. I'm o' use here, I'm o' use. How dare they take mc away and si t mc up idle on & bench as if I was a queen, wi' nothin'to think o , but rubbidge? I'm o' use here, I'm o' use 1 Oh, mammy, why didn't you tell 'em? " I did tell 'em, dear heart," said the mother, with sobs in her throat. " I ses to 'em, ees I,' If you take her from mc I'm done, I must give up my places, and we must all starve.' But they didn t care a straw, dearie; they didn t even listen. They jabbered amougst themselves, and said I was to send ye and pay the fines. Ye must go, darlin', and Rosie too, or they'll put us all in prison, sure as we stand here." Yes; the School Board, being an intelligent and scientific body, fulfils its objects in utterly blighting and extinguishing in the souls of the poor, such small faith in the ultimate justice of their rulers, heman and divine, as may have existed in them despite all their woes. Sarah Lawrence had been " a God-fearin' woman " all her days, and had done her humble best, moreover, to do her duty to her neighbour, and obey her pastors and masters, as the catechism taught to her In her childhood had engrained; bub now she lost her faith and lose her courage. " Taint o' no use tryin, , " she said to herself. "We may jlst as well lie down and die at onst, for nobody don't keer. ___ In the evening she had to go round to the people whose aharin' " she did—the curate, the grocer, and the publican, and tell them that she could come no more to work, as she must stay at home and send her eldest girl to school. "Of course, of course—it 1% the will of God," said the first. "Of course, of course—it Is the law," eaid the second. " Of course, of course—your duty,"said the third. The publican liked the School Board ; it sent out so many lads spoiled for work, feverish with vague, insatiable desires, too grand for any bodily labour, who crowded to find in gin and whiskey the audded dreams which were their form of paradise. Undigested knowledge brings with it the dyspepsia of the mind. Sarah Lawrance had vaguely hoped that one of the three, or all of them, would help her or speak to the school officers, or promise her a little aid with the rent, but no one of them did anything of the sort; it would have been sentiment of the most silly and blameable sort to support a woman in her resistance to the law of her country; and they all were disposed to think her a tiresome, discontented, and unworthy person. In the morning she carried her man's Sunday clothes to the pawnbroker's—her teara falling heavily upon them as she went; and as she could not get enough to pay the fines, even by selling instead of pawning them, she had. to sell her bedstead as well. Meantime, whilst she was on these melancholy errands, the baby was "minded" by the shoemaker's wife,, and Nancy went to the schools. The schools were far off through the blank, hideous* featureless roads and streets which make up a poor suburbad neighbourhood of London. It was a long, toilsome, painful walk in the teeth of the horrible wind; butgentlemen who wear fur-lined coats ancTladies who wear sealskin jackets, and who all eat comfortable breakfasts by comfortable fires, have decreed that little children in town and country must leave their homes and thus plod to school, whether the weather be good or bad and whether their stomachs be full or empty. So there k was no help for it, and they trudged on; the boys both out of temper because they could not " lark "in the streets as they could do, unadmonished, when alone* When they reached the schools they were late, and being respectable-looking children, there was less indulgence felt towards them than there would have been for mere " araba" or shoeless " Kutterbrate." Nancy alone could have been there like a lapwing; but she had to lead and carry little Rosie, who was crying because it was so cold and her frock was so thin Neddy carried her sometimes, but he was weak and sickly, and Tom would not do anything so degrading—he walked with his hands in his pockets, and in his mouth the end of a cigar which he had picked up in a gutter. The way was long, the pavement was slippery and muddy, sleet was falling, and a bitter east wind blowing. Nancy had a little ragged wrap of a woollen shawl about her shoulders, and she took it off and wrapped it round little Rosie. "Golly! you silly!" said her brother Tom: he was too truly manly ever to rob himself of anything. Nancy was choking down her rage, and little Rosie was choking with stifled sobs, and the teacher was ill-impressed by them. " I fear you do not know the value of education, and are not duly grateful," she said to them. Nancy was by nature a quick and clever child—she had a fertile fancy and an open Intelligence; but at the schools she seemed both etupid and sullen.

She had resolved! not to " sauce * them lest it should entail more misery on her mother; but she dared not trust herself to speak, because she knew she would ear something rude. Then her arms and back ached from carrying Rosle, and she had not had anything to break her fast, and her stomach gnawed and her chest felt hollow, Then she was every moment wondering what her mother would do, how the rent would be paid, how they would all live without the shilling a day made by the charing; and she missed the active work of the morning—the sweeping and scrubbing and bustling about, and the • prattle of the baby, of whom she was very fond. And Boaie was so pale, and so cold, and so miserable—it broke her sister's heart to think of her. Roaie was agentle, little timid thing, and the school terrified her almost out of her senses. She had always passed her winter mornings playinar with the baby and the cat. When the long, dreary, wearying, burdensome hours had dragged away there was the return journey home on empty stomachs and with blue-cold feet. "Law, Nancy, I never see ye look so ill in tour born days afore 1" said the shoe* maker, meeting them on the stairs. " Oh, I'm quite well: it ia Boste." said Nancy; but her voice was low and tired, and she shivered as she climbed the stairs, "The child's alias a thinkin' o* others," said the shoemaker's wife. "Life , ll go hard wi' her, then," said the shoemaker.

From thai; time onward there was no more peace pr pleasure in the Lawrence family. *'It'e alias Iα a muddle, like," said the poor woman, although she

worked day and nWkL^^ monoyßominKia, therJT 0 *i U money wanted to go ouT I ,»*** ?<* larity ; and the Ife •A^;- ,- one of a number ot nmn'9 agent had the lomuT •>me2ft '

interested or touched by t}?« "%7'i! tenant, and if the weekl,■ !*««efj , / there out went the occuJ£ t J V«*JP notice to quit, and had to m^fiM* ?r llet > & rfcler « ""rower .SSVC' the nei K hbourhood was Vβ* *WTom already .inclined[to' 7J°»hs ' heard much and saw much h. W ' bad for him. Neddy, 4a very strong, got sj» air, and suffered with his head *' S tered and muttered of th* \?S 4 <&. they gave him to do, till there •"»»?»• of tliem could sleep for his ctff..^,^' seven times six?" "Whiei '.X : * fiver "What's three tffj" f jjye; ! ; many ponce be there shillings? , "How many faVnr'V J there in a five-pun note f All m $i' ' J * the siug-songs of the numerals \*§ x % '■ tt ttle S°X c Bhrll1 ' feeble V through the room, and toward, a *& , wouldfallintoadull aln i7k7VSS ~" still in his dreams, "1 y> do 'em." The sums lay Hk-T' W t worked like yeast in hi* Grain «Wi only let mc go withe sheep I"' h A ,?H'' his waking hours. p e <W'Naucy did what ahe could to *»t & and did as much of the l the mending and cleaning n*\£® *fc|' the evening time. Butsheh\?*»S food, aud the walks to and 2?*»» b school, carrying Boatc tired $*$%, winter whs hard, and the foaa »rj - and icy rains beat on her U]. e u7Ai!T and she had to ait all thronsh,^ L hours of tuition with wakedftrt. M cloches, and the gnawing we ar making her head light S empty. The lea 3 on 3 would not ft> ? too severe for her if she had ba* n and well clothed, and without trouble. But her heart her people at home~alw*ya Wftt*:' mother and the baby ; and tha coffl V: and the empty grate and plater &1 boys who wanted so much and fci'3 nothing in, and the bare floor walla which rtow ruder and rud« *•/ day, as one poor little hoasehoHl s?f after another was sold to pay the "*' the now and miserable home ' The mother struggled bravely , v her sorrows ; she did slop work in the day, and at evening worked ac " cleanlng-up " euch W would have night-charing done. &S 1 ! 1 had never been a strong woman m* grew thinner and thinner, more bent, and she had a hollow wuffUT hectic colour. " And they keep mc here wk», • dyinl" though Nancy, ffVSfi impatience-ehe loathed the tea£> desks, the books, the maps, she hated them all with the fleto ; ing hatred of a tortured creature " When I could do some thinaKi and save her life, they nail mHwS a learnin a pack o' Ilea, that oevrs ho good to nobody 1" B he said & passion of tears, to her old frtau , shoemaker. " And ye look sore and changed tea my little wench," eaid the old man ¥& looking down oh her still 'DretoS whichTiad lost all its ronud SJA ' ruddy colour, whilst her bright hib S * now all dull and tumbled. * " I haven't no time to do it, ye ttih said, noticing his glancoatlt. «Wij| can do to get jßosa and mc ready. & B d n' to school as the clock strikes; Urn h 1 late they blame mammy." \ "And ye carries Rosa toomsil ye'llgrow all o , one side," eald tkiiSl maker, gazing etill at her with ma I - " I can , help it," said the child. MS J can't walk all that way." \ ■ But carrying Rosie—fair wither id ; foul; having little to eat,aodthilfe,f bad; tormented by a helpless her mother, and ceaselessly peneestei $ > learn things that were odloai mim-m 1 ' senseless to her, Nancy's health gm m \ ■•- —that fine, buoyant, happy, cilS; ? health which had made her like &e&V[ young tree —like a playful young do;, Q;|; * day she tried to lift Rosle, and ceaid t,& ' . and fell flat on the pavement, Shnkm herself up with a cheerful 8m!h;h& '- took her little sister's hand, and turt'j '■' back and wont up the etairs VBrj>##|f'3« the room in which they dwelt, f "Doa'b be frightened, mmtf w>,, said, feebly. "But~ba6 I areas >sau| well, I think, and I'm afraid I kssv - Rosie." j Her mother got her on to the miteu. which was all thai! waa left totals their bedding, cod touched herkifc, ..;, head and her ec&rtag, aching eyes. /I; When the parleh doctor camohe kM- -', tons word—meningitis; and ehooll* --> heaA and hurried away. Only a Ibr.'; School child, and her people so poor-riJ?' was the use oi staying? 4 And Nancy lay there—lts a hot} Wft lethargy, with the fierce paira like flame into her troubled brain f *»5« \ l she kept saying was," Let mc get bdflfl help mammy--let mc t&ko 'em to Th«p*l| let mc take 'em to Thorpe. I promised: and there's ton Jarthlft'e tsii[j ha'penny In the bag. hdt nic aj* B °But Death, partner aad frlesd dUVj School Board/would not let her rajs* fn the pleasant days of April, wh«s £.■ ,dewy grass was green and the lames . at play In those country fields was never, to see again, her vaitaUJ*: • soul passed from her body, and teafc*< knowing none—not even her motasr. ; ; Sarah Lawrence did not long »*»:: her. The younger chlia«SO'Wint»i»{ workhouse; the boya joined tbft tU» f , of the quarter; a happy little bosij W; broken up and rained. p What matter? ,-ji" The London Council of th*Sc*ea»P!-■ -oercios iss !■'

signs petitions aeainsfc c , $ land, and the ladies of tfce WWggg eociafcion wrifce beautiful le&M W Press about the depravity of jaiew f