THE POOR AND THE POET.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 239, 2 July 1908, Page 5

THE POOR AND THE POET.

A very interesting and at the same time a very important feature of the work of tho Robert Browning Social-Settlement in the' poor and crowded district of Walworth, in South. London, is the, festival on tho birthday of the poet after whom tho settlement is named, tho poet having been baptised and having been a worshipper for many years at tho chapel which is liow the headquarters of the institution. On that day and in that chapel some hundreds of ! adults and young folks from tho adjacent ' "mean streets" —which streets aro being steadily transformed under' tho induenco ot the settlement's gardening schemes and flower shows—gathor to hear the reciting and singing of some of Browning's poems by children, from Walworth schools in competition for prizes. This work has been earricd on for twelve years, and each festival Ims shown an advance in popularity upon its predecessors. At tho birthday gathering this year tho hall could not accommodate the large number desiring admission. ' There were twenty-seven competitors—fourteen boys and thirteen girlsselected from the local schools, and a great advance in the character of tho poems and in the rendering of them was manifest. The competitors were children of Walworth labourers, printers, painters, carpenters, porters, cabmen, warehousemen, and others of the artisan class.

Speaking at the meeting called by tho Co-Partnership Tenants (Limited) to raise capital for garden suburbs, Mr. St. Loo St-rachcy, editor of tho "Spectator," said: "When I was married an old lady asked me one day, 'Arc you a bower-bird husband ? I mean a husband who potters about his home with a box of nails and a hammer making himself generally useful.' I pleaded guilty," Mr. St. Loo Strachey remarked, amid laughter. "I havo always been fond of odd jobs in tho house."

\ A PLAINT FROM PORTUGAL. Viamo el dia y la noche En mi labor ocupada. Dia y noche, dixo? . . . The famous Portugueses poem againsl; (ho domoralising. effects of ill-paid labour of women recalls tho fact that the position of women in Portugal has vastly improved. To-day, tho finest (Jeylon tea is within the roach of all. It is as good in Lisbon as in Liverpool, Leicester, Lauuccstou, Llandudno, or Labrador. Tho finest, of course, is Suratura "D," 2a, 4