WAIFS AND STRAYS

Evening Star, Issue 20256, 17 August 1929, Page 20

WAIFS AND STRAYS

LABOURS OF FIFTY YEARS la the industrial towns of England, and in the distant outposts of th© Empire, there are men who frankly acknowledge, that their progress has been due to the teaching and training received in the home of the Waifs and Strays Society (writee a correspondent of ‘ The Sunday News ’). One of these men, whose career is X justification of the methods of the society, is Harold Abbott, who was Cambridge born, and who now occupies a high post in the Chinese Customs Service. He has just returned to the ’ar East after a leave, part of which he devoted to furthering the work of the organisation. One of his recent exploits was ( the seizure of opium worth £6,000, which was hidden in the tank of a ship. “ For nearly fifty years tho society has been training children, .nd, though just under 33,000 have passed through the homes, we are still in constant touch with the first boy we trained,” said an. official. “He is John Smith, a printer's reader at Frome. Smith, before he came to us, was a crippled crossing sweeper, living at Battersea. At Frome we teach boys the printing trade, and some who have graduated there now have businesses of their own. “Many of our love go out to Canada and become prosperous farmers. One of them has quite a large farm, and it is a point of honour with him whenever he has a vacancy to give it to X bov from our homes.

“ Let me tell you a rather sad, but thrilling little story. On the wall of the Seaforth Home at Liverpool there ia a tablet to the memory of a gallant Canadian soldier who died for hi« country. He was Charles Edward Foster, and for seven years until 1901 he was an inmate of the home. Then he migrated across the Atlantic, but returned with the Canadian' contingents to fight in the war. He was wounded and taken back to Winnipeg, where he died in hospital five years after the Armistice from the effects of his disablement. Hie last thoughts were with his *'o)d home at, Liverpool, to which ho left a sum of money, the interest on which is being used 'to provide the annual Foster treat for the children there. “ In many walks of life our old boys have made'good. They have overcome the disadvantages of being fatherless or motherless. They are to bo found in many professions. At least two have been ordained; another is the secretary of a limits.! liability company; another is a music master in a Devonshire college, while yet another is an organist in a Lincolnshire church. Many here received a university education and entered the scholastic profession, and others are in the Metropolitan Police Force. the society also trains girls who, like tho old boys, have their own Friendship League. Many girls now grown into womanhood are teachers and nurses.”