After Many Days.

Otago Witness, Issue 2818, 18 March 1908, Page 107

After Many Da ys.

lho following incident actually occurred at St. (.Mine's Workhouse, Bermondsey. Two oiu paupers who had been in the house, one tor 10 and one for 12 years, were smoking their pipes Jn the exercise yard when the COn\ en&u tion turne<l on j. s *i cob whicK wa9 thon being pulled down. "Ah," said one. "that's the sivcot where J was born. "Was you? Why, so was I," said the other. "Where did you ]i\e?" "My mother kept' the little corner shop when I was a boy." "Why dash it, so did mine!" exclaimed the other. The men stared at each other. "You've made a mistake — my mother kept that shop— my mother, Anne Brown t" Then the men rose and, gasping, stared into each other's eyes. "Then you must be Jack!" "And you must be Bill !" And the old' men, one 70 and the other 73, grasped hands, knowing 1 each other as brothers for the first time during their 10 years of fcllow-paupership. This is tho explanation. Jack, tho elder Brown, went to sea when he was 15, and from that time troubled his family no more. He couldn't write, and he didn't find it con\enient to call in at Bermondsey, as ho was never near it. The 6econd brother when he was 19 enlisted, deserted, and reenlisted in a false name. Under the false name he married 1 and stuck to it. and when, he beeanif. a pauper he went; into the workhouse in ifc. The brothers had not seen. each other since ono was 15 and the other 12. That is how they came to sit side by side, day after day, in the workhouse for 10 years without the slightest suspicion that the same mother bore them both.