BABY LIKED HIM.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VI, Issue 26, 28 June 1890, Page 19

BABY LIKED HIM.

1 HE maxim that there is some good in everylasly is constantly receiving fresh illustrations. A poor little ragamuffin, stepson in a large, thriftless, and exceedingly poor family, was an eyesore to the thrifty inhabitants of the decorous, prosperous old village upon which his slatternly household had suddenly descended. He was always in the streets, and always ragged and dirty, and even if he was set to work, was sure to leave his job to follow the first hand-organ. In the course of nature he was arrested for vagrancy. He showed no emotion when the indictment was read, nor when he was sentenced to the Preform School ; but when the sheriff roughly hade him ‘ brace up,' for they had just time enough to catch the train, the ls»y looked' so troubled that his counsel asked him if he wanted anything. * I d like to see the baby before I go,' he said, wistfully, and with his pale lips quivering. A few questions to his mother ami his step-father brought out the fact that the waif had a domestic side to his deformed little nature, and that the I>aby preferred him to all the rest of the family. His request was granted. The sheriff looked up a later train ; a constable * shadowed ' the ls>y home, and he had an hour with his baby brother Irefore beginning his dismal journey. It is to be hoped that those to whose care he wa- committed were wise enough to take advantage of the ‘ soft spot' thus unexpectedly revealed in a heart which had seemed so wanting in susceptibility toany good influence.