HACKNEY

This Home is one of much the same class as that which I have just described. It has accommodation for forty-eight girls, of whom over 1,000 have passed through the Institution, where they are generally kept for a period of six months. Most of the young women in the Home when I visited it had been thieves. One, who was twenty-seven years of age, had stolen ever since she was twelve, and the lady in charge told me that when she came to them everything she had on her, and almost all the articles in her trunk were the property of former mistresses.

In answer to my questions, Commissioner Cox informed me that the result of their work in this Home was so satisfactory that they scarcely liked to announce it. They computed, however, that taken on a three years\' test—for the subsequent career of each inmate is followed for that period—90 per cent of the cases prove to be permanent moral cures. This, when the previous history of these young women is considered, may, I think, be accounted a great triumph. No money contribution is asked or expected in this particular Home. Indeed, it would not be forthcoming from the class of girls who are sent or come here to be reformed, many of whom, on entering, are destitute of underclothing and other necessaries, The needlework which they do, however, is sold, and helps to pay for the upkeep of the place.

I asked what was done if any of them refused to work. The answer was that this very rarely happened, as the women-Officers shared in their labours, and the girls could not for shame\'s sake sit idle while their Officers worked. I visited t............