Star Court, one from Newcastle Court, one from Windsor Court. One gave up drink and found peace, and now he is a Scripture-reader, and he is doing much good; I think the people call him 'Praying Joe.' I do hope to see many more brought to Jesus. Some, I think, are beginning to think about their souls. I am so glad that all of them think I am their friend. Nothing on earth gives me so much joy as seeing one coming to Jesus; may the number be increased an hundred-fold."

A DUST-HEAP DISTRICT.

IN a long chat we had recently with the co-helper whom we call the "Boys' Bible-woman," we found she was working a portion of the same locality which eighteen years ago was taken up by our second Bible-woman, Martha, of Paddington, and which we called the "Dust-heap District."

The good City missionary Pearson, now gone to his rest, first enabled us to realize that neighbourhood by description:

"The monstrous heaps amassed from all the dust-bins in this vast London still continue to be sifted and disposed of for the benefit of their owners and contractors,-a large heap being said to be worth from 4,000l. to 5,000l. The sifters and sorters are of all ages. Martha's work introduced us to the women in their savage guise, with their aprons full of cinders, perhaps carried on their heads, and their gowns turned up to carry another heap of wood, or paper, or whatever was their day's finding; their feet encased in navvies' boots; their hands and arms the colour of ashes; a grimy piece of carpet tied round their waist, which they wear while on the heap to protect them from the scraping of the cinders; a man's old coat completing the rest of the costume."

And after the lapse of near a score of years the dust-bins of London must still be cleared, and our Boys' Bible-woman finds work with some of the children of the women above described who have had an inheritance of dirt upon the dust-heap. Boys and girls, who grow up into the lighter tasks-the girls of sifting, the boys of carrying away broken pottery, oyster shells, rags and bones, old iron, brass, and lead; broken glass to old glass shops, rags to the paper-makers.

The chief element of a dust-heap is cinders mixed with bits

of coal, from the carelessness or waste of thousands of servants. These are sold forthwith by the contractor; the largest and best of the cinders also, to laundresses, whose purposes they serve better than coke. The remainder is called breeze; it is the portion left after the wind has blown the cinder-dust from it through sieves shaken elbow-high by the women as men throw it up to them. The breeze and dust are sold to brickmakers, who will often contract for thousands of chaldrons; oyster shells and broken pottery are sold to make new roads; old shoes go in bushels to the "translators," who turn old into new

ones.

The perquisites which the searchers and sorters are allowed to bring home with them are numerous. The missionary once visited a bedridden old man, who asked him to stir the saucepan on his fire; and on his observing that it was a savoury mess, the reply was, "Well, mayhap you might not like to eat it, sir. It is some bones, well washed, and some potatoes and onions my wife picked off the heap. It's very well for me."

As their wages are only 1s. a day, they are very glad to find warmth from the supply of cinders and coals which they bring home with them; paper and wood also belong to them, as much as they can carry; with corks of bottles, by which alone, some say, they find themselves in shoe leather; pill-boxes and gallipots are also their lawful property, and any broken pottery that they can match and mend. They may strip the skins from dead cats, and can sell them for 3d. or 4d., according to their colour. All vegetable and animal decomposing matters are sold speedily for manure.

The homes of these people were often described as "like stables, when they met their children ravenous for the evening meal, and ate it with unwashed hands and no change of garments; and what wonder that they are subject to fever!"

The present Bible-woman has a good deal to say to these wild women, like her predecessor, but ever since the death of little "Amy, her adopted child," she and her family seem to have given themselves up to care for these rough boys and girls. She seems to know the people's habits. Some only drink at holiday times, and dreadfully at Whitsuntide, and often on Saturday nights.

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as late as eleven

6

"I go among them," says Mrs. So'clock on Saturday nights, when they are out spending the market penny,' as they call it; and if I meet one of my mothers' class, I tap her on the shoulder, and say, 'You know your child wants a pair of boots; now don't drink that money. You have to get your own clothes out on Saturday night, to be smart on Sundays; and then you put them back again to the pawnbroker every Monday morning. You would never be so badly off if you kept this drinking money. Now, do go back to your children, poor things, and help me to do something with them. They're always being huddled out of the way, and sworn at, and turned out of doors." " She adds,

"The drink is their never-ending temptation; not a corner of a street but has its public-house. There is one court that is often called 'Little Hell,' where the mothers are always beating the children,—‘knocking it into 'em,' as they say, and swearing at them all the while; and one day (I did not wonder at it) a boy turned round and beat his mother.

"But sometimes I have to take them on quite another tack. All the teaching that little Jeff or Becky get at home is 'to take their own part,' and fight and scratch for it. 'Mother says

so,' they tell me; so sometimes the children fall out, (I say to the women) and then you mothers strip up your sleeves for a fight.

"I'll not have my child browbeated,' says one; 'nor I mine,' says another. Now, that child would behave as well as any lady at my school, and make it up and be friends, and this is what you should want them to do, instead of which you're always quarrelling yourselves. If you'd hold water in your mouth for ten minutes while your husband, as you say, is raging, you'd find it takes two to make a quarrel. You women can dress to get a husband, and then you do not know how to keep him. No supper, no clean hearth, your hair all down and your gown allrags, he may well come home half drunk to drown his vexation with you.'

"When I first opened my mission, all the children smelt of drink, the boys bought their own quarterns of gin; but I soon got away that money to buy them boots and coats and flannel waistcoats, and even flannel shirts for rheumatism. They laid

by 377. last year in this way, and so I try to stop the penny gaffs, and the small thefts, the bad songs, and the drink, and the swearing among the lads. I tell them to put their fingers in their ears when their fathers swear, and sometimes I go around the dust-heaps and catch some of them sleeping together in the dust-carts of a night, and if it is one of my boys he is so alarmed to find it is my head looking over at him and he thinks I shall never let him come to school again; but, poor fellows, I never give them up. One of the worst boys, who never used to speak but he swore, has now made his mother come to the meeting and uses better language.

"As to the girls, there is no hope, but while they are children; off the dust-heaps they come, cutting their hair in front with a "Piccadilly fringe," and how many a chignon do I untwist stuffed with dirty rags off the dust-heaps too! They are often said to be married at fourteen, and all that is true of them cannot be told.

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"I often make the boys tell me the five steps downwards, folding their arms, and speaking all together

"1. Selling on Sunday. 2. No church. 3. Tossing and swearing. 4. Drink. 5. Quarrelling and murder.

"And then I try to teach them the five steps upward—

"1. Going to school and learning to obey. 2. Reading the Bible and prayer. 3. Public worship. 4. Bringing their parents to read and pray also. 5. The Lord's blessing.

Well, if 'Well,' I

"Do you say your prayers,' I ask one of them. I do, mother says, "Get up, you lazy fellow." answer, 'you can say every morning, "Oh, Christ, I give you my heart," you can say that coming along.' There is many a Johnny that comes to us now is a missionary in his own house. He'll sit down in a corner, when he goes back, and say when his mother is in a fluster, 'Now, don't begin at me, mother. I've been to Mrs. S's school, and I'll tell you all I heard. She's lent me a tract, with big letters,' and then father looks over at the big letters and pictures and so some Gospel wins its way."

This good woman works not alone, for a Christian young gentleman and two or three ladies take interest in her classes and feel her boys as theirs. May there be much more seeking such lost

sheep, by all those who have heard Mr. Sankey sing "The Ninety and Nine."

DIRECTIONS TO BIBLE-WOMEN.

WE have received the following note from a Lady Superintendent of Bible-women in the country :

"My DEAR MRS. R——,

"I have sent you, as usual, one of our Annual Reports. By the blessing of God upon our work it has been prospered for fifteen years at L

"In adopting a new Bible-woman our ladies often feel at a loss for a few general directions as to her work and mode of doing it. I have put down a few hints, and I should ɔe so much obliged if, from your London experience, you would give an opinion as to their fitness, as one or two ladies have expressed a wish to have them in print.

"Yours, with best regards,

"A. C., Hon. Sec."

We have thought that it might also be useful to print these directions in the "MISSING LINK," for use in other localities:

"Dear Friends,—

DIRECTIONS TO BIBLE-WOMEN.

"1. You are requested to spend six hours each day in your work. They should be the six best hours of the day. You have Saturdays and Sundays to yourself, and you should take your dinner between your morning and afternoon visits.

"2. Introduce yourself in your first call upon a family by enquiring if they need a Bible; you should carry a good print copy with you, and have types of all others.

"3. Mondays and Tuesdays are the days for collecting from Bible subscribers. Your Lady will name the day for the Mothers' Class, for which you will constantly seek new members.

"4. Wednesday is a suitable day for canvas:ing for new subscribers. Do not miss any door, and finish one street before you begin another. You ask the people to buy the Bible by instalments, in order that you may have a frequent opportunity of calling and making them interested in the Book.

"5. Thursday and Friday visit the sick and the mothers.

"6. Read a short portion of the Scripture, or a hymn, wherever