at such treatment Lord Shaftesbury brought an action against
the owners of the factory, and obtained L100 for the woman.

For shorter hours and better treatment of factory hands the earl
struggled in and out of Parliament; and, though the battle was long
and fierce, it ended in victory.

Such labour took up much time, and brought many expenses to the good
earl. It brought him, too, plenty of enemies; for most of his life was
devoted to striving to make the rich and selfish do justice to the
poor and downcast.

He not only gave his time, but his money too; and oftentimes, though
the eldest son of an earl, and later an earl himself, he hardly knew
where to turn for the means to keep his schemes going.

One day a lady called on him, and, telling a piteous tale of a Polish
refugee, asked him for help. Lord Shaftesbury had to confess he had no
money he could give; then he suddenly remembered he had five pounds in
the library: he fetched the bank note, which formed his nest egg, and
presented it to her.

One of Lord Shaftesbury's greatest works was the promotion of ragged
schools.

To these schools, established in the poorest neighbourhoods of the
metropolis, came the street arabs, the poor and abandoned, and
received kindness and teaching, which comforted and civilised them.
The outcasts who slept in doorways, under arches, and in all kinds of
horrible and unhealthy places, were the objects of this good man's
care; and ways were found of benefiting and starting afresh hundreds
of lads who would otherwise have become thieves or vagabonds in the
great city.

When he was over eighty years old he was still striving for the good
of others. So much was his heart in the work that he remarked on one
occasion: "When I feel age creeping on me, and know I must soon die--I
hope it is not wrong to say it--but I cannot bear to leave the world
with all the misery in it".

The dawn came for him in October, 1885, when in his eighty-fifth year
this veteran leader was called to his rest.

For convenience I have spoken of him throughout as Lord Shaftesbury;
but it may be well to mention that till he was fifty years old he was
known as Lord Ashley. Through the death of his father he became Earl
of Shaftesbury in 1851.

A STATESMAN WHO HAD NO ENEMIES.

THE STORY OF W.H. SMITH.

It is always well to remember that the man who serves his country as
a good citizen, as a soldier, as a statesman, or in any other walk
of life, d