ll a place. While waiting to see how the house could be enlarged,
he mentioned his perplexity to Mr. Samuel Morley. This gentleman heard
him with interest, and said that he was one of the directors of a large
hospital; that at a recent meeting of the directors a Catholic bishop
had offered to send Sisters of Charity who, without compensation, should
nurse the sick, and he had thought what a fine thing it would be if the
Protestant Church had also its women of piety who could devote
themselves to a similar work. The result of the conversation was that
Mr. Morley contributed forty thousand dollars, with which Dr. Laseron
purchased a site in Tottenham, built a hospital with fifty beds, and a
deaconess was called from Kaiserswerth to superintend it. The hospital
has been again enlarged, so that it now accommodates one hundred
patients. Sixty-four deaconesses are connected with it, who are at
service in the hospitals of Cork, Dublin, Scarborough, and Sunderland.
This institution is unsectarian, and has met with special aid from
non-conformists. It still keeps in close relation to Kaiserswerth, and
is represented at the Conferences. It has constantly thriven, and the
mother-house at Tottenham is a center for various benevolent
enterprises.
In connection with Dr. Barnardo's Orphanage there is also a deaconess
house. Harley House, the missionary training-school under the direction
of Dr. and Mrs. Grattan Guinness in East London, has a deaconess home as
one of its branches. The Kilburn (St. Augustine's) Orphanage of Mercy,
and the London Bible-women's Mission are also centers for the training
and organizing of women's work in London.
We must pause more at length over the prison mission under the care of
Mrs. Meredith. American women are beginning to occupy themselves with
questions of philanthropy and religious activity to an extent not before
equaled. The women's prisons in England are especially fruitful of
suggestions to us, as many here are interested in having our women
prisoners separated in prisons by themselves, as has already been
attempted in a few States. Mrs. Meredith's work is in behalf of the
prisoners after they have served their sentence and are discharged. She
is the daughter of General Lloyd, who was formerly governor-general of
prisons in Ireland. As a little child she was accustomed to go about
with her father, and the interior of prisons became familiar to her.
Later in life, when her family ties were bro
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