, friendly visitation of between
one and two hundred very needy families comprise a portion
of each month's work. [2]. _The sailors' boarding house._ A
large, clean, homelike building is fitted up for sailors.
Every American vessel that comes into port is visited by a
member of the Mission, who invites the sailors to remain at
this model home for seamen. In this way hundreds yearly
escape the dreadful atmosphere of the wretched sailors'
boarding houses of this part of the city, or, what is still
more important, avoid undreamed-of vice, degradation, and
disease by going with companions to vile dens of infamy.
[3]. _Securing comfortable homes and good positions for the
young who are thus enabled to rise out of the night and
oppression of this terrible existence._ This, it is
needless to add, is a very difficult task, owing to the
fact that society shrinks from its exiles; few persons will
give any one a chance who is known to have belonged to the
slums. Nevertheless good positions are yearly secured for
several of these children of adversity. [4]. _The
children's free industrial school in which the young are
taught useful trades, occupations, and means of
employment._ In this training school the little girls are
taught to make themselves garments. The material is
furnished them free and when they have completed the
garment it is given them. [5]. _Summer vacations in the
country for the little ones_ are provided for several
hundred children; some for a day, some a week, some two
weeks as the exigencies of the case require and the limited
funds permit. These little oases in the children's dreary
routine life are looked forward to with even greater
anticipations of joy than is Christmas in the homes of the
rich. I have cited the work of this Mission because I have
personally investigated its work, and have seen the immense
good that is being done with the very limited funds at the
command of the Mission, and also to show by an illustration
how much may be accomplished for the immediate relief of
the sufferers. A grand palliative work requiring labor and
money. It is not enough for those who live in