oung men and women in their desire to
gain knowledge after the hard day's work is done. She has opened
"Reformatory Homes" for girls, and great good has resulted.

Like Peabody, she has transformed some of the most degraded portions
of London by her improved tenement houses for the poor. One place,
called Nova Scotia gardens,--the term "gardens" was a misnomer,--she
purchased, tore down the old rookeries where people slept and ate in
filth and rags, and built tasteful homes for two hundred families,
charging for them low and weekly rentals. Close by she built Columbia
Market, costing over a million dollars, intended for the convenience
of small dealers and people in that locality, where clean, healthful
food could be procured. She opened a museum and reading-room for the
neighborhood, and brought order and taste out of squalor and distress.

This building she presented to the city of London, and in
acknowledgment of the munificent gift, the Common Council presented
her, July, 1872, in a public ceremony, the freedom of the city, an
uncommon honor to a woman. It was accompanied by a complimentary
address, enclosed in a beautiful gold casket with several
compartments. One bore the arms of the Baroness, while the other
seven represented tableaux emblematic of her noble life, "Feeding
the Hungry," "Giving Drink to the Thirsty," "Clothing the Naked,"
"Visiting the Captive," "Lodging the Homeless," "Visiting the
Sick," and "Burying the Dead." The four cardinal virtues, Prudence,
Temperance, Fortitude, and Justice, supported the box at the four
corners, while the lid was surmounted by the arms of the city.

The Baroness made an able response to the address of the Council,
instead of asking some gentleman to reply for her. Women who can do
valuable benevolent work should be able to read their own reports,
or say what they desire to say in public speech, without feeling
that they have in the slightest degree departed from the dignity and
delicacy of their womanhood.

Two years later, 1874, Edinburgh, for her many charities, also
presented the Baroness the freedom of the city. Queen Victoria, three
years before this, in June, 1871, had made her a peer of the realm.

In Spitalfields, London, where the poverty was very great, she started
a sewing-school for adult women, and provided not only work for them,
but food as well, so that they might earn for themselves rather than
receive charity. To furnish this work, she took contra