slums, as foul as any in London or Glasgow. The
hovels and shanties were then torn down, and respectable dwellings
erected in their stead. The unfortunate wretches, the victims of
drink, crime, or thriftlessness, who inhabited such places, were
not turned away to seek a fouler footing elsewhere, but were taken
in hand by the working-men on the committee, and were started
afresh in life with every encouragement. They were generally
permanently rescued from degradation, but if some fell back their
children were saved, and so the next generation was spared a family
of criminals. Montreal was next visited and the same thing done
there; attention was then turned to Quebec and Winnipeg. Successful
attempts were afterwards made to control the liquor traffic, not by
sudden prohibition, which always increased the evil, but by common
sense methods, necessarily somewhat slow, but sure. When the
Society had been at work ten years, there was a very perceptible
diminution in the amount of crime and smaller offences in all their
spheres of action. Police forces could be decreased, and a prison
here and there closed. This had a tendency to lessen the rates,
so the taxpayer became touched in his tenderest part--his pocket.
His heart and his conscience then immediately softened toward the
Society's work, though years of preaching and the existence of all
abominable evils close to his door had failed to move him. When
this point had been reached, the Society began to be looked upon
as one of the great remedial agents of the age, and work was much
easier. One evil after another was grappled with, and in time
subdued. Scientific researches were set on foot in hygiene,
medicine, and every subject from which the community at large
could derive benefit, till in twenty years time so much general
improvement had been effected that Canada's ways of doing things
came to be quoted in other countries as a precedent. Our cities
were the best built, best drained, cleanest and healthiest, and
our city populations the most orderly and most enlightened. The
Society's roll of members now included a great number of eminent
men, and their operations were extended over the whole Dominion,
and works of all kinds were carried on simultaneously in all parts.
Outside the Society, it had become quite fashionable for all
classes to take the most eager interest in everything concerning
the public welfare, so the Dominion continued to prosper and
advance with wond