where she
had acquaintances. The visitor went to the place herself to examine the
chances, and decided that the plan was worth trying. The Provident
Association gave $10.00 for moving and $10.00 more for a start. After
that the visitor gave a little from time to time; but, for the most part,
the family were self-supporting. The boy worked in a factory, the girl
was employed by a neighbor, and the mother raised hens and vegetables.
At last accounts the daughter was married. Her husband is of good
character and prosperous. Both the brothers are earning good wages, the
younger one having grown from a sickly child to a strong and hearty boy.
The mother is successful with her poultry, and gets high prices for {215}
the eggs. The husband comes and goes as formerly, contributing nothing
to the family income, but doing no special harm to any but himself.
Certainly, the present condition of the family is a very happy contrast
to that in which they were first found; and certainly, also, these
changed conditions are in no small degree due to the earnest and devoted
efforts of the visitor.--Sixteenth Report of Boston Associated Charities,
pp. 45 _sq_.

_Unconscious Influence of Good Neighbors._--I would venture to say that
there is not an immoral man or woman in neighborhoods known as
disreputable, however completely he or she may have cast off
self-restraint and regard for character, who has not daily examples of
persons, close to such homes and haunts of vice, living honest and
morally clean lives, and who is not, to a degree not consciously known,
restrained and influenced by the contact. . . . Space will not permit
many instances to be stated, but, as illustrating what I am wishful to
make clear, I give two. In a court behind a street well known as bearing
almost the worst character in Manchester lives a man, paralyzed, unable
to leave an old sofa which has been his bed for months. He was in the
Royal Infirmary, and there pronounced incurable, but likely to live years
with ordinary care. He could have been taken to the workhouse hospital
at Crumpsall, where he would have {216} had careful nursing and suitable
food. He has no dread of the workhouse hospital, and would gladly go if
he had any hope of cure. He speaks most gratefully of his treatment at
the Royal Infirmary. But there is no hope of cure, and his wife and he
have determined to keep together while he lives, and he refuses the
comforts of the hospital,