nd sixty
members; they also have their gymnasium, their football, cricket, and
swimming clubs; their classes for carpentry, wood-carving, singing,
and shorthand; their savings' bank, their sick club, and their
library.

Only the better class of lads belong to this club. But there is a
lower set, those who lounge about the streets at night, and take to
gambling and betting. For these boys the children's play-room is
opened in the evening; here they read, talk, box, and play bagstelle,
draughts, and dominoes, These lads are as rough as can be found, yet
on the whole they give very little trouble.

Another important institution is the Country Holiday; this is
accomplished by saving. It means, while it lasts, an expenditure of
five shillings a week; sometimes the lads are taken to the seaside and
live in a barn; sometimes the girls are sent to a village and placed
about in cottages. A great number of the girls and lads go off every
year a-hopping in Kent.

Add to these the temperance societies, and we seem to complete the
organized work of the Church. It must, however, be remembered that
this work is not confined to those who attend the services or are
Anglican in name. The clergy and the ladies who help them go about the
whole parish from house to house; they know all the people in every
house, to whatever creed they belong; their visits are looked for as a
kind of right; they are not insulted even by the roughest; they are
trusted by all; as they go along the streets the children run after
them and hang upon their dress; if a strange man is walking with one
of these ladies, they catch at his hands and pull at his
coat-tails--we judge of a man, you see, by his companions. All this
machinery seems costly. It is, of course, far beyond the slender
resources of the parish. It demands, however, no more than L850 a
year, of which L310 is found by different societies and the sum of
L540 has to be raised somehow.

There are, it has been stated, no more than seven thousand people in
this parish, of whom nearly half belong to the Church of Rome. It
would therefore almost seem as if every man, woman, and child in the
place must be brought under the influence of all this work. In a sense
all the people do feel the influence of the Church, whether they are
Anglicans or not. The parish system, as you have seen, provides
everything; for the men, clubs; for the women, nursing in sickness,
friendly counsel always, help in trouble; th