One  would  like  to  hold  it  for  ever,  to  cherish  this
young  grace  and  preserve  it  from  the  brute  contacts
of  its  alleys.  One  would  like  to  take  each  child
from  that  street,  and  from  the  weary  way  into  which
it  will  lead  them  when  they  are  older;  but  that  would
be  wrong  unless  you  took  the  parents  too.  For
what  would  mother  do  if  Lucy  or  Johnny  were  taken
from  her?  The  Street  of  Beautiful  Children  is  also
a  street  of  happy  people;  children  and  parents  de-
lighting in  each  other;  the  parents  struggling  for  the
best  that  circumstances  afford  for  their  darlings,  and
the  children  glad  of  what  they  get.  It  is  the  en-
vironment that  should  be  altered.  It  is  the  cramped
spaces  of  the  home  that  so  quickly  kill  all  beauty
of  heart  and  face.  In  such  surroundings  the  struggle
to  preserve  the  decencies  is  hopeless;  and  soon  vital-
ity is  lowered  and  self-respect  corroded,  and  beauty


268  THE  LONDON  SPY

fades.  That  is  why  I  want  to  take  the  children  away
— not  from  their  famihes,  to  which  they  are  orna-
ment and  dehght;  not  even  from  Stepney;  but  from
the  wretched  rabbit-hutches  of  Stepney.  And  those
children  in  whose  homes  the  best  is  not  made  of
things,  who  have  careless  mothers  and  dispirited
fathers,  or  wicked  and  cruel,  those  I  would  like  to
carry  away  to  a  home  where  their  hearts  should
know  the  little  precious  things  that  help  hearts  to
grow  in  beauty.  Not  into  a  "Home" — oh,  mocking
word ! — and  its  cold  squalors  and  brutalising  sys-
tem, but  into  an  ordinary  happy  household.  God
forbid  that  I  should  be  a  party  to  sending  any  child
from  the  light-limbed  freedom  of  this  street,  which
to  their  rich  minds  is  a  wonderland,  into  the  hygienic
horrors  of  a  Home.  I  know  too  much  about  them.
