Most of its f urroundinga are ruled by ogres of a race who do not show their captives fairyland—ogres of hard life, of poverty, of misfortune, of lack of opportunity, of ignorance, often of hope lessness, and hunger, and disease; always of want in one form or another, whether it is want of comforts or want of rest, or sustenance for boly or mind. If one d'ives by the theatre one nearly always fees a few dirty, more or less ragged children staring with eager, longing eyes at the wonderful bills and talking earnestly to each other, evidently about the goblins or fairies not too lavishly pictured on some of them. They belong to the outside. They never go inside, and it is only the one of them who has the good luck to have a brother who is a printer’s “ devil,” or a newsboy or a crossing sweeper capital ist enough to indulge in a seat in the gallery, who knows anything definite about the inside’s glittering splendours And it is not permitted to look too long even at the bills on the outside, or

it is quite likely a big policeman may walk by and tell you to “ move on.” Drury Lane means so much. It means street after street branching out of it, narrower and poorer streets, where there are poor shops, and poor people, and

poor coup's; streets where one sees slatternly women and unkempt men, and always swarms of children playing, squabbling, darting among carts and under horses’ heads in a way to excite marvel and terror ; little ones staggering under the weight of babies who seem bigger than themselves, some of them with nice little fac p, some of them with wretched ones, some with hungry eyes, some with quite merry ones, but all dirty—dirty—dirty. Poor little things —God help and love them ! The poor in London cannot be clean. It is not only poverty they must contend with, but smoke, grime, and fog, which stick to and smear all in the West End as well as in the Bast, and which cannot be ignored and evaded even by ladies with luxurious baths and deft attendant maids —ladies who are not touched by the sordid details of everyday existence. — From “ The Drury Lane Boys’ Club,” by Frances Hodgson Burnett in Scribner.
