In a disused warehouse at 1A Dod Street, opposite the Silver Tavern, was the Outcasts' Haven.
 According to Charles Dickens Jr., the first rule of the establishment was this: 
Any outcast boy or girl, up to the age of sixteen, without parents, guardians or friends, and who has no home but the streets, will be admitted at once, at any hour of the day or the night free, and be provided with a bath, warm clothes, food and a bed.

  Any policeman on the beat "who finds some poor outcast shrinking from the flash of his lantern", wrote Dickens, knew to send the child to Dod Street.

But, according to an exposé in the investigative journal  Truth, it was part of a charity scam.
 Run by a man called Walter Austin and his mistress Frances Napton ("the Lady Superintendent"),  the charity put on stunts (see illustration), sent out heart-rending appeals, collected large donations, but kept no proper accounts.
 While it did spend some money on homeless children, its proprietor lived well.
In a disused warehouse at 1A Dod Street, opposite the Silver Tavern, was the Outcasts' Haven.  According to Charles Dickens Jr., the first rule of the establishment was this: 
Any outcast boy or girl, up to the age of sixteen, without parents, guardians or friends, and who has no home but the streets, will be admitted at once, at any hour of the day or the night free, and be provided with a bath, warm clothes, food and a bed.
  Any policeman on the beat "who finds some poor outcast shrinking from the flash of his lantern", wrote Dickens, knew to send the child to Dod Street.
But, according to an exposé in the investigative journal  Truth, it was part of a charity scam.  Run by a man called Walter Austin and his mistress Frances Napton ("the Lady Superintendent"),  the charity put on stunts (see illustration), sent out heart-rending appeals, collected large donations, but kept no proper accounts.  While it did spend some money on homeless children, its proprietor lived well.
Limehouse Cut