So THE WURLD'S WORKERS. 



living. For these people gaols and penitentiaries were 

 no good, and free day schools they refused to attend. 

 There were no School Board schools at that time into 

 which vagrant children could be compelled to go, and 

 the consequence was that juvenile crime was increasing 

 very rapidly, and there seemed no hope that the evil 

 would ever be lessened ; for it was a painful truth 

 that the numbers of the "habitual criminals " were 

 continually being added to from the ranks of the 

 " occasional criminals," and things were rapidly going 

 from bad to worse. 



It was a blessing for England and for the world, 

 that at this point a good woman stepped forward and 

 said that things should not be allowed to go on as 

 they were ; but that an earnest attempt should be made 

 to rescue these hapless little ones from the depths of 

 degradation which seemed to be their fate. This 

 good woman was Mary Carpenter. 



Of course Miss Carpenter was not alone in what 

 she did ; she found friends to sympathise with her and 

 help her. Workers for God are seldom left quite 

 solitary. Even at the darkest times they discover, 

 like Elijah, that there are others as well as themselves 

 " who have not bowed the knee to Baal." So it was 

 with Mary Carpenter. Good men and women besides 

 herself were willing to work for the children on both 

 sides of the Atlantic. There were the Rev. John Clay, 

 of Preston ; the Rev. T. Carter, of Liverpool ; the 

 Rev. Sydney Turner, of Red Hill ; Sheriff Watson, 



