earned, as we have seen, by garden labour,
shoemending, tailoring, or mattrass-stuffing.
We have no square, high-walled, gravelled
yards; we believe that even the poor may have
aesthetic tastes, and if they have not, we do
not see how virtue can be helped, or vice
hindered, by positive bare God-hated ugliness.
We fancy—mistaken in our youth, it may
be—that that "contentment" which an old
book tells us with "godliness is gain," is
best promoted by the sight of God's fair
works, and that those perhaps who have never
thought of Him may begin to see him in a
garden—in brick walls and spiked tops never.
Besides, for those who want facts, our
beautiful garden pays, and pays well. Last year
our vegetables, taken at market prices, were
worth one hundred and forty-nine pounds nineteen
shillings and threepence, besides what fed
cows and pigs, which useful animals cleared
two hundred and fourteen pounds two shillings.

Cross the gardens, and you find our school-room
and playgrounds. Our school is under
the Board of Education. In Victoria we have
a system of government secular education, of a
first-class ordinary English character. Look
at our children: plump, rosy, and decidedly
jolly. At home they would be thought
well-dressed children of the better sort of mechanics.
They have swings, gymnasium, cricket, tops,
and other such follies. As you walk through
with the master, you see that the children are
not afraid of him—that they bring their grievances
to him with an unlimited belief both in
his power and intention to see the right thing
done.

Next let us pass into the quadrangle at the
back. Here are the kitchen, laundry, drying-room,
bath. The inmates' clothes are duly
washed every week in winter, and dried by hot
air; in summer with the thermometer from ninety
to a hundred degrees Fahrenheit, they dry fast
enough. On Saturday, shirts, socks, and the like,
neatly folded, are placed in the chests before
mentioned in the sleeping wards. In the bathroom
there is a fine plunge; the men have the use of
it twice a week; the boys, any day; and a fine
sight it is to see the youngsters taking headers
and swimming gloriously. Workshops for
those who can do a little mattrass-making,
shoemaking, or tailoring; cowhouses, pigsties,
and earth-closets; complete our survey.

Returning to the house through the kitchen,
we may inquire as to food. For breakfast,
coffee and bread; those who have earned it, have
butter. Dinner, either basin of soup and six
ounces of boiled meat free from bone; or half a
pound of roast meat, with vegetables when in
season, one pound of bread, and potatoes at
discretion. We find it better to put the potatoes
and bread on the table, indeed actually cheaper,
than to portion it out, for there is not so much
waste; those who only eat little, only take little,
and no one can say they have not enough. The
meat is cut up into equal portions in the kitchen
for convenience' sake. Tea as breakfast: sound
tea, and not coffee. The bread is all the best
wheaten, the meat first quality; which is, after
all, not saying much, when our present contract
is for prime beef twopence, mutton one penny
three farthings per pound. Two members of
committee, appointed in rotation and for a
fortnight at a time, visit the asylum, inspect the
stores, hear complaints if any, and see that all
is as it ought to be. The master and matron
have three hundred pounds per annum, with
board, lighting, fire, and quarters. The work
of the house is done by paid servants. We do
not forget the religious and moral welfare of
our poor. Free in this land from a state
church, and where there is perfect religious
equality, we could not appoint any chaplain,
but the voluntary principle works well. Good
friends of various denominations hold a
Sunday school every Sunday afternoon. The
inmates go to what place of worship they please,
on Sunday morning; in the afternoon there is a
service conducted by the Wesleyans; on Friday
afternoon the Episcopalians have service; on
Tuesday afternoon the ministers of most of the
other denominations conduct service in turn.
Attendance is optional. By way of amusement,
occasional lectures; or should dissolving views,
or Lancashire bell-ringers, or such like, visit the
town, very frequently they come up and give an
entertainment to their poor brethren

But the sick ward must not be forgotten.
Here every attention is paid to our paupers.
We get those who are turned out of the
hospital as incurable, besides those who fall sick in
the house. Take up the doctor's book, and, for
the benefit of some English poor-house, copy:
    A. T., beef-tea, wine, and soft fruit daily.
    S. M., ice (a luxury in Australia), eggs, and
wine.
    S. H., soft fruit, sago, porter.

Our doctor seems a great advocate for soft
fruit, by which term, at this present, peaches,
grapes, pears, apples are meant. Eighteen eggs
and a bottle of wine, with sago and arrowroot,
is a favourite out-door prescription. Horrid,
mixtures in blacking-bottles are unknown.

Who are admitted to our asylum? All who
really need such a home; neither creed nor clime
makes any difference. Any man or woman who
can't get a living, and whose friends can't or
won't support, we admit. Our object is stated to
be: " To relieve the aged, infirm, disabled, and
destitute, and to minister to their necessities
according to the ability of the institution." The
limits are simply want, on the part of the
applicant; means, on the part of the asylum.
Either the general or the house committee
meet weekly to receive and deal with
applications.

We have said nothing yet of out-door relief.
Many require help who cannot be admitted into
the asylum—families and so forth—and these
constitute the out-door part of our work. Every
Wednesday, the master serves out rations to
such applicants according to the following scale
for each adult: six pounds of bread or five
pounds of flour, four pounds of meat or two and
a half pounds of rice, a quarter of a pound of