teachers to give little entertainments among themselves, and these only to a very mild extent. Such a dissipation as an amateur pantomime is certainly unknown. For their elders a music-hall in the Mile End Road, 'to be hired for weddings on Sundays!' has so far sufficed for their dramatic entertainments, and here the plays of Shakespeare, and more often of Zangwill or of less well-established luminaries, are performed nightly in Yiddish.

Even in the course of a walk through the Ghetto, that strange foreign country within five minutes of Liverpool Street Station, some impression of the lives of the Jewish children may be obtained. The street is their natural playground. Neither cold nor heat can keep any but the merest babies indoors, for in this most congested district it is rather the rule than the exception for only one room to be at the disposal of an entire family. On a Friday afternoon the scene is a comparatively quiet one. The famous market in Middlesex Street, better known as Petticoat Lane, on any other day in the week the most picturesque and busy thoroughfare in the whole of London, is rapidly shutting up and, in the case of the barrows, being wheeled away in preparation for the Sabbath. A few old men with hooked noses and long beards are still sitting on the edge of the pavement before their baskets of oranges, offering in a melancholy monotone four a penny' and these are possibly the only English words they know. For here, in the midst of our own city, the English language is seldom heard intelligibly except from the children who learn it in their schools. Of these we very soon have a following. As we cautiously thread our way amongst the diminishing stalls and barrows, careful not to run up against portions of a sheep's anatomy upon the one hand, or some particularly evil looking fish upon the other; walking delicately that we may not rub shoulders with a pile of secondhand clothing, and turning a deaf ear to the voice of the charmer in the doorway, who, a faded Oriental shawl about her head, is anxious to part with her last dish of pickled cucumber, the children patter after us, an ever increasing and always friendly little crowd. They do not in the least understand our expressions of regret as we pass some young girls laden with ready-made clothing, probably some order on its way to a large West-end establishment, for sweating is an evil which in these streets assumes reality. Neither do they quite enter into our amused admiration of the smoked salmon which, slit and lying wide outspread in all their scarlet glory on a barrow, give a welcome touch of brilliant colour to the, at this hour, dreary street. Nevertheless, they are very kind to us, these children, and anxious to do the honours of their country to the invading Christians. Several of them have been sent out to buy bread, sold in fascinating rings like bracelets, or groceries or fish for the Sabbath meal which their mothers are preparing at home. And the mothers must have wondered why, on this occasion the little messengers tarried

so long in coming, for how could they know that Annie or Yenci or Etti feel compelled to follow in the wake of a party of Gentile visitors? Rather a sorry little escort it is, with their small bodies and pinched, unnaturally sharp faces. One little head covered with hair of Titian's red gold makes a spot of beauty in the otherwise squalid group, and here and there glossy black ringlets surround a small and dirty face redeemed by a pair of magnificent dark eyes. But such features are the exception rather than the rule, and the majority of the children are as drab and as unremarkable as their surroundings. Of shyness and self-consciousness, however, there is none, and they receive our laboured efforts at conversation quite politely, though our questions elicit no more interesting information than that Annie Solomons, a remarkably clean, well-dressed child, is buying cheese, and that Moses Polivinksy is taking old newspapers to an office, and that they all attend the Jewish Free Schools. This fact, in the case of the boys, is patent from the serviceable mouse-coloured corduroys which the schools provide for their clothing. Some County Council posters which we pass bearing the legends Vote for Jones' and 'Vote for Smith' respectively, and looking curiously ill at ease amongst the Yiddish notices, are the cause of a heated controversy between two of our boyfollowers,' who are ready upon the smallest encouragement to break one another's heads over the difference of opinion existing between their parents as to the individual merits of the candidates. Fortunately at this juncture a diversion is created, for we have halted outside a bookshop, attracted to its window by a rampant lion of Judah, which we afterwards discover is destined to adorn some highly decorated cover of the Torah. The master of the shop is a sad-faced typical Jew of a superior class, and he bears an invasion of two or three of the little girls of our following with meekness and resignation. One of these, indeed, appears to regard a dark corner under his counter as the natural repository of her skipping. rope and other treasures. Her tow-like hair is tied up with white tape, while the other children flaunt coloured, if dirty, ribbons, but notwithstanding this disability, she is evidently a young person possessed of Napoleonic powers of organisation. At this point she apparently decides that some active effort should be made by the escort towards our entertainment. Diving under the friendly counter she produces her rope and starts a skipping match amongst the younger members of the party. They are remarkably graceful and pretty performers, who thoroughly enjoy showing off their accomplishments; notable amongst them being a little delicate-featured, brown-haired Polish girl of four, who, while she skips, fondly clasps her red woollen tam-o'-shanter in place of a doll. A baby of two, tightly swathed in a pink shawl is also commanded to do her part, and considering her tender and unwieldy age, the performance is not discreditable. Napoleon meantime acts as mistress of the ceremonies, and when

the boys become aggressive hurls defiance at them from within the shelter of the shop. This being ineffectual, she presently executes a masterly sortie to avenge some too gross insult with all the force of a sadly thin leg, a clumsy boot many sizes too large, and a fiercely clenched and microscopic fist. Every now and then a good-natured elder, whose language to us is incomprehensible, but who seems to think that the attentions of the young people are becoming oppressive, will swoop down into the little crowd and disperse it with a well-aimed shake or a cuff; only momentarily, however, for like mushrooms in the night the children spring up again, supervising and intercepting our every step.

But the Sabbath is really at hand now, and a wholesome fear of the wrath of mothers draws our escort gradually away. They go reluctantly with many parting observations and promises that we shall meet again, which we did, but that is another story. 'Napoleon' is the last to leave us. She has neither fish nor cheese, nor, it seems, any other responsibilities in life but those which are self appointed. She explains with some importance that the following day she is going to Paris. Her father has found work there, and the family is to join him. And this child, who cannot be more than ten years old, and has only mastered just sufficient English to make herself intelligible (what her mother's tongue may be it is impossible to discover), is quite undisturbed at the thought of changing her home, and only mildly elated at the prospect of fresh worlds to conquer. The preternatural sharpness of the little face leaves me wondering whether the Angel who, according to an old Jewish tradition, struck her lips at her birth, to banish from the baby soul those visions of Heaven and Hell with which it had been entertained previous to its incarnation, had done his work quite thoroughly! At all events she is a cheerful little person, and will be quite competent to deal with any difficulties which may lie before her in a harassed and uncertain existence. The Jewish children are infinitely amusing in their complete absence of shyness, in their quickness of comprehension and their vivid imaginations. Yet in spite of the acknowledged goodness of Jewish mothers a sense of homelessness clings about these young people which is inevitably depressing. The strenuous toil of philanthropists and workers, Jew and Christian alike, to ameliorate the conditions of this alien and shifting population, may well find the best results of its labours amongst the children, but there must be times of discouragement, when even these appear unsatisfactorily small. The more honour to those who refuse to be discouraged!

It is certainly with a sense of relief that, as the evening closes in, we find ourselves again in that market street off the Commercial Road, where, however, on Friday night no market worth mentioning is to be seen. A few children are still playing in the dusk round the Church. The Vicarage door stands hospitably open. In the hall can

be seen a white-faced young woman with a small and wailing baby, who is waiting for words of encouragement and counsel. On the doorstep is huddled a little row of children of both sexes, and tightly pressed between them is an extremely fat brown and white spaniel of antiquated appearance. "E be doin' time, Miss,' joyfully explains a small boy who has his skinny arm clasped round the patient animal's neck, to its evident inconvenience-and the little girls giggle appreciatively. The statement proves to be fact for the spaniel has been poaching on his master's preserves in the country, and has been sent up to spend some weeks of easeful and far from solitary confinement in this East-end Vicarage. It must be noticeable to the most casual observer that about these children, in spite of their obvious poverty, there is a very happy air of trust and confidence. Jew and Gentile, ragged and tidy, they seem to swarm indiscriminately inside the Church railings, and in their unquestioning certainty of the welcome which awaits them they contrive to impart a certain sense of security to this crowded corner of East London. Sin and suffering and misery are packed closely enough into this narrow area of mean streets, but, as we have said before, it is through the children that the work done amongst the poor may expect to bear the best fruit, and here surely the harvest bids fair to be a rich one.

ROSE M. BRADLEY.

CHILDREN'S COMPETITIONS

A FAIRLY long experience of editing one of the Children's Pages, which nowadays seem to be an indispensable feature of all ladies' papers, has led me to think that a short account of the work sent in for the various competitions might be of interest. The children who entered for these particular competitions varied in age from eight or nine to nineteen, and belonged, some to the upper and some to the lower strata of England's enormous 'middle-class' population. They took a surprising interest in the page and in its editress (who of course assumed a fancy' name to which all letters were addressed), and if their answers in the weekly correspondence column happened to be longer or shorter than the average, never failed to write expressing their pleasure or disappointment, as the case might be. Their communications did not, as a general rule, give much idea of themselves or of their home surroundings, though occasionally a letter full of personal details and asking for advice on difficult and important subjects would be received. Frequently, too, the parents themselves would write expressing their pleasure at the interest taken in the page by their children, and saying how helpful the competitions were in widening their knowledge and in encouraging them in the virtue of perseverance.

It was a little surprising to find that the most popular competitions of all were those of an ingenious nature, such as 'word-making,' i.e. a competition for the longest list of words made out of the letters contained in a given word or phrase. Drawing competitions were also favourites, though the work sent in was extraordinarily uneven, ranging-as, for instance, in the case of a competition for the best drawing of a dog-from really clever lifelike sketches to almost unrecognisable scrawls. This quality of unevenness, even among children of much the same age, was noticeable in all the competitions; and the gift of correct spelling-for surely it is a gift?-was also somewhat irregularly distributed. In most of the letters and essays spelling mistakes were not numerous, but there was a small percentage of competitors who seemed totally unable to spell even the most elementary words correctly. The following letter from a child of eleven, whose parents seemed to be refined and even wealthy