no man or woman would sully their minds.  We have heard it said that the stage-children who return to school after their spell of pantomime corrupt the others.  This is a gross and stupid falsehood which is calculated to injure a cause that has many good points.  I earnestly sympathise with the well-meaning people who desire to succour the little ones; but I beseech them not to be led away by misstatements which are concocted for sensational purposes.  So far from corrupting other children, the young actors invariably act as a good influence in a school.  The experienced observer can almost make certain of picking out the boys and girls who have had a stage-training.  They like to be smart and cleanly, their deportment and general manners are improved, and they are almost invariably superior in intelligence to the ordinary school-trained child.  Imagine Mme. Katti Lanner having a corrupt influence!  Imagine those delightful beings who play “Alice in Wonderland” corrupting anybody or anything!  I have always been struck by the pretty manners of the trained children—­and the advance in refinement is especially noticeable among those who have been speaking or singing parts.  The most pleasing set of youths that I ever met were the members of a comic-opera troupe.  Some of them, without an approach to freedom of manner, would converse with good sense on many topics, and their drill had been so extended as to include a knowledge of polite salutes.  Not one of the boys or girls would have been ill at ease in a drawing-room; and I found their educational standard quite up to that of any Board school known to me.  These nice little folk were certainly in no wise pallid or distraught; and, when they danced on the stage, the performance was a beautiful and delightful romp which suggested no idea of pain.  To see the “prima donna” of the company trundling her hoop on a bright morning was as pretty a sight as one would care to see.  The little lady was neither forward nor unhealthy, nor anything else that is objectionable—­and it was plain that she enjoyed her life.  Is it in the least likely that any sane manager would ill-treat a little child that was required to be pleasing?  One or two acrobats have been known to be stern with their apprentices; but the rudest circus-man would not venture to exhibit a pupil who looked unhappy.  The rascally “Arabs” who entrapped so many boys in years gone by were fiends who met with very appropriate retribution; but such villains are not common.

I am always haunted by the argument about late hours—­and give it every weight.  As aforesaid, I used sometimes to wish that some wee creature could only be wrapped in a night-gown and sent to rest.  But, for the benefit of those who cannot well imagine what the horrors of a city slum are like, let me describe the nightly scene in a typical city alley.  It is cold in the pantomime season; but the folk in that alley have not much fire.  Joe, the costermonger, Bill, the