I was ushered into the private room of the superintendent of the Orphan Home. After a few moments' introductory talk he brought me down to the kitchen—a large, spacious room with all the modern cooking paraphernalia. The cook presided over the stove, on which were a dozen pots. Three pale little girls were peeling potatoes.

From there we went to the dressmaking room, where half a dozen girls under the supervision of an expert were making dresses, shirts, sheets and all the other linen of the house. Though it was a beautiful spring day they had to use gas light, the room was so dark. The superintendent noticing my gaze fixed on the burning light, explained:

"It is not too dark here, but you can't make them understand that artificial light is bad for the eyes. It's a pity to waste money on gas, but you can't do everything just right."

From the dressmaking room he led me to the dining room, which was a very large, light room, with one big white marble table in the centre. Little girls were busy setting the table for the noon meal. Soon the bell rang and a hundred pair of tripping feet followed the call to lunch. In a few moments they were all sitting around the table. A big cauldron of soup was brought and the bowls filled with the steaming food. A hundred little mouths munched and chattered and whispered, the older girls supervising the younger ones, the stronger ones often getting the slice of bread belonging to the weaker.

One of the "old ones" approached the superintendent and told him: "Clara Morris does not eat."

"Why?" he asked.

"She cries, sir," the girl answered.

"Bring her to my office," he ordered.

Then he turned to me and explained: "The new ones don't assimilate readily. There is especial difficulty in the matter of food. Their taste has been spoiled with spicy food and they can't eat the simple, wholesome food we give them here. The first few days they don't eat at all, but when they get good and hungry they fall to it like the rest. And they eat—oh! they eat. If you could see the bills for food for a month you would gasp. A fortune is spent. The fruit bill alone is above three hundred dollars a month. They get all the fruits of the season, but they would prefer pickles and sour tomatoes. I tell you for some of them it's lucky their parents died. I shudder to think what would have become of them." As he was speaking the office girl called him to the telephone. I went straight to the child who refused to eat and asked her why she refused the food. It was the child of an applicant and she knew me.

"I can't eat it—it tastes bad. See for yourself."

I took a spoonful of the supposed lentil soup and tasted. It smelt and tasted like dishwater. Of lentils it had only the colour and the name. Then I tasted the meat and the pudding, and understood why they had to be hungry for a few days before they could touch it. I looked at the faces of the children. All ghastly pale, with bent shoulders and fallen-in chests and toothpick legs—only the eyes were living, the feverish, longing eyes of the people of woe.

The children ate the bread, some chewed a bone, alternating with a bite from a quarter of an apple, the fruit of the season, and as an extra treat, because I was there, two dates were given to each. Once in a while a little tragedy would happen. A big one would take away a slice of bread from a small one, and the protests of the robbed were stilled with threats and pinches.

"When is your happiest time here?" I asked one of the girls.

"Every six weeks," she answered.

"Why so?"

"Because then I am in the kitchen for two days and can eat as much as I want."

Soon the superintendent came again, and as he insisted on my visiting the classes while at work he invited me to lunch with his family. I was introduced to the lady of the house—who in turn introduced me to their daughter, a young Miss of twenty, with round, healthy body and rosy cheeks and stupid eyes. Mr. Marcel talked all the time, explaining to me how ungrateful the children of the poor are. I was seated directly opposite him at table and had an opportunity of studying him at close range. For the first time I remarked his gluttonous lips and round, protruding belly. He followed every plate with his eyes and ceremoniously pushed his sleeves back before he carved, as though officiating at a holy rite. The more he ate the more he wanted, and seeing such a luncheon and the fruit at the table I quite believed that "The fruit bill alone was three hundred dollars a month."

I turned to the girl and asked:

"How do you like living here?"

"It's nice."

"She is practically born here," the mother explained.

"Then you went to school here," I asked.

"Oh, no—no—" all three, father, mother and daughter protested in chorus. "We would not place our child with them," the mother said indignantly, while the father, who was so shocked that he stopped eating his pudding, said:

"One is willing to sacrifice his own life, but one has no right to do so with one's child."

After luncheon Mr. Marcel delivered himself of the following lecture.

"That's the big mistake of the people outside. They don't seem to realise that in an orphan home you have the scum of the population. The very fact that their parents died young and poor is a proof of the bad root they grow from. Most of the time the father or mother or both have been drunkards, sick and idle. Idleness is a disease and an hereditary one. Why are they poor? because they are degenerates. A healthy man is never poor. Why are they sick? Because they are careless and dirty. Why do they die young if it is not because they are degenerates and careless and dirty? We get their children. They all have bad habits, bad characters, are insolent and indolent, and they all long for the street, the free street. This desire for the free street is terrible. We have here a splendid garden—have a look through the window, sir—a splendid garden is it not? It's my greatest pleasure! They want the gutter. We have a tremendous work to do, and I am happy to be partially successful. We break them of their evil habits, curb their insolence and teach them order and submission, order and submission, order and submission," he repeated.

The heavy meal soon told on the gentleman and his speech lost its clarity and his tongue stuck in his mouth. He was soon dozing in his chair and I was saved from the awkward position by Mrs. Marcel who gave me the freedom of the place, while explaining that Mr. Marcel was working very hard and was always tired at that hour.

I went down to the garden. There wasn't a child there. One of the teachers sat on a bench reading a paper.

"Excuse me, madame, but why don't the children use the garden?"

"They are not allowed, sir."

I soon saw them pass out from the refectory to the classroom, like little mourners coming from the cemetery where their parents were buried. There are one hundred children, all girls, between the ages of seven and fourteen. In five hours' time I did not hear one laugh, did not see one smile. All have but one hope. To reach the age of fourteen and then be placed. It matters not where nor to what work! The main thing is to get out of the "box" as the children call it. But only six out of ten reach the age of fourteen. The hospital is the anteroom of the grave.

When I spoke of the great proportion of sick among the children and of the pallor of all, the superintendent explained:

"You must not forget that these are not normal children. They are the offspring of degenerates—of the poor."

In all the world, in all the charitable institutions, poverty is a crime. Thus are the children, the orphans, treated like little would-be criminals and every move is regarded with suspicion. Not half of the money given for their food is spent on food and not a half that is given for their clothing is spent for them. The whole institution is a shame and the man who thought he was performing a good deed when he left a bequest to shelter the children of the poor is cursed instead of being blessed.

And the devil sits on the stove and says: "This is the best place that man ever built for me."

This was a model Orphan Home. I have since visited other places and found everywhere the same situation, with little variations. The conditions in a Paris house are no better than those in Chicago, and the children are not more unhappy in Montreal than in Berlin. The children of the poor, the orphans, are everywhere little criminals that Mr. Levy, Monsieur Albert, Mr. Marcel or Herr Grun has to "tame and teach submission." The wish of all the children is to get rid in some way of the "box." (This word is used by all the orphans all over the world to designate their home. It is characteristic and shows how suffering is international and conveys to all the same designation of a certain evil.) The girls by getting married or becoming servants. Oh! They don't intend to stay married to the man the institution procures for them. Generally it is an old widower who applies for one, to "make happy a poor orphan." She will not stay with him and her vow is worth nothing—is a subterfuge to escape. And if she goes as a servant it is also only to get out into the world where she will soon fall a victim to the first snare, on account of her inexperience and broken spirit, and her fear of returning to the "box."

Never has the orphan house been described as well as Marguerite Audoux has done it in her "Marie Claire." There, too, you see what the children miss—bread and love—and that what they most want is freedom. The day one of the girls goes away all the others are sad—sad to live between those four walls. The friendship of the cook is one's greatest asset. One can get an extra piece of meat or an apple or a slice of bread. All the while tens of thousands of dollars are given, gardens are made where the children must not enter and food is prepared which the children do not eat. Holidays are celebrated and the children are tortured to learn some platitude which they must recite to please the ladies and gentlemen who come to honour the house with their presence. But down in their souls the children hate the whole game. They are not fooled—they know. And one girl confided to me the following:

"There are busts in clay and marble and paintings of all that have started and contributed to this institution. In the centre hall is a white stone plate with the names engraved in gold. Well, every morning I walk up to each and every one and tell him my opinion of his deed. I can hardly keep my fist back from the bust of the one who founded this 'box.' And to the plate, that plate with names engraved in gold—morning and night I say, 'Damn you all.' It's my prayer."

This voices the feeling of all the children.

My visit to the Orphan Asylum was due to the following fact.

Mrs. D., a widow, had two children, two girls, one seven and one ten. When her husband died she placed both children in the Orphan Home. After a few months the younger one died there and Mrs. D. took the other one home. All the charitable institutions did their utmost to get the child back to the institution, but in vain. The mother maintained that the death of her child was due to the negligence of the people in charge there. She said this openly, although she needed assistance. The child, too, would not return, and whenever the name of the institution was mentioned would cling to the mother's apron. The office was afraid that the reputation of the institution would be damaged and so they used every effort to combat the mother's decision. The whole officialdom was very nice and gentle to the widow. Help was freely given, and they even spoke of buying her a candy store, on condition that she free herself of the child. When this course did not produce the desired effect the Manager explained to her that the child would stand in the way of her remarriage, that she was young and had a right to live, etc., etc. When he wanted, the silken gentleman knew how to use unctuous language. But the mother instinct was stronger than the desire for money, for happiness—stronger than hunger.

Finally supplies were cut off. It was expected that hunger, "King Hunger," would settle everything. And "King Hunger" did settle it. Two months later two lines in a newspaper spoke about his success. She was found dead with her child lying near her. The gas-jet was open and the coroner is investigating whether it was an accident or suicide.

I give only the outlines of this miserable affair. It did not go as smoothly as it appears on paper. The visits of the mother, the change of tactics, the cries of the child whenever some one approached her. The horror of it all! And the talk of the people at the office. From the Manager to the janitor—cold-blooded murderers. And the threats and taunts and insults. And to-day, when I look back at it all, I think of my visit to this and all the other orphan houses, and I am of the opinion that this mother did not do a bad thing. She had more courage than many others. If they all knew, as this mother did, and if they all were as sincere and truthful to their children, Death would always be preferable to the wreck of what remains. Then, and only then, would the eyes of the world be opened. Then would everything be clear—clear—that no man could with one hand ruin health and spirit, through factory and workshop and adulterated food, dark and dirty tenement houses and Wall Street speculation, and with another hand give donations of a few dollars to palliate the evil he had created.

Or is this perhaps a new interpretation of Christ's words: "Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth"?