There are forty-five beds in the house. Of these a fair proportion are filled by temporary visitors. Many cases of attempted suicide are brought to Mare Street, when young mothers, maddened by poverty and suffering have tried to take their own lives and their children’s. These women are nursed back to health for weeks or months, as the case may be, and from the Shelter return once more to the big world. Unmarried mothers, as I have said, come in considerable numbers. They wait at the Shelter until Headquarters make arrangements for them at a maternity home. There are a few cases of inebriates, who do not wish to go into an Institution. These remain at the Shelter until they regain normal health and self-control.

Perhaps I can best express the spirit which animates this place by describing a talk I had with the matron. She is a woman of very wide experience, and I asked her what in her opinion were the chief causes of the misery and starvation of the outcast. I have heard so much of the evils of drink, so many statistics have been forced upon me proving that the outcasts have but themselves to blame for their condition, that I waited very eagerly for the answer.