2-969-898 - /Heritage Images

"City Arabs" - from a photograph taken after a course of training at the Belvedere-Crescent Reformatory, 1856. Children rescued from the streets and taught a skill at the Industrial Home for Outcast Boys in Lambeth, south London. 'With right cheerful alacrity would they work, master and pupils, at the making of paper bags for the greater part of the day, whilst an hour or two in the evening would be devoted to secular instruction - the business of each day being regularly commenced and ended with reading of the Scriptures and prayer. On Sundays they attended Divine Service as soon as the kindness of the neighbours enabled them to exchange their rags for less objectionable attire and, by the unaffected seriousness of their behaviour, they won from their fellow-worshippers a sympathy which has survived their removal from that locality'. From "Illustrated London News", 1856.