I saw the boys at their dinner, and although many of them had a bad
record, certainly they looked very respectable, and likely to make
good and useful men. The experience of the Army is that most of them
are quite capable of reformation, and that, when once their hearts
have been changed, they seldom fall back into the ways of dishonesty.

This Home, like all those managed by the Salvation Army, is spotlessly
clean, and the dormitories are very pleasant rooms. Also, there is a
garden, and in it I saw a number of pots of flowers, which had just
been sent as a present by a boy whom the Army helped three years ago,
and who is now, I understand, a gardener.

Sturge House struck me as a most useful Institution; and as there is
about it none of the depressing air of the adult Shelters, my visit
here was a pleasant change. The reclamation or the helping of a lad is
a very different business from that of restoring the adult or the old
man to a station in life which he seems to have lost for ever.




THE CENTRAL LABOUR BUREAU



This Bureau is established in the Social Headquarters at Whitechapel,
a large building acquired as long ago as 1878. Here is to be seen the
room in which General Booth used to hold some of his first prayer
meetings, and a little chamber where he took counsel with those
Officers who were the fathers of the Army. Also there is a place where