Page:Daughters of Genius.djvu/162

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154
BARONESS BURDETT-COUTTS.

ments let at low weekly rents; it is occupied to-day by more than three hundred families. Within a short distance stands Columbia Market, one of the most magnificent buildings in northeastern London, and connected with the Great Eastern Railway by a horse-car railroad under especial parliamentary regulations. This spacious and costly edifice was presented by Miss Coutts as a free gift to the Corporation of London, in order that cheap and wholesome food, particularly fish, might be conveniently supplied to a neighborhood more than all others in need of it.

In Victoria Park near by, stands a superb drinking fountain; another for both men and animals adorns the entrance to the Zoölogical Gardens in Regent's Park, and a third stands close to Columbia Market itself. All these are the gifts of the same generous lady.

Among the miscellaneous charities of Miss Coutts may be mentioned an arrangement with Sir Samuel Cunard by which, in a time of great distress, many families were enabled to emigrate. Again, when the people of Girvan in Scotland were reduced to extremities, she advanced a large amount of money to enable those who wished to do so to seek better fortune in Australia. In Ireland, too, when the people of Cape Clear near Skibbereen were perishing of starvation, she sent them food, clothes, and money, assisted many to emigrate, and provided a vessel and suitable fishing tackle to enable others to carry on more efficiently their old means of earning a livelihood. She also greatly aided Sir James Brooke in improving and civilizing the Dyaks of Sarawak, and a model farm is still carried on in that region at her expense, from which the natives acquire some knowledge of agriculture. Already, it is said, the productiveness of their country has been much improved.

One of her most popular schemes was the establishment