Page:Distinguished Churchmen.djvu/266

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226
DISTINGUISHED CHURCHMEN

still thousands of waifs and strays needing to be taken from the gutter, so to say, and placed upon a higher plane in social and religious life, and the fact cannot well be lost sight of that in the promotion of this estimable cause much is being added to the future strength of the nation.




Mr Rudolf accorded the interview at the headquarters at Savoy Street, on the Victoria Embankment.

“Yes,” he said, “the Society was launched about twenty-one years ago, and I remember that the first year's income amounted to £700. A small home was opened at Dulwich for the reception of a few little girls. It was decided at the outset to have a family life for them in preference to the institutional, and therefore boarding-out with properly recommended foster parents was one of the methods for providing homes for these little ones. For the older children, small homes containing about twenty or thirty inmates were established, and, year by year, the work has grown, until now there are over 3000 children under the Society's care. In 1885 fourteen homes were scattered all over the country, and there were one or two industrial homes. By this time there are homes in every Diocese of the country, and two of those recently opened are in Northumberland and Cornwall.