7 NOVEMBER 1885, Page 20

Dust Ho ! and Other Pictures from Troubled Lives. (8.P.C.K.)—

The first of these pictures puts before us the lives of the women who work in the dust-yards. There are worse occupations than this ; still it is one which will well bear a little cheering and brightening, and it is pleasant to hear how thia is being done. From these we pass on to the " poor prisoners." This is a pitiful picture, indeed. And what a strange mixture is there in some of these poor creatures ! in the woman, for instance, convicted 300 times, who yet labours in her cell with a pin bent into shape to crochet an antimacassar, on which she embroiders with her own hair the verse of a hymn, as a present to the 'chaplain. Prisoners, but this time discharged prisoners, are the sub- ject of the next sketch. "An Eighteen-months' Character," which describes to us the Dalston Industrial Home, an institution for girls and young women who have either served their term of imprisonment, or are sent on a magistrate's warrant for some offence committed. "Navviee," " The Blind," " Crippled Boys," and " Crippled Girls " are among the other subjects dealt with. Altogether we have accounts, which no one, we venture to say, will be able to read with- out emotion, of thirteen various good works which are being carried OD in London and the suburbs. Any one who has some little time or money to spare for brightening or lightening the lives of fellow- creatures, and does not exactly know how to expend it, cannot do better than follow the guidance of this little volume, with its narra- tives so simply told and yet so deeply pathetic.