Page:Robert Barr - Lord Stranleigh Philanthropist.djvu/55

 the American I have spoken about, my effort has merely meant the discomfiture of people unknown to me that I would not willingly have injured. This is doubtless because I am rather a muddle-headed person, and a muddle-headed person with good intentions and plenty of money seems to be a distinct danger to the community. I try to inform myself of what wiser people have done, but my search has not proved encouraging.

"Through the genius of the late Sir Walter Besant a great people's palace was erected in the East End, which, I am told, has failed in its object on account of the abstention of those it was intended to benefit. That gracious lady whose memory is revered by us all, the late Baroness Burdett-Coutts, carried out what seemed a most practical project by building a huge market in the East End, where poor people might obtain good food at reasonable prices, but she merely disturbed, temporarily, the costermonger trade, and I think the great building, if not abandoned, is used for other purposes than the one for which it was erected. The poor, apparently, would have none of it. "The other day, as I drove from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, I noticed along the road great iron pipes being ruined by rust, and learned from my