Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 2).djvu/285

 girls is much greater than the supply. Whatever the deprivations of the children may be on account of the want of individual motherly love, the real hardships of the lives of the girls begin when they leave the Hospital. They are educated in everything save worldly knowledge. Where an ordinary girl runs errands for her parents, and becomes a little woman by the time she reaches her teens, the foundling girls remain in absolute ignorance of how to purchase any single article, or transact the simplest affairs outside the home. This is one drawback. Another and sadder is when, standing on the threshold of the great world, they realise that they are not as the majority of other girls are. They go to service, and they have not a friend of any kind to see or to talk about. Do what it will, the Hospital cannot supply the place of relatives, and, however much her origin may be screened from her fellow-servants, in all probability the time comes when the latter say: "How strange we never hear you speak of your father, or your mother, or your sister, or your brother." Then the lonely maiden invents little stories and tells fibs, which the most truthful among us may pardon, respecting the father and mother who are dead, or whatever other explanation may occur to her. If the inquisitive world only knew what pain its thoughtless inquiries may cause!

A visit to the Foundling Hospital will afford food for many an hour's reflection. We are often urged to recognise woman's equality with man. The Foundling Hospital is a pathetic reminder of her eternal inequality.