Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 21 CHAPTER III. LONDON ARABS IN CANADA. In the previous chapter an account was given of the Arabs inhabiting that wonderful " square mile" in East London, which has since grown to be so familiar in men's mouths. The kbours of Miss Macpherson towards reclaiming these waifs and strays in her " Refuge and Home of Industry, Commercial Street, Spitalfields," were described at some length, and allusion was at the same time made to the views which that lady entertained with regard to the exportation of those Arabs to Canada after they should have undergone a previous probationary training in the "Home." A short time afterwards it was my pleasing duty to witness the departure of one hundred of these young boys from the St. Pancras Station, en route for Canada; and it now strikes me that some account of the voyage out, in the shape of excerpts from the letters of the devoted ladies who themselves accompanied our Arabs across the Atlantic, may prove interesting ; while, at the same time, a calculation of their probable success in their new life and homes may not improbably stimulate those who cannot give their time, to give atleast their countenance, and it may be, their material aid, to a scheme which recommends itself to all our sympathies—the permanent reclamation of the little homeless wanderers of our London streets. The strange old rambling " Home" in Commercial Street, built originally for warehouses, then used as a cholera hospital, and now the Arab Eefuge, presented a strange appearance during the week before the departure of the chosen hundred. On the ground- floor were the packages of the young passengers ; on the first floor the " new clothes, shirts, and stockings, sent by kind lady friends from all parts of the kingdom, trousers and waistcoats made by the widows, a...