While in the Union all inmates wear the special dress provided them. In the case of the men, this is a stout brown corduroy suit. The women have gowns of dark blue, with neat shawls and bonnets for street wear and Sundays. The clothes worn by persons when they enter the Union are preserved, and if at any time they wish to leave they must take off the Union suit and wear out their own. Many of the inmates have good suits or dresses, which they have been able to procure in one way or another, and which they keep carefully to wear when they go out to visit.

The hours for meals, in the summer, were: breakfast at half-past six, dinner at twelve, and supper at half-past five. All who are able to walk eat in one large dining hall. I do not remember the bills of fare, which change from day to day, or the allowance per person, both established by law; but the impression I received was that the food was good and the supply ample. The staples were oatmeal porridge, bread and butter, cheese, meat and potatoes, with tea for drink. The good judgment of the master and the ingenuity and kind heart of the matron result in adding much to the palatableness of the fare. I used to wonder why so much ground was devoted to growing rhubarb, a plot in front of the “tramp house” as large as four ordinary gardens being covered with the big leaves of that plant, until one day I happened to be in the kitchen just as the matron was overseeing the making of rhubarb pudding for that day’s dinner. A huge earthen crock as big as a bushel basket, containing several gallons of stewed rhubarb, stood in the middle of the floor, and into this she was dishing big ladles of sugar to make it eatable. The pastry to be served with it was steaming, at the time, in two immense coppers as large as old-fashioned wash kettles.

A special diet, nourishing, is prescribed for the weak, the aged and the ill; and here again the hand of the matron is seen, bearing bowls of broth and delicacies of her own making to tempt dull appetites. In addition to this, there are frequent treats of tea, sugar and cakes, for the old women, when all share alike. These come from the more charitable of the surrounding country gentry, from interested visitors, often from the matron herself, who takes a special interest in “my old ladies.” The old men, it is almost needless to say, prefer tobacco to tea, and practical British philanthropy frequently gratifies them. Lady L______, the wife of a nobleman who lives near, is perhaps the most thoughtful patroness of the establishment. Twice every year she visits the Union to give each woman there a quarter of a pound of tea, with sugar and cakes, and every old man a quarter of a pound of tobacco. Nor is this all, for frequent supplies of game and other good things come over from L______ Hall. Last Christmas the preserves there sent fifty fat rabbits to make the Union boarders a holiday dinner. Every old woman in the establishment has her own teapot and its accessories, her own safe corner where all these personal properties can be kept, and in one way and another each manages so that the caddy is rarely empty. Many have friends outside who send them small sums occasionally,—a sixpence is richness,—the remittances being usually in postage stamps, which are brought to the matron to be changed for money. Some earn small amounts by sewing or knitting articles which are purchased by charitably disposed visitors; and every Saturday afternoon a messenger goes to town to