The angel and the orphan

An illustration of an angel carrying a child to the door of a refuge, from the book 'London: a Pilgrimage' by Blanchard Jerrold and Gustave Doré, 1872. In Chapter XXI Jerrold writes of London Charity: 'Charity knocks at nearly every household door in this, England's capital, and is not turned away empty-handed from many ... The metropolitan charities attest, by their income and various forms, the zeal with which the Rich come to the side of the wounded in the fight... Subscription lists display the open-handedness of all who have money, when a pressing occasion or a noble action calls forth the latent charity of the most commercial of races. And so the destinies of the multitude are connected with the aspirations of the Christian; some of the spare riches that flow from work and trade, are drawn back to the young who have been left alone before they could join the ranks of labour, and to the denuded invalids in whom there is no more work'.