THE MILWAUKEE MISSION BAND.

ON Saturday, the 12th of November, 1870, as related in the first secretary's first report, twenty young ladies assembled in the parlors of Plymouth Church, at the invitation of Miss FANNY NORCROSS, the pastor's niece, to form themselves without reference to religious creeds or preferences into a branch of the "Women's Union Missionary Society." This association had been formed some eight years previously by a number of noble Christian women who desired to extend to their degraded sisters in India the privileges of religion and education they themselves enjoyed. To this end the coöperation of all earnest women throughout the United States was cordially invited, and the formation of local mission bands advised. These bands were to pledge themselves to support one or more pupils at the numerous female seminaries which have been established in India, and from which, by that slow but unfailing process of infiltration familiar to the students of progress, Christian civilization is finally to crumble into ruins the hideous temple of heathenism, with all its grinning gods. The suggestion was at once eagerly received, officers were elected, weekly meetings appointed, the usual business preliminaries complied with, and thus, in a spirit of enthusiasm and generous emulation, these twenty young girls culled from the ranks of society which the flippant writers of pseudo society novels are pleased to denominate fashionable,

meaning frivolous, empty headed, heartless, and anything else unlovely and unwomanly, prepared to assume some of the weightier duties of life. But, as is usual with embryonic benevolent societies, their means at first were as limited as their aims were large. An initiation fee of one dollar, trifling fines for absence and tardiness, honorary membership at 50 cents per capita, occasional donations from friends, these with a score or so of willing helpful hands, constituted the sole working capital of the Mission Band during the first years of its existence.

Nevertheless, it did not hesitate to assume the maintenance of a little Hindoo girl, who was baptised FAITH NORCROSS in honor of its first president, and whose welfare, during the next two years, was the object of its constant solicitude. It is needless to recount the various devices made use of to procure the fiftyeight dollars per annum pledged to the Hindoo girl's support. They are familiar to all acquainted with the modus operandi of similar organizations. Fancy work was made at the weekly meetings and sold at the usual exorbitant rates, orders for plain sewing were obtained from sympathizing housekeepers, private theatricals were given with more or less pecuniary and artistic success. When the two years allotted to FAITH NORCROSS' educa tion had expired, and she became competent to support herself, her benefactresses found they had earned a place for themselves in the estimation of the community, and a beneficiary power which they were unwilling to relinquish. They determined, however, to devote themselves in future to objects nearer home.

These were by no means difficult to find. We do not need scriptural authority to know that "the poor we have always with us," and from this time may be dated the Mission Band's best usefulness. From every ward of the city, every nationality and every creed, these young girls selected the recipients of their bounty. All were visited at their homes and their wants personally inquired into. Some received food and fuel, others homely articles of furniture. Women struggling for bread were helped to purchase a sewing machine or a laundress' outfit. Arrears of rent and small debts at the butchers and grocers were discharged. Nurses were engaged for helpless invalids, and responsible women to take care of broods of motherless children. Besides the innumerable cast off articles donated by the friends of the society, hundreds of warm new garments and comfortables were made at the weekly meetings and distributed by careful hands. During the winter of 1874-5, unparalleled for its rigor and wide spread suffering, the exertions of the Mission Band redoubled. From the 8th of October to the 28th of April, inclu sive, twenty-eight meetings were held, with an average attendance of thirty members. The membership list increased from sixteen to ninety-four. A theatrical entertainment and a charity ball were given, netting a thousand dollars. Eight hundred and sixty-eight yards of material were made into garments and bed clothing, $225 were expended in food and fuel, 120 familes were preserved from actual want.

During this year, also, the society first assumed a permanent

form by the adoption of a constitution and by-laws suited to its special objects, and thereby entitled itself to a position among the organized charities of Milwaukee. That this position is neither unimportant nor carelessly maintained, the daily appeals that are made to the good offices of the Mission Band, the enthusiastic activity of its members and its wide spread and increasing influence, sufficiently attest. As an evidence of what can be accomplished by earnest, united effort in a field that is open to all, it is certainly a success, and to the young daughters of wealth and fashion throughout this broad land of ours, whose hearts are pitiful, though they beat under velvet or seal-skin, and whose hands lying folded in their silken laps, are ready for the gentle offices of sisterly love, an earnest invitation is extended to follow its example, and earn for themselves the reward which the fifth Beatitude promises, when it says, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy."

LUCY M. SCHLEY,

Secretary.

WISCONSIN STATE HOSPITAL FOR THE INSANE.

THIS most important, perhaps of all Wisconsin's public hospitals, is one of the leading objects of interest in her beautiful capital.

Its success and prosperity has been greatly owing to the efficiency and fidelity of its matron.