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On that Thursday morning, 27 July, 22,624 happy children left London and its drab monotonous streets, and went for a fortnight’s visit into the country, or by the sea. Oh! the joy, the preparation, the excitement, the hopes, the fears, the anxieties lest anything should prevent the start; but at last, by the superhuman efforts of all concerned, the Committee, the ladies, the teachers, and the railway officials, the whole gay, glad, big army of little people were successfully got off. It is from these 22,624 children, and 21,756 more who took their places two weeks later, that my 5,280 letters come; for only those who really choose to write are encouraged to do so.

In almost all cases the journey is fully described, the ride in the ’bus, the fear of being late, the parcel and how “it fell out,” the gentlemen at the station, the porter who gave us a drink of water “cause we were all hot,” the gentleman who gave the porter 6d. because he said: “This 6d. is for you for thinking as how the children would be thirsty”. The number that managed to get in each carriage, the boy who lost his cap “for the wind went so fast when my head was outside looking,” the hedges, the cows, the big boards with —— Pills written on them, how “it seemed as if I was going that way and the hills and cows and trees were going the other way”. It is all told with the fresh force of novelty and youth. The names of the Stations and the mileage is often noted, as well as the noise. “We shouted for joy,” writes a boy of eleven. “We told them it was rude to holler so,” writes a more staid girl. “I got tired of singing and went to sleep,” records a boy of eight; but the journey over there follows the description, often given with some awe, of how,—