21 DECEMBER 1895, Page 23

The Artist of Crooked Alley. By Audley Curtis. (National Society.)—Tom

Green is a weakly little boy, nine years old, but looking five, who lives with a crippled mother in Crooked Alley, and conceives the happy idea of making a livelihood out of drawing on pavements. He seems to have attained a wonderful proficiency, for he can do the pictune of the Good Shepherd with his coloured chalks. This is not so wonderful as the moral refor- mation which he works indirectly in those who are concerned with him. It is a pretty story, but the moral miracles—we do not question their possibility, but only demand a limit to their number—give it an air of improbability.