Hence It Is But A Step To An Institution In Full Life And Vigour, - A Noble Orphan-School For One Thousand Boys And Girls, Founded By Don Pedro, Who Gave Up To Its Use The Superb Convent Of Belem, With Its Splendid Cloisters, Vast Airy Dormitories, And Magnificent Church.

Some Oxford gentlemen would have wept to see the desecrated edifice, - to think that the shaven polls and white gowns were banished from it to give place to a thousand children, who have not even the clergy to instruct them.

"Every lad here may choose his trade," our little informant said, who addressed us in better French than any of our party spoke, whose manners were perfectly gentlemanlike and respectful, and whose clothes, though of a common cotton stuff, were cut and worn with a military neatness and precision. All the children whom we remarked were dressed with similar neatness, and it was a pleasure to go through their various rooms for study, where some were busy at mathematics, some at drawing, some attending a lecture on tailoring, while others were sitting at the feet of a professor of the science of shoemaking. All the garments of the establishment were made by the pupils; even the deaf and dumb were drawing and reading, and the blind were, for the most part, set to perform on musical instruments, and got up a concert for the visitors. It was then we wished ourselves of the numbers of the deaf and dumb, for the poor fellows made noises so horrible, that even as blind beggars they could hardly get a livelihood in the musical way.

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