For shorter hours and better treatment of factory hands the earl
struggled in and out of Parliament; and, though the battle was long
and fierce, it ended in victory.
Such labour took up much time, and brought many expenses to the good
earl. It brought him, too, plenty of enemies; for most of his life was
devoted to striving to make the rich and selfish do justice to the
poor and downcast.
He not only gave his time, but his money too; and oftentimes, though
the eldest son of an earl, and later an earl himself, he hardly knew
where to turn for the means to keep his schemes going.
One day a lady called on him, and, telling a piteous tale of a Polish
refugee, asked him for help. Lord Shaftesbury had to confess he had no
money he could give; then he suddenly remembered he had five pounds in
the library: he fetched the bank note, which formed his nest egg, and
presented it to her.
One of Lord Shaftesbury's greatest works was the promotion of ragged
schools.
To these schools, established in the poorest neighbourhoods of the
metropolis, came the street arabs, the poor and abandoned, and
received kindness and teaching, which comforted and civilised them.
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