Dunedin Female Refuge.

Report for 1882-3.

The Committee desire, at the close of another financial year, to lay before their subscribers a statement of the work done by the Institution during the course of that term.

There were eight women in the Refuge at the beginning of last year; thirteen have been admitted since June 1st, 1882, nine have left, and there are at present twelve women in the Refuge, of whom five are English, three Scotch, three Irish, and one Colonial. Six can read and write.

One young woman, E. P., has gone into a respectable situation, and one has rejoined her husband, of whom the Committee have excellent accounts, peace and comfort now reigning in her previously unhappy home; two have returned (the Committee fear) to their evil ways.

The Committee freely admit that the work of reclaiming those fallen ones is slow and disheartening, but the duty and privilege of holding an open door to those poor outcasts is still very obvious, and they desire to enter upon another year of labor, looking not so much at past failure, as at the promise which standeth sure, "In due season ye shall reap if ye faint not,"—all the more hopefully because, in looking page 6 over the records of past years, they can point to one and another who can bless the opportune help of the Refuge for restoring them to virtue and respectability.

The Committee beg to acknowledge with many thanks, gifts in kind received from Mrs. Holmes, Messrs. Paterson and McLeod, and Messrs. Clarke and Wright.