Printed handbill circular of the 'Hackney Juvenile Mission and Ragged Schools', with list of officers, and a long poem titled 'Prayer and Potatoes', illustrated with two engravings.

2pp., 8vo. Printed on the two sides of a leaf of green paper. In fair condition, aged, and with slight fraying and discoloration to extremities. At the head of one side of the leaf is a list of the Society's officers, in three columns of small type, beneath which is an eleven-line statement of the Mission's aims, beginning 'Our Mission work for fourteen years has been - Visiting the Sick - Feeding the Hungry - Clothing the Ragged - Comforting the Widow and Fatherless'. The lower half of the page carries a transcription of an appeal by Knight, dated from 'Knightsville, Bryn Towy, Lewisham High Road, London, S.E. | December 1885', for funds to provide 'a Free Christmas Dinner of Roast Beef and Plum Pudding to over Six Hundred of the poorer children who belong to this Mission and locality, besides other Seasonable Entertainments', to be collected by him and by Rev. W. Tyler, DD, 247 Hackney Road. On the reverse is a 74-line poem titled 'Prayer and Potatoes', the first of its eleven stanzas reading 'An old lady sat in her old arm-chair, | With wrinkled visage and dishevelled hair, | And hunger-worn features; | For days and for weeks her only fare, | As she sat in her old arm-chair, | Had been potatoes.' The last stanza reads: 'And would you who hear this simple tale | Pray for the poor, and praying prevail? | Then preface your prayer with alms and good deeds; | Search out the poor, their wants and needs; | Pray for their peace and grace, spiritual food, | For wisdom and guidance - all these are good; | But don't forget the potatoes!' To the left of the poem are two engraved illustrations, each around 9 x 7.5 cm, both showing the old lady in her arm-chair, with the second also featuring a deacon in a mortarboard hat, with a spilled sack of potatoes at the old lady's feet. The word 'Potatoes' in the title and first stanza have been underlined, as has the last line of the poem, with the following note in a contemporary hand at the head of the page: 'N.B. Surely it is written in the Chronicles of Clapton & Upper Swell.' At the foot of the page: 'P.S. - Old Clothing, Boots (Men's, Women's and Children's), Tracts, Books for the Library and Reading Room, Christmas and other Cards, Pictures or Toys, are needed at once for this year's Christmas and New Year's Dinners, &c., for 600 poor children, to be held (D.V.) at Lyme Grove Hall, Mare Street, Hackney, for the poorest Children attending the Mission Schools, to which all Friends are welcome; and we hope to be able to provide, as usual, one or two hundred parcels of provisions to poor needy Widows living in the district. | N.B. - It has been suggested that a Member of the Family to which this Special Appeal is addressed will kindly make a Collection on behalf of this Mission.' Excessively scarce: no copies traced, either on OCLC WorldCat or on COPAC.