Today -100: September 23, 1910: Of relics of a barbarous age and the death of Little Dorrit

Henry Neil, Secretary of the National Probation League, says that “if the right hand of fellowship were extended to burglars instead of the kick and threat, the world would be better, the penitentiaries would be emptied in a short time, and there would be no need of lock and key, bolt and bar.” So he’s had all the locks removed from his house, calling them “relics of a barbarous age.” The Times does not give his address (in Illinois, where he later became a judge).

Little Dorrit has died, or at any rate a Mrs. G. M. Hayman, whose family claims that Dickens based the character on her. They also say her brother, a cheerful cripple, was Tiny Tim.