Taken Out of the Gutter
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The boy in this drawing was Samuel Reed. According to the publication "Imagined Orphans" Samuel, during an 1877 arbitration, testified that when he first arrived at Barnardo's in 1871, he was taken to the studio where Dr. Barnardo "took out his pen-knife and tore my clothes to pieces" before positioning him for the photographs. The photographer Thomas Barnes supported Samuel's testimony. Describing the photograph Barnes had claimed "His dress had been tampered with". Forty to fifty thousand copies of this photograph and a second one with Samuel tucked into a cot, covered with a blanket and smiling were printed out for sale and the above sketched copy was drawn for use on Barnardo's publications.