All those who were engaged in these efforts felt their inadequacy and we resolved to meet at different private houses to discuss the formation of some more comprehensive effort. At length, in 1853, we organized, and, to the great surprise of the writer, his associates suggested that he should take the position of executive officer of the new and untried Association. He was at that time busied in literary and editorial pursuits, but had expected soon to carry out the purpose of his especial training, and to become a preacher. He never dreamed of making a life-pursuit of it in the beginning, or during a number of years; but "the call" of the neglected and outcast was too strong for him, finally, to listen to any other, and the humble charity at length became a moral and educational movement so profound and earnest as to repay the life-endeavors of any man. He has never regretted having cast aside whatever chance he may have had for the prizes and honors of life, for the sake of the forgotten and the unfortunate, and, above all, for HIS sake to whom we owe all. Indeed, he holds himself most fortunate in his profession, for it may be said there is no occupation to which man can devote himself, where he can have such unmingled happiness, as when he is assuaging human misery and raising the ignorant and depressed to a higher life.
One of the most energetic members of this new body, in the beginning, was a nephew of Dr. Channing—a Unitarian, Mr. Wm. C. Russell—a man of singular earnestness of character, now Professor of History and Vice-President in Cornell University. With him was associated a friend, Mr. B. J. Howland, of peculiar compassion of nature, whose life almost consisted of the happiness it shed on others-he also being a Unitarian. Then, on the other side, theologically, was Judge John L. Mason, one of the pillars of the Presbyterian Church, from an old and honored Presbyterian family. His accurate legality of mind and solidity of character were of immense advantage to the youthful Association, while, under a formal exterior, he had a most merciful heart for all kinds of human misery. He was our presiding officer for many years, and did most faithful and thorough work for the charity. With him, representing the Congregationalists, was a very careful and judicious man, engaged for many years in Sunday-schools and similar movements, Mr. Wm. C. Gilman. The Dutch Reformed were represented by an experienced friend of education, Mr. M. T. Hewitt; and the Presbyterians again by one of such gentleness and humanity, that all sects might have called him Brother—Mr. W. L. King. To these was added one who has been a great impelling force of this humane movement ever since-a man of large, generous nature, and much impulse of temperament, with a high and refined culture, who has done more to gain support for this charity with the business community, where he is so influential, than any other one man—Mr. J. E. Williams, also a Unitarian. Mr. W. had also been engaged in similar charities in Boston.
During the first year, we added to our board from the Methodists, Dr. J. L. Phelps; from the Episcopalians, Mr. Archibald Russell (since deceased), who has accomplished so much as the President of the Board of the Five Points House of Industry; Mr. George Bird, and Mr. A. S. Hewitt, who is now the managing head of that great educational institution, the Cooper Union; from the Presbyterians, the celebrated Mr. Cyrus W. Field; and from the "Come Outers," Mr. C. W. Elliott, the genial author of the "New England History." Of all the first trustees, the only ones in office in 1871 are J. E. Williams, B. J. Howland, M. T. Hewitt, and C. L. Brace.
On a subsequent year we elected a gentleman who especially represented a religious body that has always profoundly sympathized with our enterprise—Mr. Howard Potter, the son of the eminent Episcopal Bishop of Pennsylvania, and nephew of the Bishop of New York. And yet, of all the members of our Board, no one has been more entirely unsectarian than this trustee; and certainly no one has thrown into our charity more heart and a more unbiased judgment. Mr. Potter is still trustee. Through him and Mr. B. J. Livingston, who was chosen a few years after, the whole accounts of the Society were subsequently put in a clear shape, and the duties of the trustees in supervision made distinct and regular.
It is an evidence of the simple desire for doing good which actuated these gentlemen, and of the possibility of a "Christian Union" that, though representing so many different sects, and ardently attached to them, there never was in all the subsequent years the slightest difference among them resulting from their divergent views on speculative topics. Nearly all of them were engaged practically in laboring among the dangerous classes. Mr. Howland and Mr. Russell had struggled most earnestly for a considerable period to reform the morals and elevate the character of the degraded population near "Rotten Row," in Laurens street, and their "Boys' Meeting" had been one of the most spirited efforts in this direction to be seen in the city.
Several of the gentlemen I have mentioned have become distinguished in their various professions, but it maybe doubted if they will look back on any action of their public careers with more satisfaction than their first earnest efforts to lay firmly the foundations of a broad structure of charity, education, and reform.
The organization was happily named
This association, which, from such small beginnings has grown to so important dimensions, was thus formed in 1853, and was subsequently incorporated in 1856, under the general Act of the State of New York in relation to Charitable Associations.
A small office on the corner of Amity Street was opened, with a single lad in attendance, besides the present writer.
The public, so profound was the sense of these threatening evils, immediately came forward with its subscriptions—the first large gift (fifty dollars) being from the wife of the principal property-holder in the city, Mrs. William B. Astor.
Most touching of all was the crowd of wandering little ones who immediately found their way to the office. Ragged young girls who had nowhere to lay their heads; children driven from drunkards' homes; orphans who slept where they could find a box or a stairway; boys cast out by step-mothers or step-fathers; newsboys, whose incessant answer to our question, "Where do you live?" rung in our ears,"Don't live nowhere!"little bootblacks, young peddlers "canawl-boys," who seem to drift into the city every winter, and live a vagabond life; pickpockets and petty thieves trying to get honest work; child beggars and flower-sellers growing up to enter courses of crime—all this motley throng of infantile misery and childish guilt passed through our doors, telling their simple stories of suffering, and loneliness, and temptation, until our hearts became sick; and the present writer, certainly, if he had not been able to stir up the fortunate classes to aid in assuaging these fearful miseries, would have abandoned the post in discouragement and disgust.
The following letter, written at this time by the Secretary, is appended, as showing the feeling of those founding the Society:
"W. L. KING, Esq.:
"MY DEAR SIR—We were very glad to get your first letter to Mr. Russell, giving us your good wishes and your subscription. It was read aloud to our committee, and we have several times expressed ourselves as very much regretting your absence. I should have certainly written you, but I did not know your address. I received yours from Macon yesterday, and hasten to reply.
"Everything goes on well. We have taken Judge Mason and Mr. J. E. Williams (formerly of Boston) into the committee. I enclose a circular, to which, according to the permission which you gave us, we have placed your name. We have opened one room for a workshop in Wooster Street, where we expect to have forty or fifty boys. The work is shoe-making. The boys jump at the chance gladly. Some three 'Newsboys' Meetings' we are just getting under way, though the churches move slowly. Our Meeting in Avenue D is improving every Sunday, and is very full. Next Thursday eve, I have made arrangements for a lecture on the Magic Lantern to the boys of our Meeting. We gave out tickets on Sunday. The Girls' meeting is large, and you know, perhaps, is now widened into an 'Industrial School' ["The Wilson School."] for girls, which meets every day in our Building in Avenue D. They have some fifty girls at work there—the worst vagrant kind. Public attention is arousing everywhere to this matter; and the first two or three days after our Appeal was published, we had some $400 sent in, part in cash, without the trouble of collecting. We shall begin collecting this week. I have been interrupted here by a very intelligent little newsboy, who is here vagrant and helpless—ran away from his step-father. One of the pressmen sent him to me. We shall put him in our workshop.
"I pray with you, dear sir, for God's blessing on our young enterprise.It is a grand one; but without HIM I see how useless it will be. If wesucceed even faintly, I shall feel that we have not lived in vain.Surely Christ will be with us in these feeble efforts for his poorcreatures."Very truly yours,"CHARLES L. BRACE."NEW YORK, March 7, 1853.
"P. S.—I forgot to tell you the name we have chosen—'Children's AidSociety.'
"Office, No. 683 Broadway, 2d floor, New York."
The following is the first circular of
"This society has taken its origin in the deeply settled feelings of our citizens, that something must be done to meet the increasing crime and poverty among the destitute children of New York. Its objects are to help this class by opening Sunday Meetings and Industrial Schools, and, gradually as means shall be furnished, by forming Lodging-houses and Reading-rooms for children, and by employing paid agents whose sole business shall be to care for them.
"As Christian men, we cannot look upon this great multitude of unhappy, deserted, and degraded boys and girls without feeling our responsibility to God for them. We remember that they have the same capacities, the same need of kind and good influences, and the same Immortality as the little ones in our own homes. We bear in mind that One died for them, even as for the children of the rich and happy. Thus far, alms-houses and prisons have done little to affect the evil. But a small part of the vagrant population can be shut up in our asylums, and judges and magistrates are reluctant to convict children so young and ignorant that they hardly seem able to distinguish good and evil. The class increases. Immigration is pouring in its multitude of poor foreigners, who leave these young outcasts everywhere abandoned in our midst. For the most part, the boys grow up utterly by themselves. No one cares for them, and they care for no one. Some live by begging, by petty pilfering, by bold robbery; some earn an honest support by peddling matches, or apples, or newspapers; others gather bones and rags in the street to sell. They sleep on steps, in cellars, in old barns, and in markets, or they hire a bed in filthy and low lodging-houses. They cannot read; they do not go to school or attend a church. Many of them have never seen the Bible. Every cunning faculty is intensely stimulated. They are shrewd and old in vice, when other children are in leading-strings. Few influences which are kind and good ever reach the vagrant boy. And, yet, among themselves they show generous and honest traits. Kindness can always touch them.
"The girls, too often, grow up even more pitiable and deserted. Till of late no one has ever cared for them. They are the crosswalk sweepers, the little apple-peddlers, and candy-sellers of our city; or, by more questionable means, they earn their scanty bread. They traverse the low, vile streets alone, and live without mother or friends, or any share in what we should call a home. They also know little of God or Christ, except by name. They grow up passionate, ungoverned, with no love or kindness ever to soften the heart. We all know their short wild life—and the sad end.
"These boys and girls, it should be remembered, will soon form the great lower class of our city. They will influence elections; they may shape the policy of the city; they will, assuredly, if unreclaimed, poison society all around them. They will help to form the great multitude of robbers, thieves, vagrants, and prostitutes who are now such a burden upon the law-respecting community.
"In one ward alone of the city, the Eleventh, there were, in 1863, out of 12,000 children between the ages of five and sixteen, only 7,000 who attended school, and only 2,500 who went to Sabbath School; leaving 5,000 without the common privileges of education, and about 9,000 destitute of public religious influence.
"In view of these evils we have formed an Association which shall devote itself entirely to this class of vagrant children. We do not propose in any way to conflict with existing asylums and institutions, but to render them a hearty co-operation, and, at the same time, to fill a gap, which, of necessity, they all have left. A large multitude of children live in the city who cannot be placed in asylums, and yet who are uncared-for and ignorant and vagrant. We propose to give to these work, and to bring them under religious influence. As means shall come in, it is designed to district the city, so that hereafter every Ward may have its agent, who shall be a friend to the vagrant child. 'Boys' Sunday Meetings' have already been formed, which we hope to see extended until every quarter has its place of preaching to boys. With these we intend to connect 'Industrial Schools,' where the great temptations to this class arising from want of work may be removed, and where they can learn an honest trade. Arrangements have been made with manufacturers, by which, if we have the requisite funds to begin, five hundred boys in different localities can be supplied with paying work. We hope, too, especially to be the means of draining the city of these children, by communicating with farmers, manufacturers, or families in the country, who may have need of such for employment. When homeless boys are found by our agents, we mean to get them homes in the families of respectable, needy persons the city, and put them in the way of an honest living. We design, in a word, to bring humane and kindly influences to bear on this forsaken class—to preach in various modes the gospel of Christ to the vagrant children of New York.
"Numbers of our citizens have long felt the evils we would remedy, but few have the leisure or the means to devote themselves personally to this work with the thoroughness which it requires. This society, as we propose, shall be a medium through which all can, in their measure, practically help the poor children of the city.
"We call upon all who recognize that these are the little ones of Christ; all who believe that crime is best averted by sowing good influences in childhood; all who are the friends of the helpless, to aid us in our enterprise. We confidently hope this wide and practical movement will have its full share of Christian liberality. And we earnestly ask the contributions of those able to give, to help us in carrying forward the work. * * * * * * * "March, 1858."
In investigating closely the different parts of the city, with reference to future movements for their benefit, I soon came to know certain centres of crime and misery, until every lane and alley, with its filth and wretchedness and vice, became familiar as the lanes of a country homestead to its owner. There was the infamous German "Rag-pickers' Den," in Pitt and Willett Streets—double rows of houses, flaunting with dirty banners, and the yards heaped up with bones and refuse, where cholera raged unchecked in its previous invasion. Here the wild life of the children soon made them outcasts and thieves.
Then came the murderous blocks in Cherry and Water Streets, where so many dark crimes were continually committed, and where the little girls who flitted about with baskets and wrapped in old shawls became familiar with vice before they were out of childhood.
There were the thieves' Lodging-houses' in the lower wards, where the street-boys were trained by older pickpockets and burglars for their nefarious callings; the low immigrant boarding-houses and vile cellars of the First Ward, educating a youthful population for courses of guilt; the notorious rogues' den in Laurens Street—"Rotten Row"—where, it was said, no drove of animals could pass by and keep its numbers intact; and, farther above, the community of young garroters and burglars around Hamersley Street and Cottage Place. And, still more north, the dreadful population of youthful ruffians and degraded men and women in "Poverty Lane," near Sixteenth and Seventeenth streets and Ninth Avenue, which subsequently ripened into the infamous "Nineteenth-street Gang."
On the east side, again, was "Dutch Hill," near Forty-second Street, the squatters' village, whence issued so many of the little peddlers of the city, and the Eleventh Ward and "Corlear's Hook," where the "copper-pickers," and young wood-stealers, and the thieves who beset the ship-yards congregated; while below, in the Sixth Ward, was the Italian quarter, where houses could be seen crowded with children, monkeys, dogs, and all the appurtenances of the corps of organ-grinders, harpers, and the little Italian street-sweepers, who then, ignorant and untrained, wandered through our down-town streets and alleys.
Near each one of these "fever nests," and centres of ignorance, crime, and poverty, it was our hope and aim eventually to place some agency which should be a moral and physical disinfectant—a seed of reform and improvement amid the wilderness of vice and degradation.
It seemed a too enthusiastic hope to be realized; and, at times, the waves of misery and guilt through these dark places appeared too overwhelming and irresistible for any one effort or association of efforts to be able to stem or oppose them.
How the somewhat ardent hope was realized, and the plan carried out, will appear hereafter.
The first special effort that we put forth was the providing of work for these children, by opening
These experiments, of which we made many at different times, were not successful. Our object was to render the shops self-supporting. But the irregularity of the class attending them, the work spoiled, and the necessity of competing with skilled labor and often with machinery, soon put us behind. We had one workshop for pegging boots and shoes in Wooster Street, where we soon got employment for numbers of street-boys; but a machine was suddenly invented for pegging shoes, which drove us out of the field. We tried then paper box and bag-making, carpentering, and other branches; but it may be set down as an axiom, that "Benevolence cannot compete with Selfishness in business." Philanthropy will never cut down the expenses of production, as will individual self-interest.
Moreover, these artificial workshops excite the jealousy of the trades, while they are not so necessary in this country as in Europe, because the demand is so great here for children's labor.
We soon discovered that if we could train the children of the streets to habits of industry and self-control and neatness, and give them the rudiments of moral and mental education, we need not trouble ourselves about anything more. A child in any degree educated and disciplined can easily make an honest living in this country. The only occasional exception is with young girls depending on the needle for support, inasmuch as the competition here is so severe. But for these we often were enabled to provide instruction in skilled labor, which supported them easily; and, if taught cleanliness and habits of order and punctuality, they had no difficulty in securing places as upper servants, or they soon married into a better class.
[Illustration: LODGING-HOUSES FOR HOMELESS BOYS—AS THEY ARE. (TheNewsboys' House.) NO. 2.]
The spectacle which earliest and most painfully arrested my attention in this work, were thehouselessboys in various portions of the city.
There seemed to be a very considerable class of lads in New York who bore to the busy, wealthy world about them something of the same relation which Indians bear to the civilized Western settlers. They had no settled home, and lived on the outskirts of society, their hand against every man's pocket, and every man looking on them as natural enemies; their wits sharpened like those of a savage, and their principles often no better. Christianity reared its temples over them, and Civilization was carrying on its great work, while they—a happy race of little heathens and barbarians—plundered, or frolicked, or led their roving life, far beneath. Sometimes they seemed to me, like what the police call them, "street-rats," who gnawed at the foundations of society, and scampered away when light was brought near them. Their life was, of course, a painfully hard one. To sleep in boxes, or under stairways, or in hay-barges on the coldest winter-nights, for a mere child, was hard enough; but often to have no food, to be kicked and cuffed by the older ruffians, and shoved about by the police, standing barefooted and in rags under doorways as the winter-storm raged, and to know that in all the great city there was not a single door open with welcome to the little rover—this was harder.
Yet, with all this, a more light-hearted youngster than the street-boy is not to be found. He is always ready to make fun of his own sufferings, and to "chaff" others. His face is old from exposure and his sharp "struggle for existence;" his clothes flutter in the breeze; and his bare feet peep out from the broken boots. Yet he is merry as a clown, and always ready for the smallest joke, and quick to take "a point" or to return a repartee. His views of life are mainly derived from the more mature opinions of "flash-men," engine-runners, cock-fighters, pugilists, and pickpockets, whom he occasionally is permitted to look upon with admiration at some select pot-house; while his more ideal pictures of the world about him, and, his literary education, come from the low theatres, to which he is passionately attached. His morals are, of course, not of a high order, living, as he does, in a fighting, swearing, stealing, and gambling set. Yet he has his code; he will not get drunk; he pays his debts to other boys, and thinks it dishonorable to sell papers on their beat, and, if they come on his, he administers summary justice by "punching;" he is generous to a fault, and will always divide his last sixpence with a poorer boy. "Life is a strife" with him, and money its reward; and, as bankruptcy means to the street-boy a night on the door-steps without supper, he is sharp and reckless, if he can only earn or get enough to keep him above water. His temptations are, to cheat, steal, and lie. His religion is vague. One boy, who told me he "didn't live nowhere," who had never heard of Christ, said he had heard of God, and the boys thought it "kind o' lucky" to say over something to Him which one of them had learned, when they were sleeping out in boxes.
With all their other vices, it is remarkable how few of these smaller street-boys ever take liquor. And their kindness to one another, when all are in the utmost destitution, is a credit to human nature. [Only recently, a poor hump-backed lad in the Newsboys' Lodging-house gave his dollar, and collected nine more from the boys, for the family of the children who were lost in New Jersey.]
Their money is unfortunately apt to slip away, especially for gambling and petty lotteries, called "policy-tickets." A tradition in the remote past of some boy who drew a hundred dollars in these lotteries still pervades the whole body, and they annually sink a considerable portion of their hard-earned pennies in "policy-tickets."
The choice of these lads of a night's resting-place is sometimes almost as remarkable as was Gavroche's in "Les Miserables." Two little newsboys slept one winter in the iron tube of the bridge at Harlem; two others made their bed in a burned-out safe in Wall Street. Sometimes they ensconced themselves in the cabin of a ferry-boat, and thus spent the night. Old boilers, barges, steps, and, above all, steam-gratings, were their favorite beds.
In those days the writer would frequently see ten or a dozen of them, piled together to keep one another warm, under the stairs of the printing-offices.
In planning the alleviation of these evils, it was necessary to keep in view one object, not to weaken the best quality of this class—their sturdy independence—and, at the same time, their prejudices and habits were not too suddenly to be assailed. They had a peculiar dread of Sunday Schools and religious exhortations—I think partly because of the general creed of their older associates, but more for fear that these exercises were a "pious dodge" for trapping them into the House of Refuge or some place of detention.
The first thing to be aimed at in the plan was, to treat the lads as independent little dealers, and give them nothing without payment, but at the same time to offer them much more for their money than they could get anywhere else. Moral, educational, and religious influences were to come in afterward. Securing them through their interests, we had a permanent hold of them.
Efforts were made by the writer among our influential citizens and in various churches, public meetings were held, articles written, the press interested, and at length sufficient money was pledged to make the experiment. The board of the new Society gave its approval, and a loft was secured in the old "Sun Buildings," and fitted up as a lodging-room, and in March, 1854, the first Lodging-house for street-boys or newsboys in this country was opened.
An excellent superintendent was found in the person of a carpenter, Mr. C. C. Tracy, who showed remarkable ingenuity and tact in the management of these wild lads. These little subjects regarded the first arrangements with some suspicion and much contempt. To find a good bed offered them for six cents, with a bath thrown in, and a supper for four cents, was a hard fact, which they could rest upon and understand; but the motive was evidently "gaseous." There was "no money in it"—that was clear. The Superintendent was probably "a street preacher," and this was a trap to get them to Sunday Schools, and so prepare them for the House of Refuge. Still, they might have a lark there, and it could be no worse than "bumming,"i.e.,sleeping out. They laid their plans for a general scrimmage in the school-room—first cutting off the gas, and then a row in the bedroom.
The Superintendent, however, in a bland and benevolent way, nipped their plans in the bud. The gas-pipes were guarded; the rough ring-leaders were politely dismissed to the lower door, where an officer looked after their welfare; and, when the first boots began to fly from a little fellow's bed, he found himself suddenly snaked out by a gentle but muscular hand, and left in the cold to shiver over his folly. The others began to feel that a mysterious authority was getting even with them, and thought it better to nestle in their warm beds.
Little sleeping, however, was there among them that night; but ejaculations sounded out—such as, "I say, Jim, this is rayther better 'an bummin'—eh?" "My eyes! what soft beds these is!" "Tom! it's 'most as good as a steam-gratin', and there ain't no M. P.'s to poke neither!" "I'm glad I ain't a bummer to-night!"
A good wash and a breakfast sent the lodgers forth in the morning, happier and cleaner, if not better, than when they went in. This night's success established its popularity with the newsboys. The "Fulton Lodge" soon became a boys' hotel, and one loft was known among them as the "Astor House."
Quietly and judiciously did Mr. Tracy advance his lines among them.
"Boys," said he, one morning, "there was a gentleman here this morning, who wanted a boy in an office, at three dollars a week."
"My eyes! Letmego, sir!" And—"Me,sir!"
"But he wanted a boy who could write a good hand."
Their countenances fell.
"Well, now, suppose we have a night-school, and learn to write—what do you say, boys?".
"Agreed, sir."
And so arose our evening-school.
The Sunday Meeting, which is now an "institution," was entered upon in a similarly discreet manner. The lads had been impressed by a public funeral, and Mr. Tracy suggested their listening to a little reading from the Bible. They consented, and were a good deal surprised at what they heard. The "Golden Rule" struck them as an altogether impossible kind of precept to obey, especially when one was "stuck and short," and "had to live." The marvels of the Bible—the stories of miracles and the like—always seemed to them natural and proper. That a Being of such a character as Christ should control Nature and disease, was appropriate to their minds. And it was a kind of comfort to these young vagabonds that the Son of God was so often homeless, and that he belonged humanly to the working classes. The petition for "daily bread" (which a celebrated divine has declared "unsuited to modern conditions of civilization") they always rolled out with a peculiar unction. I think that the conception of a Superior Being, who knew just the sort of privations and temptations that followed them, and who felt especially for the poorer classes, who was always near them, and pleased at true manhood in them, did keep afterward a considerable number of them from lying and stealing and cheating and vile pleasures.
Their singing was generally prepared for by taking off their coats and rolling up their sleeves, and was entered into with a gusto.
The voices seemed sometimes to come from a different part of their natures from what we saw with the bodily eyes. There was, now and then, a gentle and minor key, as if a glimpse of something purer and higher passed through these rough lads. A favorite song was, "There's a Rest for the Weary," though more untiring youngsters than these never frisked over the earth; and "There's a light in the Window for Thee, Brother," always pleased them, as if they imagined themselves wandering alone through a great city at night, and at length a friendly light shone in the window for them.
Their especial vice of money-wasting the Superintendent broke up by opening a Savings-bank, and allowing the boys to vote how long it should be closed. The small daily deposits accumulated to such a degree that the opening gave them a great surprise at the amounts which they possessed, and they began to feel thus the "sense of property," and the desire of accumulation, which economists tell us, is the base of all civilization. A liberal interest was also soon allowed on deposits, which stimulated the good habit. At present, from two hundred to three hundred dollars will often be saved by the lads in a month.
The same device, and constant instruction, broke up gambling, though I think policy-tickets were never fairly undermined among them.
The present Superintendent and Matron of the Newsboys' Lodging-house, Mr. and Mrs. O'Connor (at Nos. 49 and 51 Park Place), are unsurpassed in such institutions in their discipline, order, good management, and excellent housekeeping. The floors, over which two hundred or two hundred and fifty street-boys tread daily, are as clean as a man-of-war's deck. The Sunday-evening meetings are as attentive and orderly as a church, the week-evening school quiet and studious. All that mass of wild young humanity is kept in perfect order, and brought under a thousand good influences.
The Superintendent has had a very good preliminary experience for this work in the military service—having been in the British army in the Crimea. The discipline which he maintains is excellent. He is a man, too, of remarkable generosity of feeling, and a good "provider." One always knows that his boys will have enough to eat, and that everything will be managed liberally—and justly. It is truly remarkable during how many years he controlled that great multitude of little vagabonds and "roughs," and yet with scarcely ever even a complaint from any source against him. For such success is needed the utmost kindness, and, at the same time, the strictest justice. His wife has been almost like a mother to the boys.
In the course of a year the population of a town passes through the Lodging-house—in 1869 and '70,eight thousand eight hundred and thirty-fivedifferent boys. Many are put in good homes; some find places for themselves; others drift away—no one knows whither. They are an army of orphans—regiments of children who have not a home or friend—a multitude of little street-rovers who have no place where to lay their heads. They are being educated in the streets rapidly to be thieves and burglars and criminals. The Lodging-house is at once school, church, intelligence-office, and hotel for them. Here they are shaped to be honest and industrious citizens; here taught economy, good order, cleanliness, and morality; here Religion brings its powerful influences to bear upon them; and they are sent forth to begin courses of honest livelihood.
The Lodging-houses repay their expenses to the public ten times over each year, in preventing the growth of thieves and criminals. They are agencies of pure humanity and almost unmingled good. Their only possible reproach could be, that some of their wild subjects are soon beyond their reach, and have been too deeply tainted with the vices of street-life to be touched even by kindness, education, or religion. The number who are saved, however, are most encouragingly large.
The Newsboys' Lodging-house is by no means, however, an entire burden on the charity of the community. During 1870 the lads themselves paid $3,349 toward its expense.
The following is a brief description of the rooms during the past five years:
The first floor is divided into various compartments—a large dining-room, where one hundred and fifty boys can sit down to a table; a kitchen, laundry, storeroom, servants' room, and rooms for the family of the superintendent The next story is partitioned into a school-room, gymnasium, and bath and wash rooms, plentifully supplied with hot and cold water. The hot water and the heat of the rooms are supplied by a steam-boiler on the lower story. The two upper stories are filled with neat iron bedsteads, having two beds each, arranged like ships' bunks over each other; of these there are two hundred and sixty. Here are also the water-vats, into which the many barrelsful used daily are pumped by the engine. The rooms are high and dry, and the floors clean.
It is a commentary on the housekeeping and accommodations that for eighteen years no case of contagious disease has ever occurred among these thousands of boys.
The New York Newsboys' Lodging-house has been in existence eighteen years. During these years it has lodged 91,326 different boys, restored 7,278 boys to friends, provided 5,126 with homes, furnished 576,485 lodgings and 469,461 meals. The expense of all this has been $132,888. Of this amount the boys have contributed $32,306.
That the Lodging-house has had a vigorous growth, is shown by the following table:
======================================================== | | | | | | | | | Return- | YEAR | No. of | No. of | No. of | ed to | | Boys. | Lodgings.| Meals. | friends.| | | | | | | | | | | ———————————————————————————— 1854 to 1855..| 408 | 6,872 | …….. | ……. | 1855 to 1856..| 374 | 7,599 | …….. | ……. | 1856 to 1857..| 387 | 5,157 | …….. | ……. | 1857 to 1858..| 800 | 8,026 | 11,923 | ……. | 1858 to 1859..| 3,000 | 14,000 | 13,114 | ……. | 1859 to 1860..| 4,500 | 19,747 | 13,341 | 100 | 1860 to 1861..| 4,000 | 27,390 | 16,873 | 247 | 1861 to 1862..| 3,875 | 32,954 | 19,809 | ……. | 1862 to 1863..| 3,000 | 29,409 | 20,000 | 396 | 1863 to 1864..| 6,325 | 36,572 | 25,506 | 437 | 1864 to 1865..| 6,793 | 42,446 | 30,137 | 576 | 1865 to 1866..| 7,256 | 43,797 | 32,867 | 633 | 1866 to 1867..| 8,192 | 49,519 | 33,633 | 719 | 1867 to 1868..| 8,599 | 51,740 | 35,617 | 819 | 1868 to 1869..| 8,944 | 53,610 | 54,092 | 896 | 1869 9 months.| 7,383 | 39,077 | 33,207 | 642 | 1869 to 1870..| 8,655 | 55,565 | 56,128 | 713 | 1870 to 1871..| 8,835 | 53,005 | 53,214 | 1,100 | |————|—————|—————|————-| Total..| 91,326 | 576,485 | 469,461 | 7,278 |
============================================================= | | | | | | | No. of | YEAR | Expenses. | Paid by | Boys |Am'nt saved | | Boys. | using | by them. | | | Bank. | | | | | ——————————————————————————————- 1854 to 1855..| $1,199.76 | $397.56 | …… | ……… 1855 to 1856..| 1,431.82 | 391.26 | 16 | $643.58 1856 to 1857..| 1,762.56 | 262.56 | 116 | 270.70 1857 to 1858..| 1,925.03 | 298.03 | …… | ……… 1858 to 1859..| 2,199.34 | 807.15 | …… | ……… 1859 to 1860..| 2,113.56 | 955.44 | 23 | 110.10 1860 to 1861..| 3,420.57 | 1,036.98 | 230 | 1,259.77 1861 to 1862..| 2,736.08 | 1,138.88 | 388 | 1,376.59 1862 to 1863..| 3,402.82 | 1,102.33 | 347 | 1,315.10 1863 to 1864..| 5,758.16 | 1,599.10 | 405 | 2,080.06 1864 to 1865..| 7,159.95 | 1,944.22 | 499 | 2,565.92 1865 to 1866..| 10,058.13 | 2,127.44 | 599 | 2,486.43 1866 to 1867..| 10,847.79 | 2,718.79 | 542 | 2,121.76 1867 to 1868..| 12,094.00 | 3,177.69 | 703 | 2,203.45 1868 to 1869..| 23,333.45 | 3,644.49 | 796 | 2,057.76 1869 9 months.| 13,445.24 | 3,180.35 | 659 | 1,688.22 1869 to 1870..| 15,102.11 | 4,214.42 | 1,107 | 2,433.60 1870 to 1871..| 14,898.03 | 3,349.77 | 1,065 | 2,588.31 |——————|——————|————|—————- Total..|$132,888.40 | $32,306.96 | 7,495 |$25,141.35
Extracts from the journal of a visitor from the country:
"It requires a peculiar person to manage and talk to these boys. Bullet-headed, short-haired, bright-eyed, shirt-sleeved, go-ahead boys. Boys who sell papers, black boots, run on errands, hold horses, pitch pennies, sleep in barrels, and steal their bread. Boys who know at the age of twelve more than the children of ordinary men would have learned at twenty; boys who can cheat you out of your eye-teeth, and are as smart as a steel-trap. They will stand no fooling; they are accustomed to gammon, they live by it. No audience that ever we saw could compare in attitudinizing with this. Heads generally up; eyes fall on the speaker; mouths, almost without an exception, closed tightly; hands in pockets; legs stretched out; no sleepers, all wide-awake, keenly alive for a pun, a point, or a slangism. Winding up, Mr. Brace said: 'Well, boys, I want my friends here to see that you have the material for talkers amongst yourselves; whom do you choose for your orator?'
"'Paddy, Paddy,' shouted one and all. 'Come out, Paddy. Why don't you show yourself?' and so on.
"Presently Paddy came forward, and stood upon a stool. He is a youngster, not more than twelve, with a little round eye, a short nose, a lithe form, and chuck-full of fun.
[Illustration: THE NEWSBOY. (From a photograph.)]
"'Bummers,' said he, 'snoozers, and citizens, I've come down here among ye to talk to yer a little! Me and my friend Brace have come to see how ye'r gittin' along, and to advise yer. You fellers what stands at the shops with yer noses over the railin', smellin' ov the roast beef and the hash—you fellers who's got no home—think of it how we are to encourage ye. [Derisive laughter, "Ha-ha's," and various ironical kinds of applause.] I say, bummers—for you'reallbummers (in a tone of kind patronage)—I was a bummer once[great laughter]—I hate to see you spendin' your money on penny ice-creams and bad cigars. Why don't you save your money? You feller without no boots, how would you like a new pair, eh? [Laughter from all the boys but the one addressed.] Well, I hope you may get 'em, but I rayther think you won't. I have hopes for you all. I want you to grow up to be rich men—citizens, Government men, lawyers, generals, and influence men. Well, boys, I'll tell you a story. My dad was a hard 'un. One beautiful day he went on a spree, and he came home and told me where's yer mother? and I axed him I didn't know, and he clipt me over the head with an iron pot, and knocked me down, and me mither drapped in on him, and at it they went. [Hi-hi's, and demonstrative applause.] Ah! at it they went, and at it they kept—ye should have seen 'em—and whilst they were fightin', I slipped, meself out the back door, and away I went like a scart dog. [Oh, dry up! Bag your head! Simmer down!] Well, boys, I wint on till I kim to the 'Home' [great laughter among the boys], and they took me in [renewed laughter], and did for me, without a cap to me head or shoes to me feet, and thin I ran away, and here I am. Now boys [with mock solemnity], be good, mind yer manners, copy me, and see what you'll become.'
"At this point the boys raised such a storm of hifalutin applause, and indulged in such characteristic demonstrations of delight, that it was deemed best to stop the youthful Demosthenes, who jumped from his stool with a bound that would have done credit to a monkey.
"At this juncture huge pans of apples were brought in, and the boys were soon engaged in munching the delightful fruit, after which the Matron gave out a hymn, and all joined in singing it, during which we took our leave."
"Some of these boys, in all their misfortunes, have a humorous eye for their situation—as witness the following speech, delivered by one of them at the Newsboys' Lodging-house, before the departure of a company to the West. The report is a faithful one, made on the spot. The little fellow mounted a chair, and thus held forth:
"'Boys, gintlemen, chummies: Praps you'd like to hear summit about the West, the great West, you know, where so many of our old friends are settled down and growin' up to be great men, maybe the greatest men in the great Republic. Boys, that's the place for growing Congressmen, and Governors, and Presidents. Do you want to be newsboys always, and shoeblacks, and timber-merchants in a small way by sellin' matches? If ye do you'll stay in New York, but if you don't you'll go out West, and begin to be farmers, for the beginning of a farmer, my boys, is the making of a Congressman, and a President. Do you want to be rowdies, and loafers, and shoulder-hitters? If ye do, why, ye can keep around these diggins. Do you want to be gentlemen and independent citizens? You do—then make tracks for the West, from the Children's Aid Society. If you want to be snoozers, and rummeys, and policy-players, and Peter Funks men, why you'll hang up your caps and stay round the groceries and jine fire-engine and target companies, and go firin' at haystacks for bad quarters; but if ye want to be the man who will make his mark in the country, ye will get up steam, and go ahead, and there's lots on the prairies a waitin' for yez.
"'You haven't any idear of what ye may be yet, if you will only take a bit of my advice. How do you know but, if you are honest, and good, and industerous, you may get so much up in the ranks that you won't call a gineral or a judge your boss. And you'll have servants ov all kinds to tend you, to put you to bed when you are sleepy, and to spoon down your vittles when you are gettin' your grub. Oh, boys! won't that be great! Only think—to have a feller to open your mouth, and put great slices of punkin pie and apple dumplings into it. You will be lifted on hossback when you go for to take a ride on the prairies, and if you choose to go in a wagon, or on a 'scursion, you will find that the hard times don't touch you there; and the best of it will be that if 'tis good to-day, 'twill be better to-morrow.
"But how will it be if you don't go, boys? Why, I'm afraid when you grow too big to live in the Lodging-house any longer, you'll be like lost sheep in the wilderness, as we heard of last Sunday night here, and you'll maybe not find your way out any more. But you'll be found somewhere else. The best of you will be something short of judges and governors, and the feller as has the worst luck—and the worst behaver in the groceries-will be very sure to go from them to the prisons.
"I will now come from the stump. I am booked for the West in the next company from the Lodging-house. I hear they have big school-houses and colleges there, and that they have a place for me in the winter time; I want to be somebody, and somebody don't live here, no how. You'll find him on a farm in the West, and I hope you'll come to see him soon and stop with him when you go, and let every one of yous be somebody, and be loved and respected. I thank yous, boys, for your patient attention. I can't say more at present, I hope I haven't said too much.'"
An effort was made in the Legislature, a few years since, to obtain a building-fund for the Newsboys' Lodging-house. This was granted from the Excise Fund of the city for the legitimate reason, that those who do most to form drunkards should be compelled to aid in the expense and care of the children of drunkards. Thirty thousand dollars were appropriated from these taxes, provided a similar amount was raised by private subscription. This sum was obtained by the kindness and energy of the friends of the enterprise, and the whole amount ($60,000) was invested in good securities.
In 1872 it had accumulated to $80,000, and the purchase was made of the "Shakespeare Hotel," on the corner of Duane and Chambers Streets, which is now being fitted up and rebuilt as a permanent Lodging-house for Homeless Boys. The building has streets on three sides, and, plenty of air and light. Shops will be let underneath, so that the payments of the boys and the rents received will nearly defray the annual expenses of this charity, thus insuring its permanency.
A girl street-rover is to my mind the most painful figure in all the unfortunate crowd of a large city. With a boy, "Arab of the streets," one always has the consolation that, despite his ragged clothes and bed in a box or hay-barge, he often has a rather good time of it, and enjoys many of the delicious pleasures of a child's roving life, and that a fortunate turn of events may at any time make an honest, industrious fellow of him. At heart we cannot say that he is much corrupted; his sins belong to his ignorance and his condition, and are often easily corrected by a radical change of circumstances. The oaths, tobacco-spitting, and slang, and even the fighting and stealing of a street-boy, are not so bad as they look. Refined influences, the checks of religion, and a fairer chance for existence without incessant struggle, will often utterly eradicate these evil habits, and the rough, thieving New York vagrant make an honest, hardworking Western pioneer. It is true that sometimes the habit of vagrancy and idling may be too deeply worked in him for his character to speedily reform; but, if of tender years, a change of circumstances will nearly always bring a change of character.
With a girl-vagrant it is different. She feels homelessness and friendlessness more; she has more of the feminine dependence on affection; the street-trades, too, are harder for her, and the return at night to some lonely cellar or tenement-room, crowded with dirty people of all ages and sexes, is more dreary. She develops body and mind earlier than the boy, and the habits of vagabondism stamped on her in childhood are more difficult to wear off.
Then the strange and mysterious subject of sexual vice comes in. It has often seemed to me one of the most dark arrangements of this singular world that a female child of the poor should be permitted to start on its immortal career with almost every influence about it degrading, its inherited tendencies overwhelming toward indulgence of passion, its examples all of crime or lust, its lower nature awake long before its higher, and then that it should be allowed to soil and degrade its soul before the maturity of reason, and beyond all human possibility of cleansing!
For there is no reality in the sentimental assertion that the sexual sins of the lad are as degrading as those of the girl. The instinct of the female is more toward the preservation of purity, and therefore her fall is deeper—an instinct grounded in the desire of preserving a stock, or even the necessity of perpetuating our race.
Still, were the indulgences of the two sexes of a similar character—as in savage races—were they both following passion alone, the moral effect would not perhaps be so different in the two cases. But the sin of the girl soon becomes what the Bible calls "a sin against one's own body," the most debasing of all sins. She soon learns to offer for sale that which is in its nature beyond all price, and to feign the most sacred affections, and barter with the most delicate instincts. She no longer merely follows blindly and excessively an instinct; she perverts a passion and sells herself. The only parallel case with the male sex would be that in some Eastern communities which are rotting and falling to pieces from their debasing and unnatural crimes. When we hear of such disgusting offenses under any form of civilization, whether it be under the Rome of the Empire, or the Turkey of to-day, we know that disaster, ruin, and death, are near the State and the people.
This crime, with the girl, seems to sap and rot the whole nature. She loses self-respect, without which every human being soon sinks to the lowest depths; she loses the habit of industry, and cannot be taught to work. Having won her food at the table of Nature by unnatural means, Nature seems to cast her out, and henceforth she cannot labor. Living in a state of unnatural excitement, often worked up to a high pitch of nervous tension by stimulants, becoming weak in body and mind, her character loses fixedness of purpose and tenacity and true energy. The diabolical women who support and plunder her, the vile society she keeps, the literature she reads, the business she has chosen or fallen into, serve continually more and more to degrade and defile her. If, in a moment of remorse, she flee away and take honest work, her weakness and bad habits follow her; she is inefficient, careless, unsteady, and lazy; she craves the stimulus and hollow gayety of the wild life she has led; her ill name dogs her; all the wicked have an instinct of her former evil courses; the world and herself are against reform, and, unless she chance to have a higher moral nature or stronger will than most of her class, or unless Religion should touch even her polluted soul, she soon falls back, and gives one more sad illustration of the immense difficulty of a fallen woman rising again.
The great majority of prostitutes, it must be remembered, have had no romantic or sensational history, though they always affect this. They usually relate, and perhaps even imagine, that they have been seduced from the paths of virtue suddenly and by the wiles of some heartless seducer. Often they describe themselves as belonging to some virtuous, respectable, and even wealthy family. Their real history, however, is much more commonplace and matter-of-fact. They have been poor women's daughters, and did not want to work as their mothers did; or they have grown up in a tenement-room, crowded with boys and men, and lost purity before they knew what it was; or they have liked gay company, and have had no good influences around them, and sought pleasure in criminal indulgences; or they have been street-children, poor, neglected, and ignorant, and thus naturally and inevitably have become depraved women. Their sad life and debased character are the natural outgrowth of poverty, ignorance, and laziness. The number among them who have "seen better days," or have fallen from heights of virtue, is incredibly small. They show what fruits neglect in childhood, and want of education and of the habit of labor, and the absence of pure examples, will inevitably bear. Yet in their low estate they always show some of the divine qualities of their sex. The physicians in the Blackwell's Island Hospital say that there are no nurses so tender and devoted to the sick and dying as these girls. And the honesty of their dealings with the washerwomen and shopkeepers, who trust them while in their vile houses, has often been noted.
The words of sympathy and religion always touch their hearts, though the effect passes like the April cloud. On a broad scale, probably no remedy that man could apply would ever cure this fatal disease of society. It may, however, be diminished in its ravages, and prevented in a large measure. The check to its devastations in a laboring or poor class will be the facility of marriage, the opening of new channels of female work, but, above all, the influences of education and Religion.
An incident occurred daring our early labors, which is worth preserving:
"Mrs. Forster, the excellent Matron of the Female Department of the prison, had told us of an interesting young German girl, committed for vagrancy, who might just at this crisis be rescued. I entered these soiled and gloomy Egyptian archways, so appropriate and so depressing, that the sight of the low columns and lotus capitals is to me now inevitably associated with the somber and miserable histories of the place.
"After a short waiting, the girl was brought in—a German girl, apparently about fourteen, very thinly but neatly dressed, of slight figure, and a face intelligent and old for her years, the eye passionate and shrewd. I give details because the conversation which followed was remarkable.
"The poor feel, but they can seldom speak. The story she told, with a wonderful eloquence, thrilled to all our hearts; it seemed to us, then, like the first articulate voice from the great poor class of the city.
"Her eye had a hard look at first, but softened when I spoke to her in her own language.
"'Have you been long here?'
"'Only two days, sir.'
"Why are you here?'
"'I will tell you, sir. I was working out with a lady. I had to get up early and go to bed late, and I never had rest. She worked me always; and, finally, because I could not do everything, she beat me—she beat me like a dog, and I ran away; I could not bear it.'
"The manner of this was wonderfully passionate and eloquent.
"'But I thought you were arrested for being near a place of bad character,' said I.
"'I am going to tell you, sir. The next day I and my father went to get some clothes I left there, and the lady wouldn't give them up; and what could we do? What can the poor do? My father is a poor old man, who picks rags in the streets, and I have never picked rags yet. He said, "I don't want you to be a rag-picker. You are not a child now—people will look at you—you will come to harm." And I said, "No, father, I will help you. We must do something now, I am out of place;" and so I went out. I picked all day, and didn't make much, and I was cold and hungry. Towards night, a gentleman met me—a very fine, well-dressed gentleman, an American, and he said, "Will you go home with me!" and I said, "No." He said, "I will give you twenty shillings," and I told him I would go. And the next morning I was taken up outside by the officer.'
"'Poor girl!' said some one, 'had you forgotten your mother? and what a sin it was!'
"'No, sir, I did remember her. She had no clothes, and I had no shoes; and I have only this (she shivered in her thin dress), and winter is coming on. I know what making money is, sir. I am only fourteen, but I am old enough. I have had to take care of myself ever since I was ten years old, and I have never had a cent given me. It may be a sin, sir (and the tears rained down her cheeks, which she did not try to wipe away). I do not ask you to forgive it. Men can't forgive, but God will forgive. I know about men.
"'The rich do such things and worse, and no one says anything against them. But I, sir—I am poor!(This she said with a tone which struck the very heart-strings.) I have never had any one to take care of me. Many is the day I have gone hungry from morning till night, because I did not dare spend a cent or two, the only ones I had. Oh, I have wished sometimes so to die! Why does not God kill me!'
"She was choked by her sobs. We let her calm herself a moment, and then told her our plan of finding her a good home, where she could make an honest living. She was mistrustful. 'I will tell you,mein Herren;I know men, and I do not believe any one, I have been cheated so often. There is no trust in any one. I am not a child. I have lived as long as people twice as old.'
"'But you do not wish to stay in prison?'
"'O God, no! Oh, there is such a weight on my heart here. There is nothing but bad to learn in prison. These dirty Irish girls! I would kill myself if I had to stay here. Why was I ever born? I have suchKummerniss(woes) here (she pressed her hand on her heart)—I am poor!'
"We explained our plan more at length, and she became satisfied. We wished her to be bound to stay some years.
"'No,' said she, passionately, 'I cannot; I confess to you, gentlemen. I should either run away or die, if I was bound.'
"We talked with the matron. She had never known, she said, in her experience, such a remarkable girl. The children there of nine or ten years were often as old as young women, but this girl was an experienced woman. The offense, however, she had no doubt was her first.
"We obtained her release; and one of us, Mr. G., walked over to her house or cabin, some three miles on the other side of Williamsburgh, in order that she might see her parents before she went to her new home.
"As she walked along, she looked up in Mr. G.'s face, and asked, thoughtfully. Why we came there for her? He explained. She listened, and after a little while, said, in broken English 'Don't you think better for poor little girls to die than live?' He spoke kindly to her, and said something about a good God. She shook her head, 'No, no good God. Why am I so? It always was so. Why much suffer, if good God?' He told her they would get her a supper, and in the morning she should start off and find new friends. She became gradually almost ungoverned—sobbed—would like to die, even threatened suicide in this wild way.
"Kindness and calm words at length made her more reasonable. After much trouble, they reached the home or den of the poor rag-picker. The parents were very grateful, and she was to start off the next morning to a country home, where, perhaps finally, the parents will join her.
"For myself, the evening shadow seemed more somber, and the cheerful home-lights less cheerful, as I walked home, remembering such a history.
"Ye who are happy, whose lives have been under sunshine and gentle influences around whom Affection, and Piety, and Love have watched, as ye gather in cheerful circles these autumn evenings, think of these bitter and friendless children of the poor, in the great city. But few have such eloquent expressions as this poor girl, yet all inarticulately feel.
"There are sad histories beneath this gay world—lives over which is the very shadow of death. God be thanked, there is a Heart which feels for them all, where every pang and groan will find a sympathy, which will one day right the wrong, and bring back the light over human life.
"The day is short for us all; but for some it will be a pleasant thought, when we come to lay down our heads at last, that we have eased a few aching hearts, and brought peace and new hope to the dark lives of those whom men had forgotten or cast out."
[Illustration: THE STREET-GIRL'S END.]
The question of the best mode of legally controlling the great evil of prostitution, and confining its bad physical effects, is a very difficult one.
The merely philosophical inquirer, or even the physician, regarding humanity "in the broad," comes naturally to the conclusion that this offense is one of the inevitable evils which always have followed, and always will follow, the track of civilization; that it is to be looked upon, like small-pox or scarlet fever, as a disease of civilized man, and is to be treated accordingly, by physical and scientific means, and must be controlled, as it cannot be uprooted, by legislation. Or they regard it as they do intoxication, as the effect of a misdirected natural desire, which is everywhere thought to be a legitimate object both of permission or recognition by government, as well as of check by rigid laws.
If medical men, their minds are almost exclusively directed toward the frightful effects on society and upon the innocent, of the diseases which attend this offense. They see that legislation would at once check the ravages from these terrible maladies, and that a system of licenses such as is practiced in the Continental cities would prevent them from spreading through society and punishing those who had never sinned. As scientific healers of human maladies, they feel that anything is a gain which lessens human suffering, controls disease, and keeps up the general health of the community. Their position, too, has been strengthened by the foolish and superstitious arguments of their opponents. It has been claimed that syphilitic disorders are a peculiar and supernatural punishment for sin and wrong-doing; that by interfering with their legitimate action on the guilty, we presume to diminish the punishments inflicted by the Almighty; and, in so far as we cure or restrain these diseases, we lessen one great sanction which nature and Providence have placed before the infraction of the law of virtue.
The medical man, however, replies very pertinently that he has nothing to do with the Divine sanctions; that his business is to cure human diseases and lessen human suffering wherever he find them; and that gout, or rheumatism, or diphtheria, or scarlet fever, are as much "punishments" as the diseases of this vice. If he refused to visit a patient whenever he thought that his sins had brought upon him his diseases, he would have very little occupation, and mankind would receive very little alleviation from the medical art. Nor is he even called upon to refuse to cure a patient who, he knows, will immediately begin again his evil courses. The physician is not a judge or an executioner. He has nothing to do but to cure and alleviate. Influenced by this aspect of his duty, the medical man almost universally advocates licenses to prostitutes, based on medical examination, and a strict legal control of the participants in this offense.
On the other hand, those of us who deal with the moral aspects of the case, and who know the class that are ruined body and soul by this criminal business, have a profound dread of anything which, to the young, should appear to legalize or approve, or even recognize it. The worst evil in prostitution is to the woman, and the worst element in that is moral rather than physical.
The man has the tremendous responsibility on his soul of doing his part in helping to plunge a human being into the lowest depths of misery and moral degradation. He has also all the moral responsibility which the Divine law of purity places on each individual, and the farther burden of possibly causing disease hereafter to the innocent and virtuous.
But the woman who pursues this as a business has seldom any hope in this world, either of mental or moral health. The class, as a class, are the most desperate and unfortunate which reformatory agencies ever touch. Now, any friend of the well-being of society, knowing the strength of men's passions, and the utter misery and degradation of these victims of them, will dread any public measure or legislation which will tend to weaken the respect of young men for virtue, or to make this offense looked upon as permissible, or which will add to the number of these wretched women by diminishing the public and legal condemnation of their debasing traffic.
Among the large class of poor and ignorant girls in a large city who are always just on the line between virtue and vice, who can say how many more would be plunged into this abyss of misery by an apparent legal approval or recognition of the offense through a system of license? Among the thousand young men who are under incessant temptations in a city like this, who can say how many are saved by the consciousness that this offense is looked upon both by morality and law as an offense, and is not even recognized as permissible and legal? A city license constitutes a profession of prostitutes. The law and opinion recognize them. The evil becomes more fixed by its public recognition.
It is true that prostitution will always, in all probability, attend civilization; but so will all other sins and offenses. It may be possible, however, to diminish and control it. It is already immensely checked in this country, as compared with continental countries, partly through economical and partly through moral causes. It has been diminished among the daughters of the lowest poor in this city by the "Industrial Schools." Why should it be increased and established by legal recognition?
We admit that the present condition of the whole matter in New York is terrible. The humanity and science which ought to minister to the prostitute as freely as to any other class, are refused to her by the public, unless she apply as a pauper. The consequence is, that the fearful diseases which follow this offense, like avenging Furies, have spread through not only this class of women, but have been communicated to the virtuous and innocent, and are undermining the health of society. This fact is notorious to physicians.
Now we think a reasonable "middle course" might be pursued in this matter; that, for instance, greater conveniences for medical attendance and advice in the city (and not on Blackwell's Island) might be afforded by our authorities to this class, both as a matter of humanity and as a safeguard to the public health. If there was a hospital or a dispensary for such cases within the city, it would avoid the disgrace and publicity of each patient reporting herself to the court as a pauper, and then being sent to the Island Hospital. Hundreds more would present themselves for attendance and treatment than do now, and the public health be proportionately improved. No moral sanction would thus be given to this demoralizing and degrading business. The simple duties of humanity would be performed.
The advocates of the license system would still reply, however, that such a hospital would not meet the evil; that Law only can separate the sickly from the healthy, and thus guard society from the pestilence; and the only law which could accomplish this would be a strict system of license. The friend of public order, however, would urge that a wise legislator cannot consider physical well-being alone: he must regard also the moral tendencies of laws; and the influence of a license system for prostitution is plainly toward recognizing this offense as legal or permissible. It removes indirectly one of the safeguards of virtue.
Perhaps thereductio ad absurdumin the relation of the State with a criminal class, and of the Church with the State, was never so absurdly shown as in the Berlin license laws for prostitutes, twenty years since. According to these, in their final result, no woman could be a prostitute who had not partaken of the communion!—that is, theSchein,or license, was never given to this business any more than to any other, except on evidence of the person's having been "confirmed," or being a member of the State Church, that is, a citizen! This classing, however, the trade of prostitution with peddling, or any other business needing a license, did not in the least tend, so far as we have ever heard, to elevate the women, or save them from moral and mental degradation. On the contrary, the universal law of Providence that man or woman must live by labor, and that any unnatural substitute for it saps and weakens all power and vigor, applies to this class in Continental cities as much as here. Without doubt, too, wherever the Germanic races are, no degree of legalizing this traffic can utterly do away with the public sentence of scorn against the female participants in it; and the contempt of the virtuous naturally depresses the vicious.
The "public woman" has a far greater chance of recovery in France or Italy than in Germany, England, or America. Still, the wise legislator, though regretting the depression which this public sentiment causes to the vicious classes, cannot but value it as a safeguard of virtue, and will be very cautious how he weakens it by legislation.
There is, no doubt, some force in the position that the non-licensing of these houses is in some degree a terror to the community, and that the cautious and prudent are kept from the offense through fear of possible consequences in disease and infection. This, however, does not seem to us an object which legislators can hold before them as compared with the duties of humanity in curing and preventing disease and pestilence. They have nothing to do with adding to the natural penalties of sin, or with punishing sinners. They are concerned only with human law. But they have the right, and, as it seems to us, the duty, so to legislate as not to encourage so great an evil as this of prostitution. And licensing, it seems to us, has that tendency. It certainly has had it in Paris, where it has been tried to its full extent, and surely no one could claim the population of that city as a model to any nation, whether in physical or moral power.