Bad as London is in this matter—not, however, so much through defect of licensing as through want of a proper street-police—we do not believe there is so wide-spread a degradation among poor women as in Berlin.
New York, in our judgment, is superior to any great city in its smaller prostitute class, and the virtue of its laboring poor. Something of this, of course, is due to our superior economical conditions; something to the immense energy and large means thrown into our preventive agencies, but much also to the public opinion prevailing in all classes in regard to this vice. Our wealthy classes, we believe, and certainly our middle classes, have a higher sentiment in regard to the purity both of man and woman than any similar classes in the civilized world. More persons relatively marry, and marriages are happier. This is equally true of the upper laboring classes. If it is not true of the lowest poor, this results from two great local evils—Overcrowding, and the bad influences of Emigration. Still, even with these, the poor of New York compare favorably in virtue with those of Paris, Berlin, or Vienna. Now, how large a part of the public opinion which thus preserves both ends of society from vice may be due to the fact that we have not recognized the greatest offense against purity by any permissive legislation? The business is still regarded, in law, as outside of good morals and not even to be tacitly allowed by license.
As a simple, practical measure to save from vice the girls of the honest poor, nothing has ever been equal to the Industrial School.
Along with our effort for homeless boys, I early attempted to found a comprehensive organization of Schools for the needy and ragged little girls of the city.
Though our Free Schools are open to all, experience has taught that vast numbers of children are so ill-clothed and destitute that they are ashamed to attend these excellent places of instruction; or their mothers are obliged to employ them during parts of the day; or they are begging, or engaged in street occupations, and will not attend, or, if they do, attend very irregularly. Very many are playing about the docks or idling in the streets.
Twenty years ago, nothing seemed to check this evil. Captain Matsell, in the celebrated report I have alluded to, estimated the number of vagrant children as 10,000, and subsequently in later years, the estimate was as high as 30,000. The commitments for vagrancy were enormous, reaching in one year (1857), for females alone, 3,449; in 1859, 5,778; and in 1860, 5,880. In these we have not the exact number of children, but it was certainly very large.
What was needed to check crime and vagrancy among young girls was someSchool of Industry and Morals, adapted for the class.
Many were ashamed to go to the Public Schools; they were too irregular for their rules. They needed some help in the way of food and clothing, much direct moral instruction and training in industry; while their mothers required to be stimulated by earnest appeals to their consciences to induce them to school them at all. Agents must be sent around to gather the children, and to persuade the parents to educate their offspring. It was manifest that the Public Schools were not adapted to meet all these wants, and indeed the mingling of any eleemosynary features in our public educational establishments would have been injudicious. As our infant Society had no funds, my effort was to found something at first by outside help, with the hope subsequently of obtaining a permanent support for the new enterprises, and bringing them under the supervision of the parent Society.
The agencies which we sought to found were the INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS, whichI shall now attempt to describe.
Each one of these humble charities has a history of its own—a history known only to the poor—of sacrifice, patience, and labor.
Some of the most gifted women of New York, of high position and fortune, as well as others of remarkable character and education, have poured forth without stint their services of love in connection with these ministrations of charity.
The School to which allusion has already been made on page 83, as growing out of the Boys' Meeting in Sixth Street, and afterwards in Avenue D, was the first of these Schools, and owes its origin especially to a lady of great executive power, Mrs. Wilson, wife of the Rev. Dr. Wilson. It has always been an exceedingly successful and efficient School. It was formed in February, 1853, the writer assisting in its organization, and was carried on outside of the Society whose history I am sketching.
In visiting from lane to lane and house to house in our poorest quarters, I soon came to know one district which seemed hopelessly given over to vice and misery—the region radiating out from or near to Franklin Square, especially such streets as Cherry, Water, Dover, Roosevelt, and the neighboring lanes. Here were huge barracks—one said to contain some 1,500 persons—underground cellars, crowded with people, and old rickety houses always having "a double" on the rear lot, so as more effectually to shut out light and air. Here were as many liquor-shops as houses, and those worst dens of vice, the "Dance-Saloons," where prostitution was in its most brazen form, and the unfortunate sailors were continually robbed or murdered. Nowhere in the city were so many murders committed, or was every species of crime so rife. Never, however, in this villainous quarter, did I experience the slightest annoyance in my visits, nor did any one of the ladies who subsequently ransacked every den and hole where a child could shelter itself. My own attention was early arrested by the number of wild ragged little girls who were flitting about through these lanes; some with basket and poker gathering rags, some apparently seeking chances of stealing, and others doing errands for the dance-saloons and brothels, or hanging about their doors. The police were constantly arresting them as "vagrants," when the mothers would beg them off from the good-natured Justices, and promise to train them better in future. They were evidently fast training, however, for the most abandoned life. It seemed me if I could only get the refinement, education, and Christian enthusiasm of the better classes fairly to work here among these children, these terrible evils might be corrected at least for the next generation.
I accordingly went about from house to house among ladies whom I had known, and, representing the condition of the Ward, induced them to attend a meeting of ladies to be held at the house of a prominent physician, whose wife had kindly offered her rooms.
For some months I had attempted to prepare the public mind for these labors by incessant writing for the daily papers, by lectures and by sermons in various pulpits. Experience soon showed that the most effective mode of making real the condition of the poorest class, was by relating incidents from real life which continually presented themselves.
The rich and fortunate had hardly conceived the histories of poverty, suffering, and loneliness which were constantly passing around them.
The hope and effort of the writer was to connect the two extremes of society in sympathy, and carry the forces of one class down to lift up the other. For this two things were necessary—one to show the duty which Christ especially teaches of sacrifice to the poor for His sake, and the value which He attaches to each human soul; and the other to free the whole, as much as possible, from any sectarian or dogmatic character. Nothing but "the enthusiasm of humanity" inspired by Christ could lead the comfortable and the fastidious to such disagreeable scenes and hard labors as would meet them here. It was necessary to feel that many comforts most be foregone, and much leisure given up, for this important work. Very unpleasant sights were to be met with, coarse people to be encountered, and rude children managed; the stern facts of filth, vice, and crime to be dealt with.
It was not to be a mere holiday-work, or a sudden gush of sentiment; but, to be of use, it must be patiently continued, week by week, and month by month, and year by year, with some faint resemblance to that patience and love which we believed a Higher One had exercised towards us. But, with this inspiration, as carefully as possible, all dogmatic limitation must be avoided. All sects were invited to take a share in the work, and, as the efforts were necessarily directed to the most palpable and terrible evils, the means used by all would be essentially the same. Even those of no defined religious belief were gladly welcomed if they were ready to do the offices of humanity. The fact that ninety-nine hundredths of these poor people were Roman Catholics compelled us also to confine ourselves to the most simple and fundamental instructions, and to avoid, in any way, arousing religious bigotry.
In the meeting, gathered at the house of Dr. P., were prominent ladies from all the leading sects.
An address was delivered by the writer, and then a constitution presented, of the simplest nature, and an association organized and officers appointed by the ladies present. This was the foundation of the
In the meanwhile, we went forth through the slums of the ward, and let it be widely known that a School to teach work, and where food was given daily, and clothes were bestowed to the well-behaved, was just forming.
Our room was in the basement of a church in Roosevelt Street. Hither gathered, on a morning in December, 1853, our ladies and a flock of the most ill-clad and wildest little street-girls that could be collected anywhere in New York. They flew over the benches, they swore and fought with one another, they bandied vile language, and could hardly be tamed down sufficiently to allow the school to be opened.
Few had shoes, all were bonnetless, their dresses were torn, ragged, and dirty; their hair tangled, and faces long unwashed; they had, many of them, a singularly wild and intense expression of eye and feature, as of half-tamed creatures, with passions aroused beyond their years.
The dress and ornaments of the ladies seemed to excite their admiration greatly. It was observed that they soon hid or softened their own worst peculiarities. They evidently could not at first understand the motive which led so many of a far higher and better class to come to help them. The two regular and salaried teachers took the discipline in hand gently and firmly. The ladies soon had their little classes, each gathered quietly about the one instructing. As a general thing, the ladies took upon themselves the industrial branches—sewing, knitting, crocheting, and the like; this gave them also excellent opportunities for moral instruction, and winning the sympathy of the children.
As these ladies, many of them of remarkable character and culture, began to show the fruits of a high civilization to these poor little barbarians, the thought seemed to strike them—though hardly capable of being expressed—that here was a goodness and piety they had never known or conceived. This offspring of poverty and crime veiled their vices and bad habits before these angels. They felt a new impulse—to be worthy of their noble friends. The idea of unselfish Love dawned on their souls; they softened and became respectful. So it continued; each day the wild little beggars became more disciplined and controlled; they began to like study and industry; they were more anxious to be clean and neatly dressed; they checked their tongues, and, in some degree, their tempers; they showed affection and gratitude to their teachers; their minds awakened; most of all, their moral faculties. The truths of Religion or of morals, especially when dramatized in stories and incidents, reached them.
And no words can adequately picture the amount of loving service and patient sacrifice which was poured out by these ladies in this effort among the poor of the Fourth Ward. They never spared themselves or their means. Some came down every day to help in the school; some twice in the week; they were there in all weathers, and never wearied. Three of the number offered up their lives in these labors of humanity, and died in harness.
A most gifted intellectual family, the S——s, supplied some of our most devoted workers; the wife, since deceased, of one of our leading merchants and public men, himself a man much loved for his generosity, occupied the place of one of the Directresses; the wife of a prominent physician was our Treasurer. A young lady of fortune, since dead, Miss G., took the hardest labors upon herself. The wife of a gentleman since Governor and United States Senator, was in especial charge of the house, and dreaded no labor of humanity, however disagreeable. Two others, sisters, who represented one of our most honored historical families, but whose characters needed no help of genealogy to make them esteemed by all, threw themselves into the work with characteristic earnestness. Another of that family, which has furnished the pioneer of all reform-work among the youthful criminals, and in criminal law, and which in the early days of our history so often led public affairs, visited from house to house among the miserable poor of the ward, and twice found herself face to face with small-pox in its most virulent form.
The effects of this particular School upon the morals of the juvenile population of the Fourth Ward were precisely what they have always been in similar schools. These little girls, who might be said to be almost the inmates of the brothels, and who grew up in an atmosphere of crime and degradation, scarcely ever, when mature, joined the ranks of their sisters and neighbors. Though living in the same houses with the gay dance-saloons, they avoided them as they would pestilential places. Trained to industry and familiar with the modest and refined appearance of pure women in the schools, they had no desire for the society of these bold girls, or to earn their living in this idle and shameful manner. They felt the disgrace of the abandoned life around them, and were soon above it. Though almost invariably the children of drunkards, they did not inherit the appetites of their mothers, or if they did, their new training substituted higher and stronger desires. They were seldom known to have the habit of drinking as they grew up. Situations were continually found for them in the country, or they secured places for themselves as servants in respectable families; and, becoming each day more used to better circumstances and more neatly dressed, they had little desire to visit their own wretched homes and remain in their families. Now and then there would be a fall from virtue among them, but the cases were very few indeed. As they grew up they married young mechanics or farmers, and were soon far above the class from which they sprang. Such were the fruits in general of the patient, self-denying labors of these ladies in the Fourth Ward School.
One most self-sacrificing and heroic man, a physician, Dr. Robert Ray, devoted his education and something of his fortune to these benevolent efforts, and died while in the harness. Singularly enough, I never knew, in twenty years' experience, an instance of one of these volunteer teachers contracting any contagious disease in these labors, though repeatedly they have entered tenement rooms where virulent typhoid or small-pox cases were being tended. They made it a rule generally to bathe and change their clothing after their work.
For a more exact account of the results of the Fourth-Ward labors, it is difficult to obtain precise statistics. But when we know from the Prison Reports that soon after the opening of this school there were imprisoned 3,449 female vagrants of all ages, and that last year (1870), when the little girls who then attended such schools would have matured, there were only 671; or when we observe that the Prison in that neighborhood inclosed 3,172 female vagrants in 1861 and only 339 in 1871, we may be assured that the sacrifices made in that Ward have not been without their natural fruit.
Extracts from our Journal:
"We Started out a wintry afternoon to see some of our scholars in the Industrial School of the Fourth Ward. A number of ragged little girls, disdaining to enter, were clustered about the door of the School. As they caught a glimpse of some one coming out, the cry of 'Lie low! lie low!' passed among them, and they were off, capering about in the snow-storm like so many little witches.
"We passed up Oak Street and Cherry. Here is the entrance, a narrow doorway on the side. Wind through this dark passage and you are at the door of a little back room; it is the home of a German rag-picker who has a child in the school. A filthy, close room, with a dark bedroom; there is one window, and a small stove, and two or three chairs. The girl is neat and healthy-looking. 'I pick rags, sir,' says the mother, 'and I can't send her to Public School. I am away all day, and she would have to be in the streets, and it's very hard to live this winter. It's been a great help to send her to that school.' I told her we wanted none who could go to Public School, but if it was so with her she might continue to send. A miserable hole for a home, and yet the child looked neatly.
"Here, beyond, is an old house. We climb the shaking stairs, up to the attic—a bare front room with one roof-window. The only furniture a bed and stove and a broken chair. Very chill and bare, but the floor is well swept. A little humpbacked child is reading away very busily by the light of the scuttle window, and another is cleaning up the floor. The mother is an Irish woman. 'Shure! an' its nivir none of the schools I could sind 'em to. I had no clo'es or shoes for 'em and, it's the truth, I am jist living, an' no more. Could ye help us? We told her we meant to help her by helping her children, and asked about the little deformed one. 'Och! she is sich a swate won! She always larned very quick since her accidint, and I used to think, maybe she wont live, and God will take her away—she was so steady and good. Yes, I am thankful to those ladies for what they are teaching her. She never had no chance before. God bless ye, gintlemen!'
"We climbed again one of these rookeries. It is a back garret. A dark-eyed, passionate-looking woman is sitting over the little stove, and one of our little scholars is standing by—one of the prettiest and brightest children in the school. One of those faces you see in the West of Ireland, perhaps with some Spanish blood in them; a little oval face, with soft brown complexion, quick, dark eyes and harsh, black hair. The mother looked like a woman who had seen much of the worst of life. 'No, sir, I never did send 'em to school. I know it, they ought to learn, but I couldn't. I try to shame him sometimes—it's my husband, sir—but he drinks, and then bates me. Look at that bruise!' and she pointed to her cheek; 'and I tell him to see what's comin' to his children. There's Peggy, goes sellin' fruit every night to those cellars in Water Street, and they'rehells,sir. She's learnin' all sorts of bad words there, and don't get back till eleven or twelve o'clock.' She spoke of a sister of the little girl, about thirteen years old, and the picture of that sweet, dark-eyed little thing, getting her education, unconsciously, every night in those vile cellars of dancing prostitutes, came up to my mind. I asked why she sent her there, and spoke of the dangers. 'I must, sir; he makes nothing for me, and if it wasn't for this school, and the help there, and her earning of a shilling or two shilling in them places, I should starve. Oh, I wish they was out of this city! Yes, it's the truth, I would rather have them dead than on the street, but I can't help it.' I told her of some good families in the country, where we could place the children. 'Would they git schoolin', sir?' 'Certainly, that is the first condition. We always look especially to that.' The little dark eyes sparkled, and she 'shouldlike to take care of a baby so!' The sister now came in, and we talked with her. 'Oh! no, she didn't like to go to those places; but they only buy there at nights'—and she seemed equally glad to get a place. So it was arranged that they were to come up to the office next day, and then get a home in the country. The little girl now wrapped her thin shawl about her head, and ran along before us, through the storm, to some of the other children. The harder it snowed, the more the little eyes sparkled and the prettier she looked.
"Another home of poverty—dark, damp, and chill. The mother an Englishwoman; her child had gone to the school barefooted. This girl was engaged in the same business—selling fruit at night in the brothels. 'I know it, sir,' she said; 'she ought to have as good a chance as other people's children. But I'm so poor! I haven't paid a month's rent, and I was sick three weeks.'
"'Yes, you're right. I know the city, sir; and I would rather have her in her grave than brought down to those cellars. But what can I do, sir?'
"We arrange, again, to find a situation in the country, if she wishes—and engage her, at least, to keep the child at school.
"Our little sprite flies along again through the snow, and shows us another home of one of our scholars—a prostitute's cellar. The elder sister of the child is there, and meets us pleasantly, though with a shame-faced look. 'Yes, she shall go to school every day, sir. We never sent her before, nowheres; but she's learnin' very fast there now.'
"We tell her the general objects of the school, and of the good, kind home which can be found for her sister in the country. She seems glad and her face, which must have been pretty once, lights up, perhaps, at the thought for her sister, of what she shall never more have—a pure home. Two or three sailors, sitting at their bottles, say, 'Yes, that's it! git the little gal out of this! it ain't no place for her.'
"They are all respectful, and seem to understand what we are doing.
"The little guide has gone back, and we go now to another address—a back cellar in Oak Street—damp, dark, so that one at mid-day could hardly see to read; filthy, chilly, yet with six or eight people living there. Every one has a cold; and the oldest daughter, a nice girl of fourteen, is losing her eyes in the foul atmosphere. The old story: 'No work, no friends, rent to pay, and nothing to do.' The parents squalid, idle, intemperate, and shiftless. There they live, just picking up enough to keep life warm in them; groaning, and begging, and seeking work. There they live, breeding each day pestilence and disease, scattering abroad over the city seeds of fearful sickness—raising a brood of vagrants and harlots—retorting on society its neglect by cursing the bodies and souls of thousands whom they never knew, and who never saw them.
"Yet it is cheering—it cheered me even in that squalid hole—that the children are so much superior to their parents. It needs time for vice and beggary and filth to degrade childhood. God has given every fresh human soul something which rises above its surroundings, and which even want and vice do not wear away. For the old poor, for the sensual who have steeped themselves in crime, for the drunkard, the thief, the prostitute who have run a long course, let those heroically work who will. Yet, noble as is the effort, one's experience of human nature is obliged to confess, the fruits will be very few. The old heart of man is a hard thing to change. In any comprehensive view, the only hopeful reform through society must begin with childhood, basing itself on a change of circumstances and on religious influences."
The average expense of a school of this nature, with one hundred scholars and two salaried teachers, where a cheap meal is supplied, and garments and shoes are earned by the scholars, we reckon usually at $1,500, or at $15 per head annually for each scholar.
Our next great effort was among the Germans. On the eastern side of the city is a vast population of German laborers, mechanics, and shop-keepers. Among them, also, are numbers of exceedingly poor people, who live by gathering rags and bones.
I used at that time to explore these singular settlements, filled with the poor peasantry of the "Fatherland," and being familiar with the Germanpatois,I had many cheery conversations with these honest people, who had drifted into places so different from their mountain-homes. In fact, it used to convey to me a strange contrast, the dirty yards piled with bones and flaunting with rags, and the air smelling of carrion; while the accents reminded of the glaciers of the Bavarian Alps or the fresh breezes and wild scenes of the Harz. The poor people felt the contrast terribly, and their children most of all.
From ignorance of the language and the necessity of working at their street-trades, they did not attend our schools, and seldom entered a church. They were growing up without either religion or education. Yet they were a much more honest and hopeful class than the Irish. There seemed always remaining in them something of the good old GermanBiederkeit,or solidity. One could depend on the children if they were put in places of trust, and in school they seemed to grasp knowledge with much more tenacity and vigor. The young girls, however, coming from a similar low class were weaker in virtue than the Irish.
The number of the Germans in the poor quarters may be somewhat measured by the population of the Wards which they inhabited. The Eleventh Ward at that time (1854) was reckoned to contain 50,000 inhabitants; at present (1870) it contains 64,372, and the Sixteenth Ward, another strong German district, has 99,375.
The Association of ladies which we called together for labors among this population happened to be composed mainly of Unitarians, a religious body that has always felt a peculiar interest in the moral condition of our German poor. The moving spirit in the association was a lady of such singular grace and delicacy of character, that I hardly venture, even after these many years, to make public her name. She occupied then one of the foremost positions in New York society—a position accorded in part to her name, honored for intellectual services to the Republic, beyond almost any other in our history, but above all due to her own singular sweetness and dignity of manner and a very highly cultivated and strong intellect. Her power, whether with rich or poor, was her wonderful consideration for others, and her quick sympathy. The highest inspiration of Christian faith breathed through her life and animated her in laboring with these children of poverty. The same inspiration sustained her subsequently in a prolonged and terrible trial of months under a fearful disease, and made her death a sun-set of glory to all who knew her. Never did the faith in immortal union with God through Christ attain a more absolute certainty in any human being. Her death, even to many skeptics who were intimate with her, became a new and astonishing argument for Immortality.
She numbered among her friends many of the leading intellects of the country, as well as those among the poor who depended on her advice, sympathy, and aid.
Into this labor of love among the Germans, Mrs. S. threw herself, in company with a few friends, with profound earnestness.
In view of the peculiar temptations of the young German girls, one of our objects in this school was to offer a social as well as educational resort in the evenings. We furnished the rooms pleasantly and tastefully, and proposed to vary our school exercises by games or an occasional dance and frolic. Mrs. S. and other ladies consented to be often present, to instruct and talk with the girls. Our visitors and myself at once gathered in a needy-looking assembly of the poor German girls of the Eleventh Ward, not as ragged or wild as the Irish throng in the Fourth Ward, but equally poor and quite as much exposed to temptation. The School went on day by day in its ministrations of love and its patient industry, and gradually produced the same effects as have been experienced under all these Schools. The wild became tamer, the wayward more docile. The child of the rag-picker soon began to like in-door industry better than the vagrant business of the streets, and to lose something of her boldness and correct her slovenliness.
After laboring thus for some years with a board of ladies, a strong effort was made to secure the assistance of the German merchants of the city.
In 1859, a subscription of about $1,000 was obtained from them, and the School was enlarged and made still more attractive, so as to reach the young working German girls in the evening. At this time a young lady of high culture, from one of the prominent intellectual families of New England, offered herself for this difficult task, and she was placed at the head of the School. For two years she labored unceasingly for this wild, uncontrolled class, being present every evening in the school, and bringing all her education and earnestness of character to bear upon them. They never forgot her, and she left an indelible impression on these children, and aided in saving them from the temptations which have ruined so many of their companions.
Our German patrons gradually left us, and it was only in 1870 that their assistance was secured again for a charity which was saving so many thousand children of their countrymen.
The School is now held at No. 272 Second Street, and contains some four hundred children.
On the eastern side of the city, in the neighborhood of Fortieth Street, is a village of squatters, which enjoys the title of "Dutch Hill." The inhabitants are not, however, "Dutch," but mainly poor Irish, who have taken temporary possession of unused sites on a hill, and have erected shanties which serve at once for pig-pens, hen-coops, bed-rooms, and living-rooms. They enjoy the privilege of squatters in having no rent to pay; but they are exposed to the penalty of being at any moment turned out from their dens, and losing land and house at once. Usually they remain while the quarrymen who are opening streets almost undermine their shanties, and then if the buildings are not blown away, they pull them down and pack them away like tents to another dwelling-place.
The village is filled with snarling dogs, which aid in drawing the swill or coal carts, for the children are mainly employed in collecting swill and picking coals through the streets.
The shanty family are never quite so poor as the tenement-house family; as they have no rent to pay. But the filth and wretchedness in which they sometimes live are beyond description.
It happened that for many years (not wishing to scatter my efforts too much), I made this quarter my special "parish" for visitations; and very discouraging visits they were, many of them. The people had very little regular occupation, many being widows who did occasional "chores" in families; others lived on the sale of the coal their children gathered, or on the pigs which shared their domicile; others kept fowls, and all had vast flocks of goats, though where the profits from these latter came I could never discover, as no one seemed to buy the milk, and I never heard of their killing them. Money, however, in some way they did procure, and one old red-faced swill-gatherer I knew well, whose bright child we tried so long to save, who died finally, it was said, with a large deposit in the Savings-Bank, which no one could claim; yet one corner of her bed-chamber was filled with a heap of smelling bones, and the pigs slept under her bed.
Another old rag-picker I remember whose shanty was a sight to behold; all the odds and ends of a great, city seemed piled up in it,—bones, broken dishes, rags, bits of furniture, cinders, old tin, useless lamps, decaying vegetables, ribbons, cloths, legless chairs, and carrion, all mixed together, and heaped up nearly to the ceiling, leaving hardly room for a bed on the floor where the woman and her two children slept. Yet all these were marvels of health and vigor, far surpassing most children I know in the comfortable classes. The woman was German, and after years of effort could never be induced to do anything for the education of her children, until finally I put the police on their track as vagrants, and they were safely housed in the "Juvenile Asylum."
Many a time have I come into their shanties on a snowy morning and found the people asleep with the snow lying thick on their bed-clothes. One poor creature was found thus one morning by the police, frozen stiff. They all suffered, as might be expected, terribly from rheumatism. Liquor, of course, "prevailed." Every woman drank hard, I suppose to forget her misery; and dreadful quarrels raged among them.
The few men there worked hard at stone-quarrying, but were often disabled by disease and useless from drunkenness. Many of the women had been abandoned by their husbands, as their families increased and became burdensome, or as they themselves grew plain and bad-tempered. Some of these poor creatures drank still more to heal their wounded affections. The children, of course, were rapidly following the ways of their parents. The life of a swill-gatherer, or coal-picker, orchiffonnierin the streets soon wears off a girl's modesty and prepares her for worse occupation.
Into this community of poor, ignorant, and drunken people I threw myself, and resolved, with God's aid, to try to do something for them. Here for years I visited from cabin to cabin, or hunted out every cellar and attic of the neighboring tenement-houses; standing at death-beds and sick-beds, seeking to administer consolation and advice, and, aided by others, to render every species of assistance.
In returning home from these rounds, amidst filth and poverty, I remember that I was frequently so depressed and exhausted as to throw myself flat upon the rug in front of the fire, scarcely able to move. The discouraging feature in such visits as I was making, and which must always exist in similar efforts, is that one has no point of religious contact with these people.
Among all the hundreds of families I knew and visited I never met but two that were Protestants. To all words of spiritual warning or help there came the chilling formalism of the ignorant Roman Catholic in reply, implying that certain outward acts made the soul right with its Creator. The very inner ideas of our spiritual life of free love towards God, true repentance and trust in a Divine Redeemer, seemed wanting in their minds. I never had the least ambition to be a proselytizer, and never tried to convert them, and I certainly had no prejudice against the Romanists; on the contrary, it has been my fortune in Europe to enjoy the intercourse of some most spiritual-minded Catholics. But these poor people seemed stamped with the spiritual lifelessness of Romanism. At how many a lonely death-bed or sick-bed, where even the priest had forgotten to come, have I longed and tried to say some comforting word of religion to the dull ear, closing to all earthly sounds; but even if heard and the sympathy gratefully felt, it made scarcely more religious impression than would the chants of the Buddhists have done. One sprinkle of holy water were worth a volume of such words.
A Protestant has great difficulty in coming into connection with the Romanist poor. I was often curious to know the exact influence of the priests over these people. The lowest poor in New York are not, I think, much cared for by the Romanist priesthood. One reason, without doubt, is that their attention has thus far been mainly (and wisely) directed to building handsome churches, and that they have not means to do much for these persons. Another and more powerful reason is, probably, that the old "enthusiasm of humanity" which animated a Guy, a Vincent de Paul, or Xavier, has died out among them.
I have known, however; individual cases in our city, where a priest has exercised a marked influence in keeping his charge from intoxication. There were also occasionally, in this very region, something like "Revivals of Religion" among the people, stimulated by the priests, in which many young girls joined religious societies, and did lead, to my knowledge, for a time more pure and devout lives.
When one thinks what a noble-minded and humane Priest might accomplish among the lowest classes of New York, how many vices he could check, and what virtues he might cherish, and what public blessings on the whole community he might confer, by elevating this degraded population; and then as one looks at the moral condition of the Roman Catholic poor, one can only sigh, that that once powerful body has lost so much of the inspiration of Christ which once filled it.
The plan which I laid out in working in this quarter was in harmony with all our previous efforts; it was especially to influence and improve the children.
It so happened that near "Dutch Hill" was another hill covered with handsome houses and inhabited by wealthy people, "Murray Hill." The ladies in this prosperous quarter were visited, and finally assembled in a public meeting; and, with the same preliminaries as in the other Schools, we at length organized in 1854.
Early in the history of this School, we secured the services of a lady, Miss Spratt, now Mrs. Hurley, who has been ever since the main-stay of that most useful charity.
For seventeen years this woman of refinement and education has spent her days in this School of poor children, and her hours of leisure in those wretched shanties—an angel of mercy and sympathy to every unfortunate family for miles around. Whatever woman falls into misfortune, loses husband or child, is driven from home by poverty, or forced from work by depression of business, or meets with troubles of mind or body, at once comes to her for sympathy and relief. She has become so used to scenes of misery, that to her, she says, "the house of mourning" is more natural than "the house of feasting."
The present writer, for his own part, confesses that he could not possibly have borne the harrowing and disagreeable scenes with which he has been so long familiar, without making a strict rule never to think or speak of the poor when he was away from his work, and immediately absorbing himself in some entirely different subject. The spring of the mind would have been broken.
But Mrs. Hurley lived in and for the poor; her only relaxation was hearing Mr. Beecher on Sunday; and yet, when she occasionally visited us in the country, she devoured books—her great favorite being a translation I had of Plato.
The children, of course, became passionately attached to this missionary of charity. During her labors, she was married to a physician, Dr. Hurley, who subsequently was killed in the army during the War of the Rebellion. While she was temporarily absent, and a strange teacher employed, six of the wildest girls were expelled, so unmanageable were they. When she came back, they returned and welcomed her eagerly, behaving perfectly well; and it was discovered that so attached were they to her, they had each carried fragments of her dress as mementos in their bosom!
The peculiar value of our common experience in this School was, that we were enabled through so many years to follow carefully the results of the School on a large class of very destitute little girls. We know personally what was here accomplished. A very hopeful feature appeared soon in the work. The children rose above the condition of their parents; sometimes they improved, by their own increasing neatness and good behavior, the habits and appearance of their fathers and mothers. More often they became ashamed of their paternal piggeries and nasty dens, and were glad to get away to more decent homes or new occupations. One great means of influence here was, as in the other Schools, through the regular assistance of volunteer teachers, the ladies of the Association.
It happened that there was among them more of a certain tenacity of character, of the old Puritan faithfulness, than was manifested by some of our co-laborers; having put their hands to the plow, they never thought of turning back. They gave time and labor, and money freely, and they continued at their posts year after year.
The children felt their refining and elevating influence. We soon found that the daughters of the drunkards did not follow their mothers' footsteps, simply because they had acquired higher tastes. We hardly ever knew of one who indulged in drinking; indeed, one old red-faced tippler, Mrs. McK., who was the best chore-woman on the Hill when sober, eventually was entirely reformed by her children. No child seemed to fall back into the degradation of the parents. And recalling now the rank foul soil from which so many sweet flowers seemed to spring, one can only wonder and be grateful that efforts so imperfect bore such harvest.
I remember the F. family—such a cheery, healthy-looking family living in a damp, dark basement, and almost always half-starved, wretchedly poor, but very industrious! The youngest daughter passed through our School, and is now becoming a teacher; another married a mechanic (these girls never marry day-laborers). Still another proved herself a heroine. We sent her as nursery-maid to a family, and as they were all sailing down the Hudson in theSt. John,the boiler burst; amid the horrible confusion and panic where so many perished, this girl had the courage to rush through the steam and boiling water, and save the three children entrusted to her charge. Of course, after this, she was no longer a servant, but a "sister beloved" in the family. A gentleman of fortune, attracted by her appearance and intelligence, ultimately married her. He died, and she was left with a nice fortune. She bore her change of fortune beautifully.
The following is another similar incident from our Journal:
"A few years ago I remember an old shanty on 'Dutch Hill,' where a wretched-looking man lived with his pigs and goats, called K——. He was considered a bad man even among his bad neighbors, and the story of him was (I do not know how true), that he had committed murder, and had escaped the law by some legal quibble. He was a swill-gatherer, and had two little bright daughters to assist him at home. These came to our Fortieth-street School. They improved very fast, and one used to attract much attention from the ladies by her pretty face and intelligent answers. Nellie finally left the school, and was sent by us to the West. She improved much there, and, after some time spent in different families, came back to the city, where she became an 'operator' on the sewing-machine. While at this business and living in a respectable boarding-house, she attracted the attention of a gentleman of some means and position, much older than herself, who, at length, offered himself to her in marriage.
She declined, on the ground that she was so much inferior in position to him, and that his family would object. He insisted, and declared that 'he wished to please himself, not his family,' and they were married.
"He took his wife away to a foreign country, where his business lay, and there she has been a number of years, gradually improving in manners, taste, and education, living like a lady of fortune, with her maid and carriage, and making herself, in every way, a most suitable wife for one who had been so much above her. We had often heard of her good fortune. But during our Christmas Festival at the East River School, she herself came in to see it again and thank those who had been so kind to her. We all knew her at once; and yet she was so changed—a pretty, tasteful-looking young lady, with a graceful manner and a Spanish accent now—all the old stamp of 'Dutch Hill' quite gone, even the brogue lost and replaced by foreign intonations. She was perfectly simple and unaffected, and thanked us all for our former kindness with the utmost heartiness; and told her story very simply, and how anxious she still was to improve her education, seemingly not ashamed of her poor origin. It is a pleasant circumstance that she has taken out her beloved teacher, Mrs. Hurley, a number of times to drive in her carriage."
Several changes of fortune of this kind have made it quite a natural question, when I visit Mrs. Hurley's School, "What about the heiresses?"
Another girl, I remember, in one of these shanties, who came to school in an old petticoat, and barefooted, a most destitute-looking child. She was subsequently employed in our own family. I doubt whether many girls of the highest classes show a greater natural refinement; and she was as clever in every part of household work as she was nice. She finally married a hotel-keeper in San Francisco, and is doing well.
Generally, the girls married mechanics and people above their rank of life. Some became Protestants; those who married Catholics were never bigoted. A number went to the West, and have done well there.
Mrs. Hurley reckons over at least two thousand different girls who have been in this school and under its influence, since she has been there during the past eighteen years. The condition of all these we know probably pretty well. We countbut fivewho have become drunkards, prostitutes, or criminals! Such a wonderful result can be shown by hardly any preventive efforts in the world. Yet, there were certain cases which we used to call
There was the D. family—they lived on the lucrative spoils of their infant, who sold toilet-covers to compassionate ladies. This little Julia was an imp of deceit and mischief She had, fortunately for her, a worn, sad face, and a capacity and imagination for lying unequaled at her years. With inarticulate sobs, and the tears coursing down her thin cheeks, she told of her dying mother and her labors to get her bread; or, again, she was an orphan supporting herself and her deformed little brother; or her disabled father depended on her feeble efforts for his slender support. The addresses she gave of her house were always wrong; and so, year by year, she gathered in a plenteous harvest from the pity of the ladies.
At home, a little band of able-bodied, slatternly sisters were living mainly on the money thus begged. They naturally became each day more lazy and dissolute; and little Julia more bold and brazen-faced. We tried to bribe the young beggar to go to school, we paid her rent, we offered the sisters work, we remonstrated and threatened, we even set the police on her track, but nothing could check or turn her; she eluded the police as easily as she did the ladies. If she came to school, she stayed but a day; all effort failed against the ingrained slovenliness and vagrancy of the family; day by day they sank; one daughter was seduced, and to their number was now added an illegitimate child. They grew dirtier and more miserable; and here, years ago, we left them. No doubt, Julia is still pursuing her profitable vocation from house to house, and the girls are in yet lower depths.
"Some ten years ago, I made many efforts to save a little homeless girl, who was floating about the quarter near East Thirty-second Street. Her drunken mother had thrown her out of doors, and she used to sleep under stairways or in deserted cellars, and was a most wretched, half-starved little creature. I talked with her often, but could not induce her to go to school, or to seek a home in the country. She grew up steadily vagrant. At length we succeeded in getting her away to the family of an excellent lady in Buffalo. There she speedily gave up her roving habits, became neat and orderly under the influence of the lady, attended church and Sabbath School, and altogether seemed quite a changed child. Unfortunately, the lady was obliged to move to this city, and instead of placing the little girl in another family in the country, she brought her with her to New York, and, no longer having room for her in her house, let her go to her old associates. In a few weeks, the nice, tidy little girl began to look like the idle and vagrant young girls who were her companions. She became slatternly in her habits, and instead of seeking a place in some family, she joined a company of poor working-girls, who earned their living by manufacturing children's torpedoes. She lodged in the crowded tenement-houses, and gradually fell into all their low associations. The next I knew of her, I heard that she had been seduced under a promise of marriage, and that she was about to be a mother. Again I knew of her, with her unfortunate little babe, driven about from one low lodging-house to another, dependent upon charity for support. Finally, the child was adopted by the parents of her seducer, and she was left free again. Though in extreme destitution, she would not take a situation away from the city. She resumed her work at torpedoes, and lived about in the tenement-houses, a poor, bedraggled-looking creature. Again, after some time, I heard of her as having married a low fellow in that district. She had only been married a few days when her husband abandoned her, and never returned to her. She now hangs about the low lodging-houses between First and Second Avenues, in East Thirty-first and Thirty-second Streets, a forlorn-looking, slovenly woman, who will almost certainly end in the lowest vice and penury."
Thus far in the Journal. Our constant pursuit of this girl did tend, I think, to keep her from utter ruin.
She fell no lower; and subsequently connected herself with one of the charitable institutions, where she is living a virtuous life.
"It sometimes seems in our Industrial Schools as if each wretched, blear-eyed, half-starved, filthy little girl was a living monument of the curses of Intemperance. The rags, the disease, the ignorance, the sunny looks darkened, the old faces on young shoulders, are not necessarily the pitiable effects of overwhelming circumstances. The young creatures are not always cursed by poverty principally, but by the ungoverned appetites, bad habits and vices of their parents. On 'Dutch Hill' one can hardly enter a shanty where is a sober family. The women all drink; the men work, and then carouse. The hard earnings go off in alcohol. No savings are laid up for the winter. The children are ragged and unprotected, and, but for the Industrial School, uneducated. It is sometimes the saddest sight to see a neat little shanty grow day by day more filthy; the furniture sold, the windows broken, the children looking more thin and hungry, the parents falling out of honest work—all the slow effects of ungoverned passion for liquor.
"I entered, yesterday, a little hut on the 'Hill,' where a middle-aged woman lived, whom I knew. She was sitting near the door, weeping violently. I asked her the reason, and, after a little time, she told me. Her eldest daughter, a girl of twenty, had just been in drunk, and had struck her over the eye; and when her mother was looking at her bruise in the glass, she had dashed her fist through the glass.
'"There was no safety there, the mother said, when she came in. If they were away she would burst open the doors and break the furniture, and cut her sewing-work to pieces. 'She is a devil, sir, when she's in liquor!'Three timesthe mother had had her arrested and sent to Blackwell's Island; 'but somehow, sir, she's always worse when she comes out, and I niver heard her use bad words till she'd been there.
"'Now, God knows where she lives—they say it's in a bad house; and it's I who am afraid she's gittin' Tommy, her broder, into the same way, for he doesn't come home now. O God!I might as well be in hell!' Nothing can convey the tone of despair with which that was said. She told me how the girl had been such a bright little one. 'She was so pretty, sir; and maybe we flattered her, and made too much of her. And her father, he thought she ought to learn the dressmakin' trade, but she felt somehow above it, and she went to be a book-folder downtown. And one day we missed her till late o' night; and thin the next night it was later, and at last her father—bless his poor soul!—he said she shouldn't be out so, and whipt her. And thin she niver came back for three nights, and we thought, maybe, she's at her work, and has to stay late; and we niver suspected how it was, when, suddenly, Mrs. Moore came and said as how Maggy said she was at Mrs. Rooney's—the ould divil—and my husband wouldn't belave it at all; but I wint and bust open the door wid a stone, and foundher—my own child—there wid a lot of men and women; and I swore at 'em, and the M. P.'s they come and cleared 'em all out, and there was the last of her. She's niver been an honest woman since, when she's in liquor. It broke her father's heart. He died the next Saturday; people said it was some sort of dysentry, but I know it was this. God help me! And, now, sir (almost fiercely), can't you get me out of this? All I want is, to sell my shanty, and wid my two little ones, git away fromher.I don't care how far!'
"The mother fleeing her daughter. The pretty child becomes a drunken outcast! So ends many a sad history in our city."
"In East Thirty-fourth Street, in a tenement-house, a poor sewing-woman has lived for the last two years. She had formerly been in very good circumstances, and her husband, a respectable mechanic, earned a support for her and her children, until at length he fell into intemperate drinking. With the appetite for liquor on him, everything that he made was spent, and he himself was gradually becoming worse and worse. The poor wife was forced to the hardest work to keep her children and herself alive. Last winter, in a moment of desperation, the husband put his name down for a three-years' whaling voyage, and was taken off to sea, leaving the woman with an old father and three children to care for. Many a night, the old man says, has the poor creature walked up from the lower part of the city (some three or four miles) with four dozen shirts on her back, through snow and wet, and then, without fire or food, in her wet clothes, has worked till the dawn of day for the poor little ones dependent on her. He has seenthe bloodcome from her mouth and nose after some of these efforts. Still more bitter than all this, was the sense of desertion by her husband. But it was all in vain. The children for whom she had slaved, and whom she loved more than her own life, were attacked with scarlet fever, and two of them died in the mother's arms. One only, a sweet little girl, was left. With them went the spring of hope and courage which had sustained the hard-working mother. Her father says she never shed a tear, but she lost heart; and, though never doubting of the goodness of her Great Father, she had not the spirit for the remaining work of life. Her exposures and hard labor had brought on a cough, and finally a disease of the lungs. She was at last unable to work, and could only lie upon her bed and depend on the chance charities of strangers.
"The teacher of our Fortieth-street School, who, in a way unseen and unknown to the world, is a minister of mercy and goodness to all that quarter of the city, first discovered her, and has managed, with a little aid here and there, to lighten her dying hours.
"I was called in the other day and held a long conversation with her. She has no more fears or anxieties; she is not even troubled about her little one. God will care for her. 'Once,' she said, 'I felt it so hard to lose the children, but now I am glad they are gone! They will be much better where they are than here. I have put everything away now,' she added, with an expression of sublime faith and hope on a face whose worn features the hectic flush made almost beautiful again. 'I trust all to my Redeemer. Through him alone I hope. He will forgive me and receive me.' She spoke of her many trials and sorrows—they were all over, and she was glad she was soon to be at rest.
"We asked about her food. She said she could not relish many things, and she often thought if she could only get some of the good old plain things she had in Ireland at her brother's farm she should feel so much better.
"I told her we would get her some good genuine oat-meal cake from an Irish friend. Her face lighted up at once, and she seemed cheered by the promise.
"'Oh, sir! I have thought so much of my mother in this sickness, and those happy, happy days. I was such a happy girl! How little she thought I would come to this! We lived in the North, you know, and had everything very comfortable, as all the Protestant Irish do. But it's all gone, gone,' she said, dreamily, 'and I wouldn't have it back again, for God is the best friend—He knows,
"'Oh, how glad I am to die!His rod and His staff they comfort me.'
"The words were simple, but the whole was touching beyond description, forcing tears whether one would or not.
"We were glad to find that her clergyman, the Missionary of the Calvary Church, had administered the sacraments to her that day. May she soon be where the sting of poverty, the rubs and blows of hard circumstances, the loneliness of desertion, the anxiety and care, and hopelessness, and disappointment which have followed her unhappy path, shall cease forever, and the unfortunate one shall enter on her new and blissful life of peace and abiding love!"
"I was lately visiting a poor woman, who had seen better circumstances, the wife of a worker in an iron-foundry. The room was bare but clean, and the woman was neatly dressed, though her face looked thin and worn, and her eyes had an unusual expression of settled, sad discouragement. A little girl of ten or eleven sat near her tending a baby, with the same large sad blue eyes, as if the expression of the mother had come to receive a permanent reflection in the child's face. Her husband had been sick for several months, which put them all behind, though now he was getting work enough.
"'You know how it is, sir,' she said, 'with working people: if a man falls out of work for a day, the family feels it for a week after. We can hardly make the two ends meet when he's well, and the moment he is sick it comes hard upon us. Many's the morning he's gone down to the foundry without his breakfast, and I've had to send out the little Maggy there, to the neighbors, for bits of bread, and then she's taken it down to him.'
"'She is a beggar, then?'
"'Yes, sir, and sorrow of it. We never thought we could come to that. My mother brought me up most dacently, and my husband, he's a very good scholard, and could be a clark or anything, but we can't help it! We must have bread. I would be willing to do anything, wash, scrub, or do plain sewing; and I keep trying, but I never find anything. There seems no help for us; and I sometimes feel clean gone and down-hearted: and I'm troubled at other things, too."
"'What other things?'
"'At my sin, ye see.'
"'What do you mean?'
"'Well, sir, if I could only have peace of mind! But I work on from Monday morn to Saturday night, and I never hear or see anything good; and when Sunday comes, I can't go out; I haven't any bonnet for my head, or any dress fit for a dacent church. I just walk the floor, and I don't dare to think of ever meeting God."
"'Are you a Catholic?'
"'Yes, sir; I was brought up one, and so was my husband, but now it's little we know, as they say, of mass, meeting, or church; we ain't neither Catholics or Protestants; I might as well be a haythen. We haven't any books, nor a prayer-book, or anything. I know it, sir, we ought to pray," she continued, "but I kneel down sometimes, and I get up and say to my husband, 'It's no use my praying, I am too much distracted.' If I could only get some good to my soul, for I think of dying often, and I see I should not be at all ready.Life is a burden to me.' I spoke of the hopes and consolations which can come to poor as well as rich, and of her children. 'Yes, sir; no one can tell the patience of the Lord. How much He has borne from me! Oh, if I could only have peace of mind, and see those children getting on well, I should be glad to die. That little girl cries every time we send her out to beg, and she's learning nothing good. But I am afraid nothing will ever come lucky to us; and oh, sir, if you could have seen how we started in Ireland, and what a home my mother had; she was a very different woman from what I am.'
"We spoke of her attending the mission meeting in Fortieth Street, and reading a Testament given by us. She seemed glad to do both.
"'Oh, sir, if I could only feel that friendship with God you spoke of, I shouldn't care; I could bear anything; but to work as we are doing, and to have such trouble, and see the poor wee thing grow thinner and poorer, and my man almost down broken, and then to get no nearer—no, we keep getting farther from the Lord! Oh, if I was only ready to die! I haven't nothing in this world.'
"Let us hope that the peace-giving words of Christ, the love of the Redeemer, may at length plant in that poor, weary discouraged soul the seeds of hope and immortal faith, even as they have done in so many thousands weary and heavy-laden!"
"Most of those familiar with the East River Industrial School will remember a poor widow—a swill-gatherer—who lived in the notorious village of shanties near Forty-second Street, known as 'Dutch Hill.' She owned a small shanty, which had been put up on some rich man's lot as a squatter's hut, and there, with her pigs and dogs and cat in the same room, she made her home. From morning till evening she was trailing about the streets, filling up her swill-cans, and at night she came back to the little dirty den, and spent her evenings—we hardly know how. She had one smart little girl who went to the Industrial School. As the child came back day by day, improving in appearance, singing her sweet songs, and with new ideas of how ladies looked and lived, the mother began to grow ashamed of her nasty home. And I remember entering one day, and finding, to my surprise, pigs and rubbish cleared out, the walls well scrubbed, and an old carpet on the floor, and the mother sitting in state on a chair! It was the quiet teachings of the school coming forth in the houses of the poor.
"After a while the little girl began to get higher ideas of what she might become, and went out with another girl to a place in the West. She did well there, and was contented, but her mother was continually anxious and unhappy about her, and finally, after some years, forced her to return to the city. She was now a very neat, active young girl, far above her mother's condition, and the change back to the pig-shanty and Dutch Hill was anything but pleasant. The old woman hid away her best clothes to prevent her going back, and seemed determined to make her a swill-gatherer like herself. Gradually, as might be expected, we began to hear bad stories about our old scholar. The people of the neighborhood said, she drank and quarreled with her mother, and that she was frequenting houses where low company met. Another of the worst Dutch Hill girls—the daughter of a drunkard—was constantly with her. Soon we heard that the other young girl had been sent to Blackwell's Island, and that this one must be saved now, or she would be utterly lost. I went up at once to the old woman's shanty, though with but the feeblest hopes of doing anything, yet with many unuttered prayers. For who that knows the career before the street-girl of the city can help breathing out his soul in agony of prayer for her, when the time of choice comes?
"When I entered the shanty, the young girl was asleep on the bed, and the mother sat on a box, crooning and weeping.
"'Och, and why did I iver tak ye from that swate place—ye that was makin' an honest woman of yoursel'! Ach, God bless your honor! can ye help her? She's a'most gone. Can't ye do somethin'?'
"'Well, how is she doing now?'
"'Och (in a whisper), your honor, she brought three bad fellers last night, and she brake my own door in, and I tould 'em-says I, I'm an honest woman, and I never had ony sich in my kin—and she was drunk—yes, yer honor, she, my own darlint, strak me, and wanted to turn me out—and now there she's been sleepin' all the mornin'. Ach, why did I tak her out of her place!'
"Here the girl woke up, and sat up on the bed, covering her face in shame. I said some few sober words to her, and then the mother threw herself down on the floor, tears pouring down her cheeks.
"'Ach, darlint! my own swate darlint! will ye not list to the gintleman?Sure an' ye wouldn't bring disgrace to yer ould mither and yer family!We've had six generations of honest people, and niver wan like this!Ach, to think of comin' to your ind on the Island, and be on the town!For the love of the blessed Vargin,dogive them all up, and say yewon't taste a drop—do, darlint!'
"The girl seemed obdurate; so I took up the sermon, and we both pleaded, and pictured the shame and pain and wretched life and more wretched death before her. There is no need of delicacy in such cases, and the strongest old Bible Saxon words come home the deepest. At last, her tears began to flow, and finally she gave her full assent to breaking off from liquor and from her bad company (it should be remembered she was only about sixteen); and she would show her repentance by going back to the place where she was, if they would receive her. I hardly expected she would do so; but in a day or two she was in the office, and started for her old situation. Since that we have had a letter from her and her mistress, and she seems to be getting on wonderfully well. May God uphold her!
"The following is a letter we have received from her since:
"'B——, PENN., October 11.
"'MY DEAR MOTHER—I have the pleasure of writing a few lines to you, to let you know that I am well. I got safe back to my place; kind friends took me back again; I have got into the country, where there is plenty of everything to live on. Dear mother, I would like very much to hear from you. I hope you are all well; please write soon. I want you to show this letter to Miss Spratt. [Now Mrs. Hurley.] Good-by, dear mother. M.
"'DEAR MISS SPRATT—As I was writing to my mother, I thought I would like to write a few lines to you. Now that I am so far away, I feel a grateful remembrance of your kindness, I am very sorry I did not have a chance of going to see you before I left the city. Please tell Mr. Brace I am much obliged to him for his kindness: tell him I got safe back to Mr. M.'s, and have a very good home. Good-by, Miss Spratt'"
The East River Industrial School (at No. 206 East Fortieth Street) still continues its humble but profound labors of love. Mrs. Hurley is still there, the "Mend of the poor" for miles around, carrying sympathy, advice, and assistance to thousands of unbefriended creatures, and teaching faithfully all day in the School. Two gentlemen have especially aided her in providing food and clothing for her little ones; and the lady-volunteers still give liberally of their means and time. May the School long shine as a light in one of the dark places of the city.