"This letter is from a farmer—a deaf-mute—who has a destitute deaf-mute lad placed with him:—
"'C—— H——, IND., March 5, 1860.
"'MY DEAR SIR—I received your kind letter some days ago. It has given me great pleasure to hear that you had arrived at your home. I got a report from you. The first of the time when you left D——, he cried and stamped on the floor by the door, but I took him to show him the horses; I told him when he will be a big man I would give him a horse. Then he quit crying, and he began to learn A, B, C, on that day when you left here. Now D—— is doing very well, and plays the most of anything; he likes to stay here very well; he can learn about dog and cat. I am willing to take care of him over twenty-one years old, if he stays here as long as he ever gets to be twenty-one years old; then I will give him a horse, money, clothes, school, etc. Last Saturday, D—— rode on my colt himself; the colt is very gentle; on advice, he got off the colt; he petted the colt the most of time; he likes to play with the young colt. He likes to stay with me, and he said he don't like to go back where you are. He gathers chips and fetches wood in the stove, and is willing to do all his work directly. I wonder that he bold boy and mock some neighbors. "'Yours truly, friend, "'L. F. W.
"'Write a letter to me immediately and let me know. He likes to go about with me, but not when it is very cold; I send him to stay in the house, out of the cold. When it is warm day, he likes to go about with me. Sometimes he goes to town. He pets the colt every day; sometimes he waters the colt and feed some corn himself.'"
——
"In our first Report there was an account of a little boy, whom our visitor, Rev. Mr. Smith, found under a cart in the street, gnawing a bone which he had picked up for his breakfast. He had a good-natured little face, and a fine, dark eye. Mr. S. felt for him, and said, 'Where do you live, my boy?'
'Don't live nowhere.''But, where do you stay?' He said a woman had taken him in, in Thirteenth Street, and that he slept in one corner of her room. His mother had left him, and 'lived all about, doin' washin'.' Mr. Smith went around with him to the place, and found a poor, kind woman, who had only a bare room and just enough to live, and yet had sheltered and fed the wretched little creature. 'She was the poorest creature in New York,' she said, 'but somehow everything that was poor always came to her, and while God gave her anything, she meant to share it with those who were poorer than she.' The boy was sent to Pennsylvania, and the following is the letter from his mistress, or rather friend, to the poor mother here. It speaks for itself. May God bless the kind mother's heart, which has taken in thus the outcast child!
"'H——, PENN., Dec 8, 1855.
"'Mr. Q——: I have but a moment to write this morning. You wish to know how Johnny, as you call him, gets along. We do not know him by that name. Having a William and a John before he came here, we have given him the name of Frederick; he is generally called Freddy. He is well, and has been, since I last wrote to you. He is a very healthy boy, not having been sick a day since he came here. His feet trouble him at times very much; they are so tender that he is obliged to wear stockings and shoes all the year. We do not expect his feet will ever bear the cold, as they were so badly frozen while on the way from the city here. But do not imagine that he suffers much, for he does not. When his boots or shoes are new, he complains a good deal; but after a little he gets along without scarcely noticing it. To-day our winter's school commences. Samuel, Freddy, and Emily will attend; and I hope Freddy will be able to write to you when the school closes. He learns to write very easy, and will, with little pains, make a good penman. He is an excellent speller—scarcely ever spells a word wrong—but he is not a good reader; but we think he will be, as we call him ambitious and persevering, and he is unwilling to be behind boys of his age. Do you ask if he is a good boy? I can assure you he has the name of a good boy throughout the neighborhood; and wherever he is known, his kind, obliging manners make him many friends. Again, do you inquire if he is beloved At home? I will unhesitatingly say that we surely love him as our own; and we have had visitors here for a number of days without once thinking that he was not our own child.
"'I wish you could see the children as they start for school this morning. Fred, with his black plush cap, green tunic, black vest, gray pants, striped mittens, and his new comforter, which he bought with his own money. Samuel carries the dinner-pail this morning; it is filled with bread and butter, apple pie, and gingerbread; and Fred has his slate, reader, spelling-book, and Testament—and he has not forgotten to go down to the cellar and fill his pockets with apples.
"'I am not very well, and I make bad work of writing. I am afraid you will not find out what I have written.
"'Fred often speaks of you, and of his dear sister Jane. He wants you totell Mr. Brace how you get along, and get him to write to us all aboutit."'With desire for your welfare,"'I subscribe myself your friend,"'Sally L——.'"
"The boy of whom this is written was taken from one of the CityPrisons:—
"'H——, Oct. 12, 1865.
"'DEAR SIR—Yours, making inquiries about F. C, was duly received. His health has been generally good and so far as his behavior is concerned, it has been as good as could have been expected from the history he has given us of himself, previous to his coming to live with us. We soon learned that very little dependence could be placed on his truthfulness or honesty; in fact, he was a fair specimen of New York juvenile vagrancy. He has wanted a close supervision, and we have endeavored to correct what was wrong, and to inculcate better things, and, we think, with some success. He has learned to read and spell very well; besides these, he has attended to writing and arithmetic, and has made some improvement in them. The first winter that he came to live with us, we did not think it best to send him to our Public School, but kept him under our own personal instruction. The last winter he attended our Public School five and a half months. He has been in our Sabbath School from the time he first came, and has usually had his lessons well. He has, from the first, been glad to attend all religious meetings, and we think that his moral perception of things has much improved, and we can but hope that, with proper attention, he may grow up to be a useful and respectable man. He seemed quite satisfied with his home. "'Yours, most respectfully, "'C. S. B.'"
"This, again, is about a poor friendless little girl, sent to a goodfamily in old Connecticut:—
"'N——, CT., Oct. 11, 1855."'MR. MACY:
"'Dear Sir—With regard to Sarah, I would say that she is a very good girl, and is also useful to us, and, I think, fitting herself to be useful to herself at a future day.
"'She has now been with us about two and a half years, and has become a part of our family; and we should feel very sorry to part with her. She attended school last winter at the N. Union High School, which affords advantages equal to any school in the country. She made much improvement in her studies, and at the end of the winter term a public examination was held at the school, and Mr. B., the Principal, stated, in presence of more than three hundred persons, that Sarah G. lived in my family, and was taken by me from the "Children's Aid Society," of New York; and stated, also, that when she commenced to go to school, she was unable to read a word, and wished them to notice the improvement that had been made in her case. The audience seemed to be surprised that she had been able to accomplish so much in so short a time.
"'She also attends Sabbath School very regularly, and gets her lessons very perfectly, and appears to take great delight in doing so. I think she has improved in many respects. She speaks, occasionally of the way in which she used to live in New York, and of the manner in which she was treated by her parents, when they were alive, and says she can never be thankful enough to the kind friends, who, being connected with the Children's Aid Society, sought her out, and provided her with a comfortable home in the country, far removed from the temptations, and vices, and miseries of a city like New York. I would say that she has not been to school the past summer, and that she had made little progress in penmanship during her attendance last winter, and that she is not now able to write you herself, but I think will be able to do so when you wish to hear from her again. "'Respectfully yours, "'WM. K. L.'"
——
"YALE COLLEGE, NEW HAVEN, OCT. 11, 1871."Rev. C. L. Brace, Secretary Children's Aid Society:
"Dear Sir—I shall endeavor in this letter to give you a brief sketch of my life, as it is your request that I should.
"I cannot speak of my parents with any certainty at all. I recollect having an aunt by the name of Julia B——. She had me in charge for some time, and made known some things to me of which I have a faint remembrance. She married a gentleman in Boston, and left me to shift for myself in the streets of your city. I could not have been more than seven or eight years of age at this time. She is greatly to be excused for this act, since I was a very bad boy, having an abundance of self-will.
"At this period I became a vagrant, roaming over all parts of the city. I would often pick up a meal at the markets or at the docks, where they were unloading fruit. At a late hour in the night I would find a resting-place in some box or hogshead, or in some dark hole under a staircase.
"The boys that I fell in company with would steal and swear, and of course I contracted those habits too. I have a distinct recollection of stealing up upon houses to tear the lead from around the chimneys, and then take it privily away to some junk-shop, as they call it; with the proceeds I would buy a ticket for the pit in the Chatham-street Theatre, and something to eat with the remainder. This is the manner in which I was drifting out in the stream of life, when some kind person from your Society persuaded me to go to Randall's Island. I remained at this place two years. Sometime in July, 1859, one of your agents came there and asked how many boys who had no parents would love to have nice homes in the West, where they could drive horses and oxen, and have as many apples and melons as they should wish. I happened to be one of the many who responded in the affirmative.
"On the 4th of August twenty-one of us had homes procured for us at N——, Ind. A lawyer from T——, who chanced to be engaged in court matters, was at N—— at the time. He desired to take a boy home with him, and I was the one assigned him. He owns a farm of two hundred acres lying close to town. Care was taken that I should be occupied there and not in town. I was always treated as one of the family. In sickness I was ever cared for by prompt attention. In winter I was sent to the Public School. The family room was a good school to me, for there I found the daily papers and a fair library.
"After a period of several years I taught a Public School in a little log cabin about nine miles from T——. There I felt that every man ought to be a good man, especially if he is to instruct little children.
"Though I had my pupils read the Bible, yet I could not openly ask God's blessing on the efforts of the day. Shortly after I united myself with the Church. I always had attended Sabbath School at T——. Mr. G—— placed me in one the first Sabbath. I never doubted the teachings of the Scriptures. Soon my pastor presented the claims of the ministry. I thought about it for some time, for my ambition was tending strongly toward the legal profession. The more I reflected the more I felt how good God had been to me all my life, and that if I had any ability for laboring in His harvest, He was surely entitled to it.
"I had accumulated some property on the farm in the shape of a horse, a yoke of oxen, etc., amounting in all to some $800. These I turned into cash, and left for a preparatory school. This course that I had entered upon did not meet with Mr. G——'s hearty approbation. At the academy I found kind instructors and sympathizing friends. I remained there three years, relying greatly on my own efforts for support. After entering the class of '74' last year, I was enabled to go through with it by the kindness of a few citizens here.
"I have now resumed my duties as a Sophomore, in faith in Him who has ever been my best friend. If I can prepare myself for acting well my part in life by going through the college curriculum, I shall be satisfied.
"I shall ever acknowledge with gratitude that the Children's Aid Society has been the instrument of my elevation.
"To be taken from the gutters of New York city and placed in a college is almost a miracle.
"I am not an exception either. Wm. F——, who was taken West during the war, in a letter received from W—— College, dated Oct. 7, writes thus: 'I have heard that you were studying for the ministry, so am I. I have a long time yet before I enter the field, but I am young and at the right age to begin.' My prayer is that the Society may be amplified to greater usefulness. Yours very truly, "JOHN G. B."
C——, Mich., Oct. 26, 1871.
"Dear Sir—I received your very kind and welcome letter a few days since, and I assure you that I felt very much rejoiced to know that you felt that same interest in hearing and knowing how your Western boys and girls get along, as you have expressed in former times.
"In your letter you spoke of the time you accompanied our company of boys to the West as not seeming so long to you as it really was. For my own part, if I could not look to the very many pleasant scenes that it has been my privilege to enjoy while I have been in the West, I do not think it would seem so long to me since we all marched two and two for the boat up the Hudson River on our route for Michigan. There were some among us who shed a few tears as we were leaving the city, as we all expected, for the last time. But as we sped on and saw new sights, we very willingly forgot the city with all its dusty atmosphere and temptations and wickedness, for the country all around us was clothed in its richest foliage; the birds were singing their sweetest songs, and all nature seemed praising our Heavenly Father in high notes of joy.
"In the midst of this enchantment we were introduced to the farmers in the vicinity of A——, and then and there we many of us separated to go home with those kind friends, and mould the character of our future life.
"For my own part, I was more than fortunate, for I secured a home withgoodman and every comfort of life I enjoyed. I had the benefit of good schools until I was nearly of age, and when I became of age a substantial present of eighty acres of good farming land, worth fifty dollars per acre, was given me, and thus I commenced life. Once a New York pauper, now a Western farmer. If these lines should chance to meet the eyes of any boy or girl in your Society, I would say to them, don't delay, but go to the West and there seek your home and fortune. You may have some trials and temptations to overcome, but our lives seem happier when we know that we have done our duties and have done the will of our Heavenly Father, who has kindly cared for us all through our lives.
"Last winter it was my privilege to be with you all through the Christmas festivities, and it did my soul good to return and enjoy Christmas with you after an absence of nearly fifteen years. I met you there as I also did at the Newsboys' Lodging-house. Those were times of rejoicing to me to see the wickedness we escaped by not staying at large in your city. When I returned home I brought with me a girl of eleven years of age, and intend to do as well by her as my circumstances will allow. I have been married nearly three years, and by God's grace assisting us we intend to meet you all on the other shore. I have written you a very long letter, but I will now close. I shall be pleased to hear from you again at any time when you feel at liberty to write. Hoping to hear from you soon again, I remain truly your friend, C. H. J——."
With reference to the cost of this method of charity, we have usually estimated the net expenses of the agent, his salary, the railroad fares, food and clothing for the child, as averaging fifteen dollars per head for each child sent. Whenever practicable, the agent collects from the employers the railroad expenses, and otherwise obtains gifts from benevolent persons; so that, frequently, our collections and "returned fares" in this way have amounted to $6,000 or $8,000 per annum. These gifts, however, are becoming less and less, and will probably eventually cease altogether; the former feeling that he has done his fair share in receiving and training the child.
We are continually forced, also, towards the newer and more distant States, where labor is more in demand, and the temper of the population is more generous, so that the average expense of the aid thus given will in the future be greater for each boy or girl relieved.
The opposition, too, of the bigoted poor increases, undoubtedly under the influence of some of the more prejudiced priests, who suppose that the poor are thus removed from ecclesiastical influences. A class of children, whom we used thus to benefit, are now sent to the Catholic Protectory, or are retained in the City Alms-house on Randall's Island.
Were our movement allowed its full scope, we could take the place of every Orphan Asylum and Alms-house for pauper children in and around New York, and thus save the public hundreds of thousands of dollars, and immensely benefit the children. We could easily "locate" 5,000 children per annum, from the ages of two years to fifteen, in good homes in the West, at an average net cost of fifteen dollars per head.
If Professor Fawcett's objection [See Fawcett on "Pauperism."] be urged, that we are thus doing for the children of the Alms-house poor, what the industrious and self-supporting poor cannot get done for their own children, we answer that we are perfectly ready to do the same for the outside hard-working poor; but their attachment to the city, their ignorance or bigotry, and their affection for their children, will always prevent them from making use of such a benefaction to any large degree. The poor, living in their own homes, seldom wish to send out their children in this way. We do "place out" a certain number of such children; but the great majority of our little emigrants are the "waifs and strays" of the streets in a large city.
The Charity I am describing has been singularly fortunate in its agents; but in none more so than in those who performed its responsible work in the West.
Mr. E. P. Smith, who writes the interesting description above, of the first expedition we sent to the West, has since become honorably distinguished by labors among the freedmen as agent of the Christian Commission.
Our most successful agent, however, was Mr. C. C. Tracy, who had a certain quaintness of conversation and anecdote, and a solid kindness and benevolence, which won his way with the Western farmers, as well as the little flocks he conducted to their new fold.
One of his favorite apothegms became almost a proverb.
"Won't the boy ran away?" was the frequent anxious inquiry from the farmers.
"Did ye ever see a cow runawayfrom a haystack?" was Mr. Tracy's, rejoinder. "Treat him well, and he'll be sure to stay."
And the bland and benevolent manner in which he would reply to an irritated employer, who came back to report that the "New-York boy" had knocked over the milk-pail, and pelted the best cow, and let the cattle in the corn, and left the young turkeys in the rain, etc, etc, was delightful to behold.
"My dear friend, can you expect boys to be perfect at once? Didn't you ever pelt the cattle when you were a boy?"
Mr. T. testified before the Senate Committee in 1871, that he had transplanted to the West some four or five thousand children, and, to the best of his knowledge and belief, very few ever turned out bad.
Whenever any of these children chanced to be defective in mind or body, or, from any other cause, became chargeable on the rural authorities, we made ourselves responsible for their support, during any reasonable time after their settlement in the West.
Our present agents, Mr. E. Trott and Mr. J. P. Brace, are exceedingly able and judicious agents, so that we transported, in 1871, to the country, some three thousand children, at an expense, including all salaries and costs, of $31,638.
We have also a resident Western agent, Mr. C. R. Fry, who looks after the interests of those previously sent and prepares for future parties, traveling from village to village. The duties of all these agents are very severe and onerous.
It is a matter of devout thankfulness that no accident has ever happened to any one of the many parties of children we have sent out, or to the agents.
The following testimony was given by Mr. J. Macy, Assistant Secretary of the Children's Aid Society, before the Senate Committee, in 1871:—
"Mr. J. Macy testified that he corresponds annually with from eight thousand to ten thousand persons, and, on an average, receives about two thousand letters from children and their employers. He has personal knowledge of a great many boys growing up to be respectable citizens, others having married well, others graduating in Western colleges. Out of twenty-one thousand, not over twelve children have turned out criminals, The percentage of boys returning to the city from the West is too small to be computed, not more than six annually. From correspondence and personal knowledge, he is thoroughly satisfied that but very few turned out bad, and that the only way of saving large boys from falling into criminal practices is to send them into good country-homes. He regarded the system of sending families to the West as one of the best features of the work of the Society. Not a family has been sent West which has not improved by the removal. The Society had never changed the name of a child, and Catholic children had often been intrusted to Catholic families." * * * * *
"Letter from a newsboy to the Superintendent of the Lodging-house:—
"M——, IND., Nov. 24, 1859.
"'TO MY FRIEND AND BENEFACTOR.—So I take my pen in my hand to let you know how I am, and how I am getting along; As far as I see, I am well satisfied with my place; but I took a general look around, and, as far as I see, all the boys left in M—— are doing well, especially myself, and I think there is as much fun as in New York, for nuts and apples are all free. I am much obliged to you, Mr. O'Connor, for the paper you sent me. I received it last night; I read it last night—something about the Newsboys' Lodging-house.
"'All the newsboys of New York have a bad name; but we should show ourselves, and show them, that we are no fools; that we can become as respectable as any of their countrymen, for some of you poor boys can do something for your country-for Franklin, Webster, Clay, were poor boys once, and even Commodore V. C. Perry or Math. C. Perry. But even George Law, and Vanderbilt, and Astor—some of the richest men of New York—and Math. and V. C. Perry were nothing but printers, and in the navy on Lake Erie. And look at Winfield Scott. So now, boys, stand up and let them see you have got the real stuff in you. Come out here and make respectable and honorable men, so they can say, there, that boy was once a newsboy.
"'Now, boys, you all know I have tried everything. I have been a newsboy and when that got slack, you know I have smashed baggage. I have sold nuts; I have peddled, I have worked on the rolling billows up the canal. I was a boot-black; and you know when I sold papers I was at the top of our profession. I had a good stand of my own, but I found that all would not do. I could not get along, but I am now going ahead. I have a first-rate home, ten dollars a month, and my board; and I tell you, fellows, that is a great deal more than I could scrape up my best times in New York. We are all on an equality, my boys, out here, so long as we keep yourselves respectable.
"'Mr. O'Connor, tell Fatty or F. John Pettibone, to send me a Christmas number ofFrank Leslie'sandHarper's Weekly,aWeekly Newsor some other pictorials to read, especially theNewsboys' Pictorial,if it comes out. No old papers, or else none. If they would get some other boys to get me some books. I want something to read.
"I hope this letter will find you in good health, as it leaves me. Mr.O'Connor, I expect an answer before two weeks—a letter and a paper.Write to me all about the Lodging-house. With this I close my letter,with much respect to all."'I remain your truly obedient friend,"'J. K.'"
A sketch of the long and successful efforts for the improvement of the dangerous classes we have been describing would be imperfect without an account of
This has become a kind of eddying-point, where the two streams of the fortunate and the unfortunate classes seem to meet. Such a varying procession of humanity as passes through these plain rooms, from one year's end to the other, can nowhere else be seen. If photographs could be taken of the human life revealed there, they would form a volume of pictures of the various fortunes of large classes in a great city. On one day, there will be several mothers with babes. They wish them adopted, or taken by any one. They relate sad stories of desertion and poverty; they are strangers or immigrants. When the request is declined, they beseech, and say that the child must die, for they cannot support both. It is but too plain that, they are illegitimate children; As they depart, the horrible feeling presses on one, that the child will soon follow the fate of so many thousands born out of wedlock. Again, a pretty young woman comes to beg a home for the child of some friend, who cannot support it. Her story need not be told; the child is hers, and is the offspring of shame. Or some person from the higher classes enters, to inquire for the traces of some boy, long disappeared—the child of passion and sin.
But the ordinary frequenters are the children of the street—the Arabs and gypsies of our city.
Here enters a little flower-seller, her shawl drawn over her head, barefooted and ragged—she begs for a home and bread; here a newsboy, wide-awake and impudent, but softened by his desire to "get West;" here "a bummer," ragged, frouzy, with tangled hair and dirty face, who has slept for years in boxes and privies; here a "canawl-boy," who cannot steer his little craft in the city as well as he could his boat; or a petty thief who wishes to reform his ways, or a bootblack who has conceived the ambition of owning land, or a little "revolver" who hopes to get quarters for nothing in a Lodging-house and "pitch pennies" in the interval. Sometimes some yellow-haired German boy, stranded by fortune in the city, will apply, with such honest blue eyes, that the first employer that enters will carry him off; or a sharp, intelligent Yankee lad, left adrift by sudden misfortune, comes in to do what he has never done before—ask for assistance. Then an orphan-girl will appear, floating on the waves of the city, having come here no one knows why, and going no one can tell whither.
Employers call to obtain "perfect children;" drunken mothers rush in to bring back their children they have already consented should be sent far from poverty and temptation; ladies enter to find the best object of their charities, and the proper field for their benevolent labors; liberal donors; "intelligent foreigners," inquiring into our institutions, applicants for teachers' places, agents, and all the miscellaneous crowd who support and visit agencies of charity.
The central figure in this office, disentangling all the complicated threads in these various applications, and holding himself perfectly cool and bland in this turmoil, is "a character"—Mr. J. Macy.
He was employed first as a visitor for the Society; but, soon betraying a kind of bottled-up "enthusiasm of humanity" under a very modest exterior, he was put in his present position, where he has become a sort of embodied Children's Aid Society in his own person. Most men take their charities as adjuncts to life, or as duties enjoined by religion or humanity. Mr. Macy lives in his. He is never so truly happy as when he is sitting calmly amid a band of his "lambs," as he sardonically calls the heavy-fisted, murderous-looking young vagabonds who frequent the Cottage place Reading-room, and seeing them all happily engaged in reading or quiet, amusements. Then the look of beatific satisfaction that settles over his face, as, in the midst of a loving passage of his religious address to them, he takes one of the obstreperous lambs by the collar, and sets him down very hard on another bench—never for a moment breaking the thread or sweet tone of his bland remarks—is a sight to behold; you know that he is happier there than he would be in a palace.
His labors with these youthful scapegraces around Cottage Place, during the last fifteen years, would form one of the most instructive chapters in the history of philanthropy. I have beheld him discoursing sweetly on the truths of Christianity while a storm of missiles was coming through the windows; in fact, during the early days of the meeting, the windows were always barricaded with boards. The more violent the intruders were, the more amiable, and at the same time, the more firm he became.
In fact, he never seemed so well satisfied as when the roughest little "bummers" of the ward entered his Boys' Meeting. The virtuous and well-behaved children did not interest him half so much. By a patience which is almost incredible, and a steady kindness of years, he finally succeeded in subduing these wild young vagrants, frequently being among them every night of the week, holding magic-lantern exhibitions, temperance meetings, social gatherings, and the like, till he really knew them and attracted their sympathies. His cheerfulness was high when the meeting grew into an Industrial School, where the little girls, who perplexed him so, could be trained by female hands, and his happiness was at its acme when the liberality of one or two gentlemen enabled him to open a Reading-room for "the lambs." The enterprise was always an humble one in appearance; but such were the genuineness and spirit of humanity in it—the product of his sisters as well as himself—that it soon met with kind support from various ladies and gentlemen, and now is one of those lights in dark places which must gladden any observer of the misery and crime of this city.
Mr. Macy's salvation in these exhausting and nerve-wearing efforts, and divers others which I have not detailed, is his humor. I have seen him take two lazy-looking young men, who had applied most piteously for help, conduct them very politely to the door, and, pointing amiably to the Third Avenue, say, "Now, my boys, just be kind enough to walk right north up that avenue for one hundred miles into the, country, and you will find plenty of work and food. Good-by! good-by!" The boys depart, mystified.
Or a dirty little fellow presents himself in the office. "Please, sir, I am an orphant, and I want a home!" Mr. Macy eyes him carefully; his knowledge of"paidology"has had many years to ripen in; he sees, perhaps, amid his rags, a neatly-sewed patch, or notes that his naked feet are too white for a "bummer." He takes him to the inner office. "My boy! Where do you live? Where's your father?"
"Please, sir, I don't live nowhere, and I hain't got no father, and me mither is dead!" Then follows a long and touching story of his orphanage, the tears flowing down his cheeks. The bystanders are almost melted themselves. Not so Mr. Macy. Grasping the boy by the shoulder, "Where's your mother, I say?" "Oh, dear, I'm a poor orphant, and I hain't got no mither!" "Where is yourmother, I say? Where do you live? I give you just three minutes to tell, and then, if you do not, I shall hand you over to that officer!" The lad yields; his true story is told, and a runaway restored to his family.
In the midst of his highest discouragements at Cottage Place, Mr. Macy frequently had some characteristic story of his "lambs" to refresh him in his intervals of rest And some peculiar exhibition of mischief or wickedness always seemed to act as a kind of tonic on him and restore his spirits.
I shall not forget the cheerfulness with which he related one day that, after having preached with great unction the Sunday previous on "stealing," he came back the next and discovered that a private room in the building, which he only occasionally used, had been employed by the boys for some time as a receptacle for stolen goods!
On another occasion, he had held forth with peculiar "liberty" on the sin of thieving, and, when he sat down almost exhausted, discovered, to his dismay, that his hat had been stolen! But, knowing that mischief was at the bottom, and that a crowd of young "roughs" were outside waiting to see him go home bareheaded, he said nothing of his loss, but procured a cap and quietly walked away.
I think the contest of wits among them—they for mischief and disturbance, and he to establish order and get control over them—gave a peculiar zest to his religious labors, which he would not have had in calmer scenes and more regular services. If they put pepper on the stove, he endured it much longer than they could, and kept them until they were half suffocated; and when they barricaded the door outside, he protracted the devotional exercises or varied them with a "magic lantern," to give time for forcing the door, and an orderly exit. [Mr. Macy, on one occasion, on a bitter winter day, found the lock of the room picked and the boys within. He accused some of the larger boys. They denied, "No sir—no: it couldn't be us; because we was in the liquor-shop on the corner;we ain't got nowhere else to go to!"]
The girls, however, were his great torment, especially when they stoned their spiritual guides; these, however, he eventually forwarded into the Cottage place Industrial School, which sprang from the Meeting, and there they were gradually civilized.
For real suffering and honest effort at self-help, he had a boundless sympathy; but the paupers and professional beggars were the terror of his life. He dreaded nothing so much as a boy or girl falling into habits of dependence. Where he was compelled to give assistance in money, he has been known to set one boy to throw wood down and the other to pile it up, before he would aid.
His more stormy philanthropic labors have been succeeded by calmer efforts among a delightful congregation of poor German children in Second Street, who love and revere him. When he needs, however, a little refreshment and intoning, he goes over to his Cottage-place Reading-room, and sits with or instructs his "lambs!"
His main work, however, is in the "office" of the Children's Aid Society, which I have described above. Though a plain half-Quaker himself, he has all the tact of adiplomat,and manages the complicated affairs of poverty and crime that come before him with a wonderful skin, getting on as well with the lady as the street-vagrant, and seldom ever making a blunder in the thousand delicate matters which pass through his hands. When it is remembered that some seventeen thousand street-children have passed through that office to homes in the country, and that but one lawsuit has ever occurred about them (and that through no mistake of the Society), while numbers of bitter enemies watch every movement of this charity, it will be seen with what consummate judgment these delicate matters have been managed. Besides all this, he is the guide, philosopher, and friend of hundreds of these young wayfarers in every part of the country, sustaining with them an enormous correspondence; but, as sympathy, and advice, and religious instruction on such a gigantic scale would soon weary out even his vitality, he stereotypes his letters, and, by a sort of pious fraud, says to each what is written for all. It is very interesting to come across the quaint, affectionate words and characteristic expressions of this devoted philanthropist addressed to "his boys," but put up in packages of a thousand copies, and to think to how many little rovers over the land they bring sympathy and encouragement.
One of the trials of a young Charity is raising money. I was determined to put this on as sound and rational a basis as possible. It seemed to me, that, if the facts were well known in regard to the great suffering and poverty among the children in New York, and the principles of our operations were well understood, we could more safely depend on this enlightened public opinion and sympathy than on any sudden "sensation" or gush of feeling.
Our Board fully concurred in these views, and we resolutely eschewed all "raffles" and pathetic exhibitions of abandoned children, and "pedestrian" or other exhibitions offered as for the benefit of humanity, and never even enjoyed the perfectly legitimate benefit of a "fair." Once, in a moment of enthusiasm I was led into arranging a concert, for the benefit of a School; but that experience was enough. Our effort at musical benevolence became a series of most inharmonious squabbles. The leading soprano singer had a quarrel with the bass; the instrumental split with the vocal performers; our best solo went off in a huff, and, at last, by superhuman exertions, we reconciled the discordant elements and got our concert fairly before the public, and retired with a few hundred dollars.
Whatever gave the public a sensation, always had a reaction. The solid ground for us was evidently the most rational one. I accordingly made the most incessant exertions to enlighten and stir up the public. In this labor the most disagreeable part was presenting our "cause" to individuals. I seldom solicited money directly, but sought rather to lay the wants and methods before them. Yet, even here, some received it as if it were some new move of charlatanry, or some new device for extracting money from full purses. Evidently, to many minds, the fact of a man of education devoting himself to such pursuits was in itself an enigma or an eccentricity. Fortunately, I was able early to make use of the pulpits of the city and country, and sometimes was accustomed to spend every night in the week and the Sunday in delivering sermons and addresses throughout the Eastern States. As a general thing, I did not urge a collection, though occasionally having one, but chose rather to convince the understanding, and leave the matter before the people for consideration. No public duties of mine were ever more agreeable than these; and the results proved afterwards most happy, in securing a large rural "constituency," who steadily supported our movements in good times and bad; so quietly devoted, and in earnest, that death did not diminish their interest—some of our best bequests having come from the country.
The next great implement was that profession which has done more for this Charity than any other instrumentality. Having, fortunately, an early connection with the press, I made it a point, from the beginning, to keep our movements, and the evils we sought to cure, continually before the public in the columns of the daily journals. Articles describing the habits and trials of the poor; editorials urging the community to work in these directions; essays discussing the science of charity and reform; continual paragraphs about special charities, were poured forth incessantly for years through the daily and weekly press of New York, until the public became thoroughly, imbued with our ideas and a sense of the evils which we sought to reform. To accomplish this, I had to keep up a constant connection with the press, and was, in fact, often daily editor, in addition to my other avocations.
As a result of this incessant publicity, and of the work already done, a very superior class of young men consented to serve in our Board of Trustees; men who, in their high principles of duty, and in the obligations which they feel are imposed by wealth and position, bid fair hereafter to make the name of New York merchants respected as it never was before throughout the country. With these as backers and supervisors, we were enabled to approach the Legislature for aid, on the ground that we were doing a humane work which lightened the taxes and burdens of the whole community and was in the interest of all. Year after year our application was rejected, but finally we succeeded, and laid a solid and permanent basis thus for our future work.
Our first important acquisition of property was a bequest from a much-esteemed pupil of mine, J. B. Barnard, of New Haven, Conn., of $15,000, in 1856. We determined to use this at once in the work. For many years, finding the needs of the city so enormous, and believing that our best capital was in the results of our efforts, and not in funds, we spent every dollar we could obtain at once upon our labors of charity.
At length, in 1863, a very fortunate event occurred for us: a gentleman had died in New York, named John Rose, who left a large property which he willed should be appropriated to forming some charitable institution for neglected children, and, under certain conditions, to the Colonization Society. The will was so vaguely worded, that the brother, Mr. Chauncey Rose, felt it necessary to attempt to break it. This, after long litigation, he succeeded in doing, and the property—now swollen to the amount of nearly a million dollars—reverted mainly to him. With a rare conscience and generosity, he felt it his duty not to use any of this large estate for himself, but to distribute it among various charities in New York, relating to poor children, according to what appeared to be the intention of his brother. To our Society he gave, at different times, something like $200,000. Of this, we made $150,000 an invested fund; and henceforth we sought gradually to increase our permanent and assured income, so that the Association might continue its benevolent work after the present managers had departed.
And yet we were glad that a good proportion of our necessary expenses should be met by current contributions, so that the Society might have the vitality arising from constant contact with the public, as well as the permanency from invested property.
If we take a single year, 1870, as showing the sources of our income, we shall find that out of nearly $200,000 received that year, including $32,000 for the purchase of two Lodging-houses, and $7,000 raised by the local committees of the Schools, $60,000 came by tax from the county, $20,000 from the "Excise Fund" (now abolished), nearly $20,000 from the Board of Education, being apro rataallotment on the average number of pupils, and about $9,000 from the Comptroller of the State; making about $109,000, or a little over one-half of our income, received from the public authorities. Of the ninety-odd thousand received from private sources, about eleven thousand came from our investments, leaving some $80,000 as individual contributions during one year—a remarkable fact, both as showing the generosity of the public and their confidence in the work.
This liberal outlay, both by the city and private individuals, has been and is being constantly repaid, in the lessening of the expenses and loss from crime and pauperism, and the increasing of the number of honest and industrious producers.
At first sight, it would seem very obvious that a place of mental improvement and social resort, with agreeable surroundings, offered gratuitously to the laboring-people, would be eagerly frequented. On its face, the "FREE READING-ROOM" appears a most natural, feasible method of applying the great lever of sociality (without temptations) to lifting up the poorer classes. The working-man and the street-boy get here what they so much desire, a pleasant place, warmed and lighted, for meeting their companions, for talking, playing innocent games, or reading the papers; they get it, too, for nothing. When we remember how these people live, in what crowded and slatternly rooms, or damp cellars, or close attics, some even having no home at all, and that their only social resort is the grog-shop, we might suppose that they would jump at the chance of a pleasant and Free Saloon and Reading-room. But this is by no means the case. This instrument of improvement requires peculiar management to be successful. Our own experience is instructive.
The writer of this had had the Reading-room "on the brain" for many years, when, at length, on talking over the subject with a gentleman in the eastern part of the city—one whose name has since been a tower of strength to this whole movement—he consented to further the enterprise, and be the treasurer—an office in young charities, be it remembered, no sinecure.
We opened, accordingly, near the Novelty Iron Works, under the best auspices,
The rooms were spacious and pleasant, furnished with a plenty of papers and pamphlets, and, to add to the attractions and help pay expenses, the superintendent was to sell coffee and simple refreshments. Our theory was, that coffee would compete with liquor as a stimulus, and that the profits of the sale would pay most of the running cost. We were right among a crowded working population, and everything promised success.
At first there were considerable numbers of laboring-men present every day and evening; but, to our dismay, they began to fall off. We tried another superintendent; still the working-man preferred his "dreary rooms," or the ruinous liquor-shops, to our pleasant Reading-room. The coffee did not suit him; the refreshments were not to his taste; he would not read, because he thought he ought to call for something to eat or drink if he did; and so at length he dropped off. Finally, the attendance became so thin and the expenses were accumulating to such a degree, that we closed the room, and our magnanimous treasurer footed the bills. This failure discouraged us for some years, but the idea seemed to me sound, and I was resolved to try it once more under better circumstances.
In looking about for some specially-adapted instrument for influencing "the dangerous classes," I chanced, just after the remarkable religious "Revival of 1858" on a singular character,
This was a reformed or converted prize-fighter, named Orville (and nicknamed "Awful") Gardner. He was a broad-shouldered, burly individual, with a tremendous neck, and an arm as thick as a moderate-sized man's leg. His career had been notorious and infamous in the extreme, he having been one of the roughs employed by politicians, and engaged in rows and fights without number, figuring several times in the prize-ring, and once having bitten off a man's nose!
Yet the man must have been less brutal than his life would show. He was a person evidently of volcanic emotions and great capacity of affection. I was curious about his case, and watched it closely for some years, as showing what is so often disputed in modern times—the reforming power of Christianity on the most abandoned characters.
The point through which his brutalized nature had been touched, had been evidently his affection for an only child—a little boy. He described to me once, in very simple, touching language, his affection and love for this child; how he dressed him in the best, and did all he could for him, but always keeping him away from all knowledge of his own dissipation. One day he was off on some devilish errand among the immigrants on Staten Island, when he saw a boat approaching quickly with one of his "pals." The man rowed up near him, and stopped and looked at him "very queer," and didn't say anything.
"What the devil are you looking at me in that way for?" said Gardner.
"Your boy is drownded!" replied the other.
Gardner says he fell back in the boat, as if you'd hit him right straight from the shoulder behind the ear, and did not know anything for a long time. When he recovered, he kept himself drunk for three weeks, and smashed a number of policemen, and was "put up," just so as to forget the bright little fellow who had been the pride of his heart.
This great loss, however, must have opened his nature to other influences. When the deep religious sympathy pervaded the community, there came over him suddenly one of those Revelations which, in some form or other, visit most human beings at least once in their lives. They are almost too deep and intricate to be described in these pages. The human soul sees itself, for the first time, as reflected in the mirror of divine purity. It has for the moment a conception of what Christ is, and what Love means. Singularly enough, the thought and sentiment which took possession of this ruffian and debauchee and prize-fighter, and made him as one just cured of leprosy, was the Platonic conception of Love, and that embodied in the ideal form of Christianity. Under it he became as a little child; he abandoned his vices, gave up his associates, and resolved to consecrate his life to humanity and the service of Him to whom he owed so much. The spirit, when I first met him, with which he used to encounter his old companions must have been something like that of the early Christian converts.
Thus, an old boon companion meets him in the street: "Why, Orful, what the h—ll's this about your bein' converted?"
And the other turns to him with such pent-up feeling bursting forth, telling him of the new things that have come to him, that the "rough" is quite melted, and begins a better course of life.
Again, he is going down a narrow street, when he suddenly sees coming up a bitter enemy. His old fire flames up, but he quenches it, walks to the other, and, with the tears streaming down his cheeks, he takes him by the hand and tells him "the old story" which is always new, and the two ruffians forget their feuds and are friends.
Could the old Greek philosopher have seen this imbruted athlete, so mysteriously and suddenly fired with the ideal of Love till his past crimes seemed melted in the heat of this great sentiment, and his rough nature appeared transformed, he would have rejoiced in beholding at length the living embodiment of an ideal theory for so many ages held but as the dream of a poetic philosopher.
Gardner was only a modern and striking instance of the natural and eternal power of Christianity.
We resolved to put him where he could reach the classes from which he had come. With considerable exertion the necessary sums were raised to open a "Coffee and Reading Boom" in the worst district of the city—the Fourth Ward. Great numbers of papers and publications were furnished gratuitously by that body who have always been so generous to this enterprise—the conductors of the press of the city. A bar for coffee and cheap refreshments was established, and Gardner was put at the head of the whole as superintendent.
The opening is thus described in our Journal:—
We must confess, as one of the managers of that institution, we felt particularly nervous about that opening meeting.
"Messrs. Beecher and Cochrane and other eminent speakers had been invited to speak, and the Mayor was to preside. It was certainly an act of some self-denial to leave their countryseats or cool rooms, and spend a hot summer evening in talking to Fourth-ward rowdies. To requite this with any sort of 'accident' would have been very awkward. Where would we of the committee have hid our heads if our friends the 'roughs' had thought best to have a little bit of a shindy, and had knocked Brother Beecher's hat in, and had tossed the Hon. John Cochrane out of the window, or rolled the Mayor down-stairs? We confess all such possible eventualities did present themselves, and we imagined the sturdy form of our eminent clerical friend breasting the opposing waves of rowdies, and showing himself as skillful in demolishing corporeal enemies as he is in overthrowing spiritual. We were comforted in spirit, however, by remembering that the saint at the head of our establishment-the renowned Gardner—would now easily take a place in the church militant, and perhaps not object to a new exercise of muscle in a good cause.
* * * * * * * *
"After other addresses, Gardner—'Awful Gardner'—was called for. He came forward—and a great trial it must have been to have faced that crowd, where there were hundreds who had once been with him in all kinds of debaucheries and deviltries—men who had drunk and fought and gambled and acted the rowdy with him—men very quick to detect any trace of vanity or cant in him. He spoke very simply and humbly; said that he had more solid peace and comfort in one month now than he had in years once; spoke of his 'black life' his sins and disgrace, and then of his most cordial desire to welcome all his old companions there. In the midst of these remarks there seemed to come up before him suddenly a memory of Him who had saved him, his eyes filled with tears, and, with a manly and deep feeling that swept right through the wild audience, he made his acknowledgment to 'Him who sticketh closer than a brother—even the Lord Jesus Christ.'
"No sermon could have been half so effective as these stammering ungrammatical, but manly remarks."
Our Reading-room under this guidance became soon a very popular resort; in fact, it deserved the nickname one gentleman gave it, "The Drunkards' Club." The marked, simple, and genuine reform in a man of such habits as this pugilist, attracted numbers of that large class of young men who are always trying to break from the tyranny of evil habits and vices. The rooms used to be thronged with reformed or reforming young men. The great difficulty with a man under vices is to make him believe that change for him is possible. The sight of Gardner always demonstrated this possibility. Those men who are sunk in such courses cannot get rid of them gradually, and nothing can arouse them and break the iron rule of habits but the most tremendous truths.
"Awful Gardner" had but one theory of reform—absolute and immediate change, in view of the love of Christ, and of a deserved and certain damnation.
The men to whom he spoke needed no soft words; they knew they were "in hell" now; some of them could sometimes for a moment realize what such a character as Christ was, and bow before it in unspeakable humility. No one whom I have ever seen could so influence the "roughs" of this city. He ought to have been kept as a missionary to the rowdies. I extract from our Journal:—
"The moral success of the room has been all that we could have desired. Hundreds of young men have come there continually to read or chat with their friends—many of them even who had habitually frequented the liquor-saloons, and many persons with literally no homes. The place, too, has become a kind of central point for all those who have become more or less addicted to excessive drinking, and who are desirous of escaping from the habit.
"There are days when the spectacle presented there is a most affecting one; the room filled with young men, each of whom has a history of sorrow or degradation—broken-down gentlemen, ruined merchants, penniless clerks, homeless laboring-men and printers (for somehow this most intelligent profession seems to contain a large number of cases who have been ruined by drunkenness), and outcast men of no assignable occupation. These have been attracted in part by the cheerfulness of the room and the chances for reading, and in part by Gardner's influence, who has labored indefatigably in behalf of these poor wretches. Under the influences of the Room, incredible as it may seem, overseven hundredof these men have been started in sober courses and provided with honest employments, and many of them have become hopefully religious. It is believed that the whole quarter has been improved by the opening of this agreeable and temperate place of resort."
But, alas! even with a man so truly repentant and reformed, Nature does not let him off so easily. He had to bear in his body the fruits of his vices. His nervous system began to give way under the fearful strain both of his sins and his reform. He found it necessary to leave this post of work and retire to a quiet place in New Jersey, where he has since passed a calm and virtuous life, working, I suppose, at his trade, and, so far as I know, he has never been false to the great truths which once inspired him. With his departure, however, we thought it best to close the Reading-room, especially as we could not realize our hope of making it self-supporting. So ended the second of our experiments at "virtuous amusements."
I now resolved to try the experiment, without any expectation of sustaining the room with sales of refreshments. The working classes seem to be utterly indifferent to such attractions. They probably cannot compete a moment with those of the liquor-shops. With the aid of friends, who are always ready in this city to liberally support rational experiments of philanthropy, we have since then opened various Free Reading-rooms in different quarters of the city.
One of the most successful was carried on by Mr. Macy at Cottage Place, for his "lambs."
Here sufficient books and papers were supplied by friends, little temperance and other societies were formed, the room was pleasant and cozy, and, above all, Mr. Macy presided or infused into it his spirit. The "lambs" were occasionally obstreperous and given to smashing windows, but to this Mr. M. was sufficiently accustomed, and in time the wild young barbarians began to feel the influences thrown around the place, until now one may see of a winter evening eighty or a hundred lads and young men quietly reading, or playing backgammon or checkers. The room answers exactly its object as a place of innocent amusement and improvement, competing with the liquor-saloons. The citizens of the neighborhood have testified to its excellent moral influences on the young men.
A similar room was opened in the First Ward by the kind aid of the late Mr. J. Couper Lord, and the good influences of the place have been much increased by the exertions of Mr. D. E. Hawley and a committee of gentlemen.
There are other Reading-rooms connected with the Boys' Lodging-houses. Most of them are doing an invaluable work; the First ward room especially being a centre for cricket-clubs and various social reunions of the laboring classes, and undoubtedly saving great numbers of young men from the most dangerous temptations. Mr. Hawley has inaugurated here also a very useful course of popular lectures to the laboring people.
This Reading-room is crowded with young men every night, of the class who should be reached, and who would otherwise spend their leisure hours at the liquor-saloons. Many of them have spoken with much gratitude of the benefit the place has been to them.
The Reading-rooms connected with Boys' Lodging-houses, though sometimes doing well, are not uniformly successful, perhaps from the fact that workingmen do not like to be associated with homeless boys.
Besides those connected with the Children's Aid Society, the CityMission and various churches have founded others, so that now the FreeReading-room is recognized as one of the means for improving the"dangerous classes," as much as the Sunday School, Chapel, or Mission.
The true theory of the formation of the Reading-room is undoubtedly the inducing the laboring class to engage in the matter themselves, and then to assist them in meeting the expenses. But the lowest poor and the young men who frequent the grog-shops are so indifferent to mental improvement, and so seldom associate themselves for any virtuous object, that it is extremely difficult to induce them to combine for this.
Moreover, as they rise in the social scale, they find organizations ready to hand, like the "Cooper Union," where Reading-rooms and Libraries are provided gratuitously. For the present, the Reading-room may be looked upon, like the Public School, as a means of improvement offered by society, in its own Interest, to all.