It was a fortunate event for our charity which led, in 1861, a certainNew York merchant to accept the position of President of our Society.
Mr. William A. Booth had the rare combination of qualities which form a thorough presiding officer, and at the same time he was inspired by a spirit of consecration to what he believed his Master's service, rarely seen among men. His faculty of "rolling off" business, of keeping his assembly or board on the points before them—for even business men have sometimes the female tendency of rather wide-reaching discussions and conversations—his wonderful clearness of comprehension, and a judicial faculty which nearly always enabled him to balance with remarkable fairness both sides of a question, made him beyond comparison the best presiding officer for a business-board I have ever seen. With him, we always had short and very full sessions, and reached our points rapidly and efficiently. He had, too, the capacity, rare among men of organizing brains, of accepting a rejection or rebuff to any proposition he may have made (though this happened seldom) with perfect good humor. Perhaps more than with his public services in our Board, I was struck with his private career. Hour after hour in his little office, I have seen different committees and officials of numerous societies, charities, and financial associations come to him with their knotty points, and watched with admiration as he disentangled each question, seeming always to strike upon the course at once wise and just. A very small portion of his busy time was then given to his own interests, though he had been singularly successful in his private affairs. He seemed to me to carry out wonderfully the Christian ideal in practical life in a busy city; living day after day "for others," and to do the will of Him whom he followed.
In our first labors together, I feared that, owing to his stricter school of Presbyterian theology, we might not agree in some of our aims and plans; but the practical test of true benefit to these unfortunate children soon brought our theoretic views to a harmony in religious practice; and as we both held that the first and best of all truths to an outcast boy is the belief and love of Christ as a friend and Saviour, we agreed on the substantial matter. I came, year by year, greatly to value his judgment and his clear insight as to thevia media.
Both with him and our Treasurer, Mr. Williams, the services of love rendered so many years to this cause of humanity, could not, as mere labor, have been purchased with very lucrative salaries.
Mr. Booth's wise policy with the Society was to encourage whatever would give it a more permanent foot-hold in the city, and, in this view, to stimulate especially the founding of our Lodging-houses by means of "funds," or by purchasing buildings.
How this plan succeeded, I shall detail hereafter.
At this present stage in our history, his attention was especially fixed on the miserable condition of the young street-girls, and he suggested to me what I had long been hoping for, the formation of a Lodging-house for them, corresponding to that which had been so successful with the newsboys.
As a preparatory step, I consulted carefully the police. They were sufficiently definite as to the evil, but not very hopeful as to the cure.
I can truly say that no class we have ever labored for seemed to combine so many elements of human misfortune and to present so many discouraging features as this. They form, indeed, a class by themselves.
[Illustration: THE HOMELESS.]
Their histories are as various as are the different lots of the inhabitants of a populous town. Some have come from the country, from kind and respectable homes, to seek work in the city; here they gradually consume their scanty means, and are driven from one refuge to another, till they stand on the street, with the gayly-lighted house of vice and the gloomy police-station to choose between. Others have sought amusement in the town, and have been finally induced to enter some house of bad character as a boarding-house, and have been thus entrapped; and finally, in despair, and cursed with disease, they break loose, and take shelter even in the prison-cell, if necessary. Others still have abandoned an ill-tempered step-mother or father, and rushed out on the streets to find a refuge, or get employment anywhere.
Drunkenness has darkened the childhood of some, and made home a hideous place, till they have been glad to sleep in the crowded cellar or the bare attic of some thronged "tenement," and then go forth to pick up a living as they could in the great metropolis. Some are orphans, some have parents whom they detest, some are children of misfortune, and others of vice; some are foreigners, some native. They come from the north and the south, the east and the west; all races and countries are represented among them. They are not habitually vicious, or they would not be on the streets. They are unlucky, unfortunate, getting a situation only to lose it, and finding a home, to be soon driven from it. Their habits are irregular, they do not like steady labor, they have learned nothing well, they have no discipline, their clothes are neglected, they have no appreciation of what neatness is, yet if they earn a few shillings extra, they are sore to spend them on some foolish gewgaw. Many of them are pretty and bright, with apparently fine capacities, but inheriting an unusual quantity of the human tendencies to evil. They are incessantly deceived and betrayed, and they as constantly deceive others. Their cunning in concealing their indulgences or vices surpasses all conception. Untruth seems often more familiar to them than truth. Their worst quality is their superficiality. There is no depth either to their virtues or vices. They sin, and immediately repent with alacrity; they live virtuously for years, and a straw seems suddenly to turn them. They weep at the presentation of the divine character in Christ, and pray with fervency; and, the very next day, may ruin their virtue or steal their neighbor's garment, or take to drinking, or set a whole block in ferment with some biting scandal. They seem to be children, but with woman's passion, and woman's jealousy and scathing tongue. They trust a superior as a child; they neglect themselves, and injure body and mind as a child might; they have a child's generosity, and occasional freshness of impulse and desire of purity; but their passions sweep over them with the force of maturity, and their temper, and power of setting persons by the ears, and backbiting, and occasional intensity of hate, belong to a later period of life. Not unfrequently, when real danger or severe sickness arouses them, they show the wonderful qualities of womanhood in a power of sacrifice which utterly forgets self, and a love which shines brightly, eyen through the shadow of death.
But their combination of childishness and undisciplined maturity is an extremely difficult one to manage practically, and exposes them to endless sufferings and dangers. Their condition fifteen years ago seemed a thoroughly hopeless one.
There was then, if we mistake not, but a single refuge in the whole city, where these unfortunate creatures could take shelter, and that was Mr. Pease's Five Points Mission, which contained so many women who had been long in vicious courses, as to make it unsuitable for those who were just on the dividing line.
Our plan for their relief took the shape of
It is no exaggeration to say that this instrument of charity and reform has cost us more trouble than all our enterprises together.
The simple purpose and plan of it was, like that of our other efforts, to reform habits and character through material and moral appliances, and subsequently through an entire change of circumstances, and at the same time to relieve suffering and misfortune.
We opened first a shelter, where any drifting, friendless girl could go for a night's lodging. If she had means, she was to pay a trifling sum—five or six cents; if not, she aided in the labor of the house, and thus in part defrayed the expense of her board. Agents were sent out on the docks and among the slums of the city to pick up the wayfarers; notices were posted in the station-houses, and near the ferries and railroads depots, and even advertisements put into the cheap papers. We made a business of scattering the news of this charity wherever there were forlorn girls seeking for home or protection, or street-wandering young women who had no place to lay their heads.
We hoped to reach down the hand of welcome to the darkest dens of the city, and call back to virtue some poor, unbefriended creature, who was trembling on the very line between purity and vice. Our charity seemed to stand by the ferries, the docks, the police-stations, and prisons, and open a door of kindness and virtue to these hard-driven, tired wanderers on the ways of life. Our design was that no young girl, suddenly cast out on the streets of a great city, should be without a shelter and a place where good influences could surround her. We opened a House for the houseless; an abode of Christian sympathy for the utterly unbefriended and misguided; a place of work for the idle and unthrifty.
The plan seemed at once to reach its object: the doors opened on a forlorn procession of unfortunates. Girls broke out of houses of vice, where they had been entrapped, leaving every article of dress, except what they wore, behind them; the police brought wretched young wanderers, who had slept on the station-floors; the daughters of decent country-people, who had come to the town for amusement or employment, and, losing or wasting their means, had walked the streets all the night long, applied for shelter; orphans selling flowers, or peddling about the theatres; the children of drunkards; the unhappy daughters of families where quarreling and abuse were the rule; girls who had run away; girls who had been driven away; girls who sought a respite in intervals of vice,—all this most unfortunate throng began to beset the doors of the "Girls' Lodging-house."
We had indeed reached the class intended, but now our difficulties only began.
It would not do to turn our Lodging-house into a Reformatory for Magdalens, nor to make it into a convenient resting-place for those who lived on the wages of lust. To keep a house for reforming young women of bad character would only pervert those of good, and shut out the decent and honest poor. We must draw a line; but where? We attempted to receive only those of apparent honesty and virtue, and to exclude those who were too mature; keeping, if possible, below the age of eighteen years. We sought to shut out the professional "street-walkers." This at once involved us in endless difficulties. Sweet young maidens, whom we guilelessly admitted, and who gave most touching stories of early bereavement and present loneliness, and whose voices arose in moving hymns of penitence, and whose bright eyes filled with tears under the Sunday exhortation, turned out perhaps the most skillful and thorough-going deceivers, plying their bad trade in the day, and filling the minds of their comrades with all sorts of wickedness in the evening. We came to the conviction that these girls would deceive the very elect. Then some "erring child of poverty," as the reporters called her, would apply at a late hour at the door, after an unsuccessful evening, her breath showing her habit, and be refused, and go to the station-house, and in the morning a fearful narrative would appear in some paper, of the shameful hypocrisy and cruel machinery of charitable institutions.
Or, perhaps, she would be admitted, and cover the house with disgrace by her conduct in the night. One wayfarer, thus received, scattered a contagious disease, which emptied the whole house, and carried off the housekeeper and several lodgers. Another, in the night dropped her newly-born dead babe into the vault.
The rule, too, of excluding all over eighteen years of age caused great discontent with the poor, and with certain portions of the public. And yet, as rigidly as humanity would allow, we must follow our plan of benefiting children and youth.
It soon turned out, however, that the young street-children who were engaged in street-trades, had some relative to whom their labor was of profit, so that they gradually drifted back to their cellars and attics, and only occasionally took a night's lodging when out late near the theatre. Those who were the greatest frequenters of the House proved to be the young girls between fourteen and eighteen.
And a more difficult class than these to manage, no philanthropic mortal ever came in contact with. The most had a constitutional objection to work; they had learned to do nothing well, and therefore got but little wages anywhere; they were shockingly careless, both of their persons and their clothing; and, worse than all, they showed a cunning and skill of deceit and a capacity of scandal, and of setting the family by the ears in petty quarrels and jealousies, which might have discouraged the most sanguine reformer.
The matron, Mrs. Trott, who had especially to struggle with these evils, had received a fitting preparatory training: she had taught in the "Five Points." She was a thorough disciplinarian; believed in work, and was animated by the highest Christian earnestness.
As years passed by, the only defect that appeared in her was, perhaps, what was perfectly natural in such circumstances. The sins of the world, and the calamities of the poor, began to weigh on her mind, until its spring was fairly bent. Society seemed to her diseased with the sin against purity. The outcast daughters of the poor had no chance in this hard world. All the circumstances of life were against the friendless girl. Often, after most self-denying, and, to other minds, successful efforts to benefit these poor creatures, some enthusiastic spectator would say, "How much good you are doing!" "Well," she would say, with a sigh, "I sometimes hope so!"
Once, I asked her if she could not write a cheerful report for our trustees, giving some of the many encouraging facts she knew.
To my dismay, when the document appeared, the first two pages were devoted to a melancholy recollection of the horrible typhus which had once desolated the household! I think, finally, her mind took almost a sad pleasure in dwelling on the woes and miseries of humanity. Still, even with this constitutional weight on her, she did her work for those unfortunate girls faithfully and devotedly.
The great danger and temptation of such establishments, as I have always found, are in the desire of keeping the inmates, and showing to the public your "reforms." My instruction always was, that the "Girls' Lodging-house" was not to be a "Home." We did not want to make an asylum of it. We hoped to begin the work of improvement with these young girls, and then leave them to the natural agencies of society. To teach them to work, to be clean, and to understand the virtues of order and punctuality; to lay the foundations of a housekeeper or servant; to bring the influences of discipline, of kindness, and religion to bear on these wild and ungoverned creatures—these were to be the great objects of the "Lodging-house;" then some good home or respectable family were to do the rest. We were to keep lodgers a little while only, and then to pass them along to situations or places of work.
The struggles of Mr. and Mrs. Trott, the superintendent and matron, against these discouraging evils in the condition and character of this class, would make a history in itself! They set themselves to work upon details, with an abounding patience, and with a humanity which was not to be wearied.
The first effort was to teach the girls something like a habit of personal cleanliness; then, to enforce order and punctuality, of which they knew nothing; next, to require early rising, and going to bed at a reasonable hour. The lessons of housekeeping were begun at the foundation, being tasks in scrubbing and cleaning; then, bed-making, and finally plain cooking, sewing, and machine-work. Some of the inmates went out for their daily labor in shops or factories; but the most had to be employed in house-work, and thus paid for their support. They soon carried on the work of a large establishment, and at the same time made thousands of articles of clothing for the poor children elsewhere under the charge of the Society.
A great deal of stress, of course, was laid on religious and moral instruction. The girls always "listened gladly," and were easily moved by earnest and sympathetic teaching and oratory.
Fortunately for the success of this Charity, one of our trustees, a man filled with "the milk of human kindness," Mr. B. J. Howland, took part in it, as if it were his main occupation in life. Twice in the week, he was present with these poor girls for many years, teaching them the principles of morality and religion, training them in singing, contriving amusements and festivals for them, sympathizing in their sorrows and troubles, until he became like a father and counselor to these wild, heedless young creatures.
When, at length, the good old man departs—et serus in coelum redeat!—the tears of the friendless and forgotten will fall on his grave,
"And the blessings of the poorShall waft him to the other shore."
Of the effects of the patient labors of years, we will quote a few instances from Mrs. Trott's journal. She is writing, in the first extract, of a journey at the West:—
"Several stations were pointed out, where our Lodging house girls are located; and we envied them their quiet, rural homes, wishing that others might follow their example. Maggie M., a bright American girl, who left us last spring, was fresh in our memory, as we almost passed her door. The friendless child bids fair to make an educated, respectable woman. She writes of her advantages and privileges, and says she intends to improve them, and make the very best use of her time.
"Our old friend, Mary F., is still contented and happy; she shows no inclination to return, and remains in the place procured for her two years ago. She often expresses a great anxiety for several of the girls whom she left here, and have turned out very bad. We were rather doubtful of Mary's intentions when she left us, but have reason for thankfulness that thus far she tries to do right, and leads a Christian life. She was a girl well informed, of good common-sense, rather attractive, and, we doubt not, is 'a brand plucked from the burning.'
"Emma H., a very interesting, amiable young girl, who spent several months at the Lodge, while waiting for a good opening, has just been to visit as. She is living with Mrs. H., Judge B——'s daughter, on the Hudson. They are mutually, pleased with each other; and Mrs. B. says that 'Emma takes an adopted daughter's place, and nothing would tempt me to part with her.' Emma was well dressed, and as comfortably situated as one could wish. There is no reason why she should not educate herself, and fill a higher position in the future.
"S. A. was a cigar-girl when she came to the Lodging-house six years ago. An orphan, friendless and homeless—we all knew her desire to obtain an education, her willingness to make any sacrifice, and put up with the humblest fare, that she might accomplish this end; and then her earnest desire to do good, and her consistent Christian character, since she united with the Church, and the real missionary she proved among the girls, when death was in the house, leaving her school, and assisting night and day among the sick. She is now completing her education, and will soon graduate with honors. Her teacher speaks of her in the highest terms.
"There was another, J. L., a very pretty little girl, who was with us at the same time, who was guilty of the most aggravating petty thefts. She was so modest and pleasing in her demeanor, so sincere in her attachments, that it was difficult to believe, until she acknowledged her guilt, that she had picked the pockets of the very persons to whom she had made showy presents. Vanity was her ruling motive—a desire to appear smart and generous, and to show that she had rich friends, who supplied her with money. She was expostulated with long and tenderly, promised to reform, and has lately united with a church where she is an active and zealous member. We have never heard a word respecting her dishonesty since she left us, and she now occupies a responsible position as forewoman in a Broadway store.
"P. E. was also a Lodging-house girl, a year or more, at the same time. She came to us in a very friendless, destitute condition. She was one of the unfortunates with the usual story of shame and desertion—she had just buried her child, and needed an asylum. We have every reason to believe her repentance sincere, and that she made no false pretensions to piety when her name was added to the list of professing Christians. The church took an unusual interest in her, and have paid her school expenses several years. She is now teaching.
"Our next is Mary M. Here is a bit of romance. When she first entered our home, she was reduced to the very lowest extremity of poverty and wretchedness. She remained with us some time, and then went to a situation in Connecticut, where she married a young Southern gentleman, who fell desperately in love with her (because she cared for him when ill), returned to New York, and, when she called upon us, was boarding at the Fifth-avenue Hotel. This was noticed at the time in several Eastern and New York papers. She showed her gratitude to us by calling and making presents to members of the House—looking up an associate, whom she found in a miserable garret clothing her, and returning her to her friends. She greatly surprised us in the exhibition of the true womanly traits which she always manifested. This is a true instance of the saying that a resident of the Five Points today may be found in her home in Fifth Avenue to-morrow.
"Without going into details, we could also mention S. H., who has often been in our reports as unmanageable; the two D—— girls, who came from Miss Trail's school; the two M—— sisters, who had a fierce drunken mother, that pawned their shoes for rum one cold winter's morn, before they had arisen from their wretched bed; two R—— sisters, turned into the streets by drunken parents, brought to our house by a kind-hearted expressman, dripping with rain; and little May, received, cold and hungry, one winter's day—all comfortably settled in country homes; most of them married, and living out West—not forgetting Maggie, the Irish girl who wrote us, soon after she went West, that her husband had his little farm, pigs, cow, etc; requesting us to send them a little girl for adoption. Her prospect here never would have been above a garret or cellar.
"We have L. M. in New York, married to a mechanic. Every few months she brings a bundle of clothing for those who were once her companions. She is very energetic and industrious, and highly respected.
"M. E., another excellent Christian girl. She has been greatly tried in trying to save a reckless sister from destruction; once she took her West; then she returned with her when she found her sister's condition made it necessary. Such sisterly affection is seldom manifested as this girl has shown. She bought her clothing out of her own earnings, when she had scarcely a change for herself; and, after the erring sister's death, paid her child's board, working night and day to do so.
"These cases are true in every particular, and none of recent date. There are many more hopeful ones among our young girls, who have not been away from us long, and of whom we hear excellent reports."
One of the best features of this most practical "Institution" for poor girls is a Sewing-machine School, where lessons are given gratuitously. In three weeks, a girl who had previously depended wholly on her needle, and could hardly earn her three dollars a week, will learn the use of the machine, and earn from one dollar to two dollars per day.
During one year this Sewing-machine School sent forth some one thousand two hundred poor girls, who earned a good living through their instruction there. The expense was trifling, as the machines were all given or loaned by the manufacturers, and for the room, we employed the parlor of the Lodging-house.
During the winter of 1870-71, the trustees determined to try to secure a permanent and convenient house for these girls.
Two well-known gentlemen of our city headed the subscription with $1,000 each; the trustees came forward liberally, and the two or three who have done so much for this charity took on themselves the disagreeable task of soliciting funds, so that in two months we had some $27,000 subscribed, with which we both secured an excellent building in St. Mark's Place, and adapted it for our purposes. Our effort is in this to make the house more attractive and tasteful than such places usually are; and various ladies have co-operated with us, to exert a more profound and renovating influence on these girls.
We have already engrafted on this Lodging-house a School to train ordinary house-servants; to teach plain cooking, waiting, the care of bedrooms, and good laundry-work. Nothing is more needed among this class, or by the public generally, than such a "Training-school."
Of the statistics of the Lodging-house, Mrs. Trott writes as follows:—
"Ten thousand two hundred and twenty-five lodgers. What an army would the registered names make, since a forlorn, wretched child of thirteen years, from the old Trinity station-house, headed the lists in 1861!
"Among this number there are many cozily sitting by their own hearth-stones; others are filling positions of usefulness and trust in families and stores; some have been adopted in distant towns, where they fill a daughter's place; and some have gone to return no more. A large number we cannot trace.
"During this period, three thousand one hundred and one have found employment, and gone to situations, or returned to friends.
"Fifteen thousand four hundred and twenty-nine garments have been cut and made, and distributed among the poor, or used as outfits in sending companies West."
During the summer of 1865, I was present in London as a delegate to the International Reformatory Convention, and had the opportunity, for the second or third time, to investigate thoroughly the preventive and reformatory institutions of Great Britain.
On my return I found that the President of our Board, of whom I have already spoken, had taken a lease of a building in a notorious quarter.
His idea was that some of my observations in England might be utilized here and tested in a preventive institution. The quarter was well known to me. It had been the home and school of the murderous gang of boys and young men known as
It happens that the beginnings and the process of growth of this society of young criminals were thoroughly known by me at the time, and, as one case of this kind illustrates hundreds going on now, I will describe it in detail:—
Seventeen years ago, my attention had been called to the extraordinarily degraded condition of the children in a district lying on the west side of the city, between Seventeenth and Nineteenth Streets, and the Seventh and Tenth Avenues. A certain block, called "Misery Row," in Tenth Avenue, was the main seedbed of crime and poverty in the quarter, and was also invariably a "fever-nest." Here the poor obtained wretched rooms at a comparatively low rent; these they sub-let, and thus, in little, crowded, close tenements, were herded men, women, and children of all ages. The parents were invariably given to hard drinking, and the children were sent out to beg or to steal. Besides them, other children, who were orphans, or who had run away from drunkards' homes, or had been working on the canal-boats that discharged on the docks near by, drifted into the quarter, as if attracted by the atmosphere of crime and laziness that prevailed in the neighborhood. These slept around the breweries of the ward, or on the hay-barges, or in the old sheds of Eighteenth and Nineteenth Streets. They were mere children, and kept life together by all sorts of street-jobs—helping the brewery laborers, blackening boots, sweeping sidewalks, "smashing baggages" (as they called it), and the like. Herding together, they soon began to form an unconscious society for vagrancy and idleness. Finding that work brought but poor pay, they tried shorter roads to getting money by petty thefts, in which they were very adroit. Even if they earned a considerable sum by a lucky day's job, they quickly spent it in gambling, or for some folly.
The police soon knew them as "street-rats;" but, like the rats, they were too quick and cunning to be often caught in their petty plunderings, so they gnawed away at the foundations of society undisturbed. As to the "popular education" of which we boast, and the elevating and inspiring faith of Christianity which had reared its temples all around them, they might almost as well have been the children of the Makololos in Central Africa. They had never been in school or church, and knew of God and Christ only in street-oaths, or as something of which people far above them spoke sometimes.
I determined to inaugurate here a regular series of the "moral disinfectants," if I may so call them, for this "crime-nest," which act almost as surely, though not as rapidly, as do the physical disinfectants—the sulphate of iron, the chloride of lime, and the various deodorizers of the Board of Health—in breaking up the "fever-nests" of the city.
These measures, though imitated in some respects from England, were novel in their combination.
The first step in the treatment is to appoint a kind-hearted agent or "Visitor," who shall go around the infected quarter, and win the confidence of, and otherwise befriend the homeless and needy children of the neighborhood. Then we open an informal, simple, religious meeting—the Boys' Meeting which I have described; next we add to it a free Reading-room, then an Industrial School, afterwards a Lodging-house; and, after months or years of the patient application of these remedies, our final and most successful treatment is, as I have often said, the forwarding of the more hopeful cases to farms in the West.
While seeking to apply these long-tried remedies to the wretched young population in the Sixteenth Ward, I chanced on a most earnest Christian man, a resident of the quarter, whose name I take the liberty of mentioning—Mr. D. Slater, a manufacturer.
He went around himself through the rookeries of the district, and gathered the poor lads even in his own parlor; he fed and clothed them; he advised and prayed with them. We opened together a religious meeting for them. Nothing could exceed their wild and rowdy conduct in the first gatherings. On one or two occasions some of the little ruffians absolutely drew knives on our assistants, and had to be handed over to the police. But our usual experience was repeated even there. Week by week patient kindness and the truths of Christianity began to have their effect on these wild little heathen of the street. We find, in our Journal of 1856, the following entries (p. 11):—
"The other meeting has been opened in the hall, at the corner of Sixteenth Street and Eighth Avenue, by Mr. D. Slater. It had, in the beginning, a rather stormy time, being frequented by the rowdy and thieving boys of the quarter. Mr. S. has once or twice been obliged to call in the help of the police, and to arrest the ringleaders. Now, however, by his patient kindness and anxiety for the welfare of the lads, he has gained a permanent influence. The police have remarked how much less the streets, on a Sunday, have been infested, since he opened the meeting, with vagabond boys. Several notorious street-boys have abandoned their bad habits, and now go regularly to the Public Schools, or are in steady business. The average attendance the first month was 88; it is now 162. The average evening attendance is 104.
There is a family of four boys, all orphans, whom their friends could do nothing with, and turned into the streets. They lived by petty stealing, and slept in hay-lofts in winter, and on stoops or in coal-boxes in summer. Since they came to the meeting they have all gone to work; they attend Public School, and come regularly to evening meeting. They used to be in rags and filth, but now are clean and well dressed. Their uncle came to me and said the meeting had done them more good than all their friends together."—(Mr. Slater's Report.)
"Yesterday, Mr. Slater brought a thin, sad boy to us—had found him in the streets and heard his story, and then gave him a breakfast, and led him up to our office. The lad seemed like one weary almost of living. 'Where are your father and mother, my boy?' 'Both dead, sir.' 'Where are your other relatives or friends?' 'Hain't got no friends, sir; I've lived by myself on the street.' 'Where did you stay?' 'I sleptin the privysometime, sir; and then in the stables in Sixteenth Street.' 'Poor fellow,' said some one, 'how did you get your living?' 'Begged it—and then, them stable-men, they give me bread sometimes.' 'Have you ever been to school, or Sunday School?' 'No, sir.' So the sad story went on. Within two blocks of our richest houses, a desolate boy grows up, not merely out of Christianity and out of education, but out of a common human shelter, and of means of livelihood.
"The vermin were creeping over him as he spoke. A few days before this, Mr. S. had brought up three thorough-going street-boys—active, bold, impudent, smart fellows—a great deal more wicked and much less miserable than this poor fellow. Those three were sent to Ohio together, and this last boy, after a thorough washing and cleansing, was to be dispatched to Illinois. A later note adds: 'The lad was taken by an old gentleman of property, who, being childless, has since adopted the boy as his own, and will make him heir to a property.'"
Several other lads were helped to an honest livelihood. A Visitor was then appointed, who lived and worked in the quarter. But our moral treatment for this nest of crime had only commenced.
We appealed to the public for aid to establish the reforming agencies which alone can cure these evils, and whose foundation depends mainly on the liberality, in money, of our citizens. We warned them that these children, if not instructed, would inevitably grow up as ruffians. We said often that they would not be like the stupid foreign criminal class, but that their crimes, when they came to maturity, would show the recklessness, daring, and intensity of the American character. In our very first report (for 1854) we said:—
"It should be remembered that there are no dangers to the value of property, or to the permanency of our institutions, so great as those from the existence of such a class of vagabond, ignorant, ungoverned children. This 'dangerous class' has not begun to show itself, as it will in eight or ten years, when these boys and girls are matured. Those who were too negligent, or too selfish to notice them as children, will be fully aware of them as men. They will vote—they will have the same rights as we ourselves, though they have grown up ignorant of moral principle, as any savage or Indian. They will poison society. They will perhaps be embittered at the wealth and the luxuries they never share. Then let society beware, when the outcast, vicious, reckless multitude of New York boys, swarming now in every foul alley and low street, come to know their power anduse it!
Again, in 1857, we said:—
"Why should the 'street-rat,' as the police call him—the boy whose home in sweet childhood was a box or a deserted cellar; whose food was crumbs begged or bread stolen; whose influences of education were kicks and cuffs, curses, neglect, destitution and cold; who never had a friend, who never heard of duty either to society or God—why should he feel himself under any of the restraints of civilization or of Christianity? Why should he be anything but a garroter and thief?"
* * * * * * * *
"Is not this crop of thieves and burglars, of shoulder-hitters and short-boys, of prostitutes and vagrants, of garroters and murderers, the very fruit to be expected from this seed, so long being sown? What else was to be looked for? Society hurried on selfishly for its wealth, and left this vast class in its misery and temptation. Now these children arise and wrest back, with bloody and criminal hands, what the world were too careless or too selfish to give. The worldliness of the rich, the indifference of all classes to the poor, will always be avenged. Society must act on the highest principles, or its punishment incessantly comes within itself. The neglect of the poor, and tempted, and criminal, is fearfully repaid." (Pp. 5, 6.)
But the words fell on inattentive ears.
We found ourselves unable to continue our reforming agencies in the Sixteenth Ward; no means were supplied; our Visitor was dismissed, the meeting closed; Mr. Slater moved away, heavily out of pocket with his humane efforts, and much discouraged with the indifference of the Christian community to these tremendous evils; and the "Nineteenth-street Gang" grew up undisturbed in its evil courses, taking new lessons in villainy and crime, and graduating in the manner the community has felt the past few years. Both the police and the public have noted the extraordinary recklessness and ferocity of their crimes. One, a mere lad, named Rogers, committed a murder, a few years ago, on a respectable gentleman, Mr. Swanton, accompanied by his wife, in the open street, on the west side of the city. He was subsequently executed. Some have been notorious thieves and burglars.
Another murdered an unoffending old man, Mr. Rogers, in open day, before his own door, and near the main thoroughfare of the city. The whole community was deeply thrilled by this horrible murder, and, though three of the "Gang" were arrested, the offender was never discovered. Subsequently, one of the suspected young men was murdered by one of his own "pals."
The amount of property they have destroyed would have paid the expense of an Industrial School, Reading-room, Lodging-house and our other agencies for them, ten times over.
Now and then we have rescued two or three brothers of them, and have seen them become honest and industrious farmers in the West, while one of the same family, remaining here, would soon be heard of in Sing Sing or the city prisons.
The history of the growth of the "Nineteenth-street Gang" is only one example of the histories of scores of similar bands of ruffians now in process of formation in the low quarters of the city.
Our preventive agency was now placed, through the especial assistance of one of our trustees, in a better building, in Eighteenth Street. Here we had all our moral "disinfectants" under one roof, in the best possible efficiency.
The person to be appointed Superintendent, whom I had accidentally encountered, was a "canny Scotchman," and proved singularly adapted to the work. I feared at first that he was "too pious" for his place; as experience shows that a little leaven of carnal habits, and the jolly good nature which Religion ought only to increase, but which, when misapplied, it does sometimes somewhat contract, is useful in influencing these young heathen of the street. Perhaps they are so far down in the moral scale, that too strict a standard, when first applied to them, tends to repel or discourage them.
I particularly dreaded our friend's devotional exercises. But time and experience soon wore off the Scotch Presbyterian starch, and showed that the "root of the matter" was in him. The first quality needed in such a position is patience—a spirit which is never discouraged by ingratitude or wearied out by ill conduct. This our apparently somewhat sternly-righteous superintendent could attempt to show.
Then, next, the guide of such lads must be just—inflexibly just—and exact in the smallest particulars; for, of all things which a street-boy feels, is first any neglect of obligations.
This virtue was easy to the superintendent. He had, too, in him a deep well of kindness for the forlorn and unfortunate, which the lads soon appreciated. To my great satisfaction, at this time a gentleman threw himself into the movement, who possessed those qualities which always command success, and especially the peculiarities with which boys instinctively sympathize.
He was gifted with a certain vitality of temperament and rich power of enjoyment of everything human, which the rough lads felt immediately. He evidently liked horses and dogs; a drive four-in-hand, and a gallop "to hounds," were plainly things not opposed to his taste. He appreciated a good dinner (as the boys happily discovered), and had no moral scruples at a cigar, or an occasional glass of wine.
All this physical energy and richness of temperament seemed to accompany him in his religions and philanthropical life. He was indefatigable in his efforts for the good of the lads; he conducted their religious meeting every Sunday evening; he advised and guided, he offered prizes, gave festivals and dinners, supplied reasonable wants, and corresponded with them. And, at length, to crown his efforts, he proposed to a few friends to purchase the house, and make it a home for the homeless boys forever.
This benevolent measure was carried through with the same energy with which he manages his business, and the street-boys of the west side of New York will long feel the fruits of it.
For our own and the public benefit, our worthy superintendent had, among his other qualities, what was of immense importance for his work—the true Scotch economy.
No manufacturer ever managed his factory, no hotel-keeper ever carried on his establishment with such an eye for every penny of useless expenditure, as faithful manager of trust-funds looked after every item of cost in this School, and Lodging-house. Thus, for instance, during the month of May last, he lodged eighty boys every night, and fed them with two meals, at a cost to each lodger of five cents for a meal and five cents for lodging, at the same time feeding and lodging some gratuitously. The boys were kept clean, had enough to eat, and were brought under all the good moral and mental influences of the House; and, at the end of the month, the institution had not only cost nothing to the public, but Mr. Gourley absolutely turned over eleven dollars and sixty-five cents to the Society. That is, his rent being paid, he had managed to keep his boys, pay the wages and food of three servants, a night-watchman, and errand-boy, and the salaries and table expenses of the superintendent, matron, and their family of four children. If this is not "economical charity," it would be difficult to find it.
On one occasion the patience of our worthy superintendent was put to a severe test.
For two years he fed and lodged two youthful "vessels of wrath." They were taught in the Night-school, they were preached to, and prayed with in the Sunday meeting, they were generously feasted in the Thanksgiving and Christmas festivals. At last, as the crowning work of benevolence, he clothed and cleaned them, and took them with him to find them a home in the Far West.
Here, when they had reached the land of independence, they began to develop "the natural man" in a most unpleasant form.
They would not go to the places selected; their language was so bad that the farmers would not take them; finally, after their refusing to take places where they were wanted, and making themselves generally disagreeable, Mr. Gourley had to inform the lads that they must shift for themselves! Hereupon they turned upon their benefactor with the vilest language. Subsequently they met him in the streets of the Western town, and were about to show themselves—what a Western paper calls—"muscular orphans," by a vigorous assault on their benevolent protector; but finding, from the bearing of our excellent brother, that he had something of the old Covenanter's muscle in him, and could show himself, if necessary, a worthy member of the old Scotch "Church militant," they wisely avoided the combat.
Mr. Gourley returned home down-hearted, his high Calvinistic views of the original condition of the human heart not being weakened by his experience. We all felt somewhat discouraged; but, as if to show us that human nature is never to be despaired of, Mr. Gourley afterwards received the followingamendefrom the two ingrates:—
"P——, Mich., June 6, 1870. "Mr. J. GOURLEY:
"Dear Sir—Knowing that you are one of those who can forget and forgive, I take the liberty of writing these few lines to you, hoping that I will not offend you by so doing. W—— and I both wish to return our thanks to the Society for giving us the aid they have. We are now both in a fair way of making men of ourselves. We are happy to think that we are free from the evil temptations that the poor boys of New York are exposed to. We are respected by all who know us here. Boys of New York little know of the pleasure there is to be found in a home in the 'Far West.' We expect to stay here for two years yet, and then make a short visit to New York. We would like to visit the 'Old Hotel,' if you have no objection. We would like to have you write and let us know how the boys are getting along, and if little Skid and Dutchy are still in the hotel. I would advise all boys who have no home to go West, and they will be sure to find one. W—— is foreman on the largest farm in the town, and has hired for three years at one hundred dollars per year, and found in everything. I am working in a saw-mill this summer. I worked on a farm the first winter and summer. Last winter I worked in the lumber-wood, and this summer I will try the mill. I get twenty dollars a month, and have since I left you at the depot. We both went to work the next day. I wish you would be so kind as to answer this, and oblige your obedient servants, "B. T. "M. W."
No. of No. of No. of No. Pro-YEAR. Boys. Lodgings. Meals. vided for. Expenses. Receipts.
1866 to 1867……. 847 15,389 48,511 272 $6,205.48 $3,053.40 1867 to 1868……. 952 23,933 39,401 159 5,141.08 4,065.25 1868 to 1868……. 890 22,921 25,345 127 7,983.58 3,068.53 1869, 9 months….. 563 15,506 15,429 37 3,832.04 1,995.21 1869 to 1870……. 919 25,516 27,932 86 4,766.55 3,510.84 1870 to 1871……. 750 28,302 30,693 69 4,224.51 3,586.67 —————————————————————————————————————- Totals……. 4,921 131,467 187,311 751 $32,093.24 $19,279.90
The Eighteenth-street Lodging-house has been gradually and surely preventing the growth of a fresh "gang" of youthful ruffians; and has already saved great numbers of neglected boys.
If any of my readers should ever be inclined to investigate a very miserable quarter of the city, let them go down to our "Corlear's Hook," so infamous twenty years ago for murders and terrible crimes, and then wind about among the lanes and narrow streets of the district. Here they will find every available inch of the ground made use of for residences, so that each lot has that poisonous arrangement, a "double house," whereby the air is more effectually vitiated, and a greater number of human beings are crowded together. From this massing-together of families, and the drunken habits prevailing, it results very naturally that the children prefer outdoor life to their wretched tenements, and, in the milder months, boys and girls live adolce far nientelife on the docks and wood-piles, enjoying the sun and the swimming, and picking up a livelihood by petty thieving and peddling.
Sometimes they all huddle together in some cellar, boys and girls, and there sleep. In winter they creep back to the tenement-houses, or hire a bed in the vile lodgings which are found in the Ward. They grow up, naturally, the wildest little "Topseys" and "Gavroches" that can be found. Ragged, impudent, sharp, able "to paddle their canoe" through all the rapids of the great city—the most volatile and uncertain of children; today in school, to-morrow miles away; many of them the most skillful of petty thieves, and all growing up to prey on the city.
In the midst of this quarter we found an old Public School building—a dilapidated old shell—which we hired and refitted. It had the especial advantage of being open to air and light on four sides. We soon transformed it into one of the most complete and attractive little agencies of instruction and charity which ever arose in the dark places of a crowded metropolis. We struck upon a superintendent—Mr. G. Calder—who, with other good qualities, had the artistic gift—who, by a few flowers, or leaves, or old engravings, could make any room look pleasing. He exerted his talent in embellishing this building, and in making a cheerful spot in the midst of a ward filled with rookeries and broken-down tenements. In the bit of a back yard he created a beautiful garden, with shrubbery and flowers, with vases and a cool shaded seat—and these in a place of the size of a respectable closet. There a poor child could stand and fancy herself, for a moment, far away in the country, Thence, on a spring morning, drowning the prevalent smells of bilge-water and sewers, ascended the sweet odors of hyacinth and heliotrope, sweet-william and violet. Above, in the school-rooms and the lodging-rooms, these sweet flowers were scattered about, taming and refining, for the time, the rough little subjects who frequented them. Soon a novel reward was proposed, and the best children in the School were allowed to take a plant home with them, and, if they brought it back improved in a few months, to receive others as a premium; so that the School not merely distributed its light of morality and intelligence in the dreary dens of the Ward, but was represented by cheerful and fragrant flowers in the windows of poor men's homes.
In the School-room, too, was placed a little aquarium, which became an increasing source of delight to the young vagabonds. Our diligent superintendent was not content. He now built a green-house, and, though no gardener, soon learned to care for and raise quantities of exquisite flowers, which should brighten the building in the gloomy winter.
[Illustration: POOR CHILDREN AMONG FLOWERS (The Rivington StreetLodging-House.)]
For the Industrial School we procured a teacher who taught as if life and death depended on the issues of each lesson. She seemed to pour out her life on "Enumeration," and gave an Object-lesson on an orange as if all the future prospects of the children depended on it. Such a teacher could not fail to interest the lively little vagrants of Rivington Street.
Her sweet assistant was as effective in her own way; so it came that a hundred and fifty of the young flibbertigibbets of the ward were soon gathered and attempted to be brought under the discipline of an Industrial School. But it was like schooling little Indians. A bright day scattered them as a splash scatters a school of fish, and they disappeared among the docks and boats of the neighborhood. No intellectual attraction could compete with a "target company," and the sound of the fire-bell drove all lessons out of their heads. Still, patience and ingenuity and devotion accomplished here, as in all our schools, their work—which, if not "perfect," has been satisfactory and encouraging.
But this was only a part of our efforts. Besides the school of a hundred and fifty children in the day from the neighborhood, might be found a hundred boys gathered from boxes, and barges, and all conceivable haunts, who came in for school and supper and bed.
Here, for some inscrutable reason, the considerable class of "canawl-boys," or lads who work on the canal-boats of the interior, came for harbor. Besides our Day and Night Schools, we opened here also a Free Reading-room for boys and young men in the neighborhood, and we held our usual Sunday-evening Meeting. In this meeting, fortunately for its good effects, various gentlemen took part, with much experience in practical life and of earnest characters. One, a young officer in the army, whose service for his country fitted him for the service of humanity; another, an enthusiastic and active young business man; and still another—one of those men of calm judgment, profound earnestness of character, and an almost princely generosity, who, in a foreign country, would be at the head of affairs, but here throw their moral and mental weight into enterprises of religion and philanthropy.
The effects of these Meetings were exemplified by many striking changes of character, and instances of resistance to temptation among the lads, which greatly encouraged us.
The building seemed so admirably adapted to our work, that, emboldened by our success with the Eighteenth-street House, we determined to try to purchase it. Two of our Trustees took the matter in hand. One had already, in the most generous manner, given one-third of the amount required for the purchase of that building; but now he offered what was still more—his personal efforts towards raising the amount needed here, $18,000.
No such disagreeable and self-denying work is ever done, as begging money. The feeling that you are boring others, and getting from their personal regard, what ought to be given solely for public motives, and the certainty that others will apply to you as you apply to them, and expect a subscription as a personal return, are all great "crosses." The cold rebuff, too; the suspicious negative, as if you were engaged in rather doubtful business, are other unpleasant accompaniments of this business. And yet it ought to be regarded simply and solely as an unpleasant public duty. Money must be given, or refused, merely from public considerations. The giving to one charity should never leave an obligation that your petitioner must give to another. These few gentlemen in the city, of means and position, who do this unpleasant work, deserve the gratitude of the community.
No other city in the world, we believe, makes such liberal gifts from its means, as does New York towards all kinds of charitable and religious objects. There is a certain band of wealthy men who give in a proportion almost never known in the history of benefactions. We know one gentleman of large income who habitually, as we understand from good authority, bestows, in every kind of charitable and religious donations, $300,000 a year! As a general rule, however, the very rich in New York give very little. Our own charity has been mainly supported by the gifts of the middle and poorer classes.
In this particular case, the trustee of whom we have spoken threw that enormous energy which has already made him, though a young man, one of the foremost business men of the city, into this labor. With him was associated a refined gentleman, who could reach many with invested wealth. Under this combination we soon raised the required sum, and all had the profound satisfaction of seeing a temporary "Home for Homeless Boys" placed in one of the worst quarters of the city, to scatter its benefactions for future years, when we are all gone.
During the past year, a still more beautiful feature has been added to this Lodging-house. We had occasion to put up in the rear a little building for bathrooms. It occurred to some gentlemen who are always devising pleasant things for these poor children, that a green-house upon this, opening into the school-room, would be a very agreeable feature, and that our superintendent's love for flowers could thus be used in the most practical way for giving pleasure to great numbers of poor children. A pretty conservatory, accordingly, was erected on the top of the bath-room, opening into the audience-room, so that the little street-waifs, as they looked up from their desks, had a vista of flowers before them. Hither, also, were invited the mothers of the children in the Day-school to occasional parties or exhibitions; and here the plants were shown which had been intrusted to them.
The room is one of the most attractive schoolrooms in the city, and I have no doubt its beautiful flowers are one cause of the great numbers of poor children which flock to it, while the influence of its earnest teachers, and of the whole instrumentality, has been to improve the character of the neighboring quarter.
FOUR YEARS' WORK AT THE RIVINGTON-STREET LODGING-HOUSE.(1868, 1869, 1870, 1871)
Number of different boys provided for……. 2,659Number of lodgings furnished……………. 80,344Number of meals furnished………………. 78,756Number of boys sent West……………….. 161Number of boys provided with employment….. 105Number of boys restored to friends………. 126Number of boys patronizing the savings-bank. 310Amount saved by the boys………………..$ 2,873.00Total expenses………………………… 26,018.10Amount paid by the boys………………… 8,614.63
The history of this useful charity would be only a repetition of that of the others. It is placed among the haunts which are a favorite of the little dock-thieves, and iron and copper-stealers, and of all the ragged crowd who live by peddling wood near the East River wharves. It has had a checkered career. One superintendent was "cleaned out" twice on successive nights, and had his till robbed almost under his nose. Another was almost hustled out of the dormitory by the youthful vagabonds; but order has at length been gained; considerable numbers of thegaminshave been tamed into honest farmers, and others are pursuing regular occupations.
The Night-school is busily attended; the Day-school is a model of industry; the "Bank" is used, and the Sunday-evening Meeting is one of the most interesting and impressive which we have.
Its recent success and improvement are due to the personal interest and exertions of one of our trustees, who has thrown into this labor of charity a characteristic energy, as well as the earnestness of a profound religious nature.
We have in this building, also, a great variety of charitable work crowded; but we hope, through the liberality which has founded our other Lodging-houses, to secure a more suitable building, which shall be a permanent blessing to that quarter.
Number of lodgings…………………….. 67,198Number of meals……………………….. 65,757Sent West…………………………….. 278Restored to friends……………………. 138Number of different boys……………….. 3,036Amount paid by boys…………………….$6,522.22
There is without doubt in the blood of most children—as an inheritance, perhaps, from some remote barbarian ancestor—a passion for roving. There are few of us who cannot recall the delicious pleasure of wandering at free will in childhood, far from schools, houses, and the tasks laid upon us, and leading in the fields or woods a semi-savage existence. In fact, to some of us, now in manhood, there is scarcely a greater pleasure of the senses than to gratify "the savage in one's blood," and lead a wild life in the woods. The boys among the poor feel this passion often almost irresistibly. Nothing will keep them in school or at home. Having perhaps kind parents, and not a peculiarly disagreeable home, they will yet rove off night and day, enjoying the idle, lazzaroni life on the docks, living in the summer almost in the water, and curling down at night, as the animals do, in any corner they can find—hungry and ragged, but light-hearted, and enjoying immensely their vagabond life. Probably as a sensation, not one that the street lad will ever have in after-life will equal the delicious feeling of carelessness and independence with which he lies on his back in the spring sunlight on a pile of dock lumber, and watches the moving life on the river, and munches his crust of bread. It frequently happens that no restraint or punishment can check this Indian-like propensity.
We recall one fine little fellow who was honest, and truthful, and kind-hearted, but who, when the roving passion in the blood came up, left everything and spent his days and nights on the wharves, and rambling about the streets. His mother, a widow, knew only too well what this habit was bringing him to, for, unfortunately, the life of a young barbarian in New York has little poetry in it The youthful vagrant soon becomes idle and unfit to work; he is hungry, and cannot win his food from the waters and the woods, like his savage prototype; therefore, he must steal. He makes the acquaintance of the petty thieves, pickpockets, and young sharpers of the city. He learns to lie and swear; to pick pockets, rifle street-stands, and break open shop-windows or doors; so that this barbarian habit is the universal stepping-stone to children's crimes. In this case, the worthy woman locked the boy up in her room, and sent down word to us that her son would like a place in the country, if the employer would come up and take him. We dispatched an excellent gentleman to her from the interior, who desired a "model boy;" but, when he arrived, he found, to his dismay, the lad kicking through the panels of the door, and declaring he would die sooner than go. The boy then disappeared for a few days, when his mother discovered him ragged and half-starved about the docks, and brought him home and whipped him severely. The next morning he was off again, and was gone a week, until the police brought him back in a wretched condition. The mother now tried the "Christian Brothers," who had a fence ten feet high about their premises, and kept the lad, it was said, part of the time chained. But the fence was mere sport to the little vagrant, and he was soon off. She then tried the "Half-Orphan Asylum," but this succeeded no better. Then the "Juvenile Asylum" was applied to, and the lad was admitted; but here he spent but a short probation, and was soon beyond their reach. The mother, now in desperation, resolved to send him to the Far West, under the charge of the Children's Aid Society. Knowing his habits, she led him down by the collar to the office, sat by him there, and accompanied him to the railroad depot with the party of children. He was placed on a farm in Northern Michigan, where, fortunately, there was considerable game in the neighborhood. To the surprise of us all, he did not at once run away, being perhaps attracted by the shooting he could indulge in, when not at work.
At length a chance was offered him of being a trapper, and he began his rovings in good earnest. From the Northern Peninsula of Michigan to the Rocky Mountains, he wandered over the woods and wilds for years, making a very good living by his sales of skins, and saving considerable money. All accounts showed him to be a very honest, decent, industrious lad—a city vagrant about to be a thief transformed into a country vagrant making an honest living.
Our books give hundreds of similar stories, where a free country-life and the amusements and sports of the farmers, when work is slack, have gratified healthfully the vagrant appetite. The mere riding a horse, or owning a calf or a lamb, or trapping an animal in winter, seems to have an astonishing effect in cooling the fire in the blood in the city rover, and making him contented.
The social habits of the army of little street-vagrants who rove through our city have something unaccountable and mysterious in them. We have, as I have described, in various parts of the city little "Stations," as it were, in their weary journey of life, where we ostensibly try to refresh them, but where we really hope to break up their service in the army of vagrancy, and make honest lads of them. These "Lodging-houses" are contrived, after much experience, so ingeniously that they inevitably attract in the young vagabonds, and drain the quarter where they are placed of this class. We give the boys, in point of fact, more for their money than they can get anywhere else, and the whole house is made attractive and comfortable for them. But the reasons of their coming to a given place seem unaccountable.
Thus there will be a "Lodge" in some out-of-the-way quarter, with no special attractions, which for years will drag along with a comparatively small number of lodgers, when suddenly, without any change being made, there will come a rush of street-rovers to it, and scores will have to be sent away, and the house be crowded for months after. Perhaps these denizens of boxes and hay-barges have their own fashions, like their elders, and a "Boys' Hotel" becomes popular, and has a run of custom like the larger houses of entertainment. The numbers too, at different seasons, vary singularly. Thus, in the coldest nights of winter, when few boys could venture to sleep out, and one would suppose there would be a rush to these warmed and comfortable "Lodges," the attendance in some houses falls off. And in all, the best months are the spring and autumn rather than the winter or summer. Sometimes a single night of the week will show a remarkable increase of lodgers, though for what reason no one can divine.
The lodgers in the different houses are singularly different. Those in the parent Lodging-house—the Newsboys'—seem more of the truegaminorder: sharp, ready, light-hearted, quick to understand and quick to act, generous and impulsive, and with an air of being well used "to steer their own canoe" through whatever rapids and whirlpools. These lads seem to include more, also, of that chance medley of little wanderers who drift into the city from the country, and other large towns—boys floating on the current, no one knows whence or whither. They are, as a rule, younger than in the other "Lodges," and many of them are induced to take places on farms, or with mechanics in the country.
One of the mysterious things about this Boys' Hotel is, what becomes of the large numbers that enter it? In the course of the twelve months there passes through its hospitable doors a procession of more thaneight thousanddifferent youthful rovers of the streets—boys without homes or friends; yet, on any one night, there is not an average of more than two hundred. Each separate boy accordingly averages but nine days in his stay. We can trace during the year the course of, perhaps, a thousand of these young vagrants, for most of whom we provide ourselves. What becomes of the other seven thousand? Many, no doubt, find occupation in the city or country; some in the pleasant seasons take their pleasure and business at the watering-places and other large towns; some return to relatives or friends; many are arrested and imprisoned, and the rest of the ragged throng drift away, no one knows whither.
The up-town Lodging-houses seem often to gather in a more permanent class of lodgers; they become frequently genuine boarding-houses for children. The lads seem to be, too, a more destitute and perhaps lower class than "the down-town boys." Possibly by a process of "Natural Selection," only the sharpest and brightest lads get through the intense "struggle for existence" which belongs to the most crowded portions of the city, while the duller are driven to the up-town wards. We throw out the hypothesis for some future investigator.
The great amusement of this multitude of street vagabonds is the cheap theatre. Like most boys, they have a passion for the drama. But to them the pictures of kings and queens, the processions of courtiers and soldiers on the stage, and the wealthy gentlemen aiding and rescuing distressed peasant-girls, are the only glimpses they ever get of the great world of history and society above them, and they are naturally entranced by them. Many a lad will pass a night in a box, and spend his last sixpence, rather than lose this show. Unfortunately, these low theatres seem the rendezvous for all disreputable characters; and here the "bummers" make the acquaintance of the higher class whom they so much admire, of "flashmen," thieves, pickpockets, and rogues.
We have taken the pains at different times to see some of the pieces represented in these places, and have never witnessed anything improper or immoral. On the contrary, the popular plays were always of a heroic and moral cast. "Uncle Tom," when it was played in the Bowery, undoubtedly had a good moral and political effect, in the years before the war, on these ragamuffins.
The salvation of New York, as regards this army of young vagabonds, is, without doubt, its climate. There can be no permanent class of lazzaroni under our winters. The cold compels work. The snow drives "the street-rats," as the police call them, from their holes. Then the homeless boys seek employment and a shelter. And when they are once brought under the series of moral and physical instrumentalities contrived for their benefit, they cease soon to be vagrants, and join the great class of workers and honest producers.
One of the best practical methods of correcting vagrancy among city boys would be the adoption, by every large town, of an "ordinance" similar to that passed by the Common Council of Boston.
By this Act, every child who pursues any kind of street-trade for an occupation—such as news-vending, peddling, blackening of boots, and the like—is obliged to procure a license, which must be renewed every three months. If he is found at any time without this license, he is liable to summary arrest as a vagrant. To procure the license, each child must show a certificate that he has been, or is, attending some school, whether public, or industrial, or parish, during three hours each day.
The great advantage of a law of this nature, is, that it can be executed. Any ordinary legislation against youthful vagrants—such as arresting any child found in the streets during school-hours, or without occupation—is sure to become ineffectual through the humanity and good-nature of officials and judges. Moreover, every young rover of the streets can easily trump up some occupation, which he professes to follow.