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DEDICATION.
DEDICATION.
——- To the many co-laborers, men and women, who have not held their comfort or even their lives dear unto themselves, but have striven, through many years, to teach the ignorant, to raise up the depressed, to cheer the despairing, to impart a higher life and a Christian hope to the outcast and neglected youth of this city, and thus save society from their excesses, this simple record of common labors, and this sketch of the terrible evils sought to be cured, is respectfully dedicated....
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INTRODUCTION.
INTRODUCTION.
——- The great pioneer in the United States, in the labors of penal Reform and the prevention of crime,—EDWARD LIVINGSTON,—said as long ago as 1833, in his famous "Introductory Report to the Code of Reform and Prison Discipline": "As prevention in the diseases of the body is less painful, less expensive, and more efficacious than the most skillful cure, so in the moral maladies of society, to arrest the vicious before the profligacy assumes the shape of crime; to take away from the poor the cause
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THE DANGEROUS CLASSES
THE DANGEROUS CLASSES
—— The central figure in the world's charity is CHRIST. An eloquent rationalistic writer—Mr. Lecky—speaking of the Christian efforts in early ages in behalf of exposed children and against infanticide, says: "Whatever mistakes may have been made, the entire movement I have traced displays an anxiety not only for the life, but for the moral well-being, of the castaways of society, such as the most humane nations of antiquity had never reached. This minute and scrupulous care for human life and hu
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CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER II.
New York is a much younger city than its European rivals; and with perhaps one-third the population of London, yet it presents varieties of life among the "masses" quite as picturesque, and elements of population even more dangerous. The throng of different nationalities in the American city gives a peculiarly variegated air to the life beneath the surface, and the enormous over-crowding in portions of the poor quarters intensifies the evils, peculiar to large towns, to a degree seen only in a f
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CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER III.
The great practical division of causes of crime may be made into preventible and non-preventible. Among the preventible, or those which can be in good part removed, may be placed ignorance, intemperance, over-crowding of population, want of work, idleness, vagrancy, the weakness of the marriage-tie, and bad legislation. Among those which cannot be entirely removed are inheritance, the effects of emigration, orphanage, accident or misfortune, the strength of the sexual and other passions, and a n
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CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER IV.
It is extraordinary, among the lowest classes, in how large a number of cases a second marriage, or the breaking of marriage, is the immediate cause of crime or vagrancy among the children. When questioning a homeless boy or street-wandering girl as to the former home, it is extremely common to hear "I couldn't get on with my step-mother," or "My step-father treated me badly," or "My father left, and we just took care of ourselves." These apparently exceptional events are so common in these clas
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CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER V.
The source of juvenile crime and misery in New York, which is the most formidable, and, at the same time, one of the most difficult to remove, is the overcrowding of our population. The form of the city-site is such—the majority of the dwellings being crowded into a narrow island between two water-fronts—that space near the business-portion of the city becomes of great value. These districts are necessarily sought for by the laboring and mechanic classes, as they are near the places of employmen
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CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VI.
The power of the appetite for alcoholic stimulus is something amazing. A laboring-man feels it especially on account of the drag on his nervous system of steady and monotonous labor, and because of the few mental stimuli which he enjoys. He returns to his tenement-house after a hard day's work, "dragged out" and craving excitement; his rooms are disagreeable; perhaps his wife cross, or slatternly, and his children noisy; he has an intense desire for something which can take him out of all this,
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CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VII.
In New York, we believe almost alone among the great capitals of the world, a profound and sustained effort for many years has been made to cut off the sources and diminish the numbers of the dangerous classes; and, as the records of crime show, with a marked effect. In most large cities, the first practical difficulty is the want of a united organization to work upon the evils connected with this lowest class. There are too many scattered efforts, aiming in a desultory manner at this and that p
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CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER VIII.
All those who were engaged in these efforts felt their inadequacy and we resolved to meet at different private houses to discuss the formation of some more comprehensive effort. At length, in 1853, we organized, and, to the great surprise of the writer, his associates suggested that he should take the position of executive officer of the new and untried Association. He was at that time busied in literary and editorial pursuits, but had expected soon to carry out the purpose of his especial train
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CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER IX.
The spectacle which earliest and most painfully arrested my attention in this work, were the houseless boys in various portions of the city. There seemed to be a very considerable class of lads in New York who bore to the busy, wealthy world about them something of the same relation which Indians bear to the civilized Western settlers. They had no settled home, and lived on the outskirts of society, their hand against every man's pocket, and every man looking on them as natural enemies; their wi
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CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER X.
A girl street-rover is to my mind the most painful figure in all the unfortunate crowd of a large city. With a boy, "Arab of the streets," one always has the consolation that, despite his ragged clothes and bed in a box or hay-barge, he often has a rather good time of it, and enjoys many of the delicious pleasures of a child's roving life, and that a fortunate turn of events may at any time make an honest, industrious fellow of him. At heart we cannot say that he is much corrupted; his sins belo
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CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XI.
The question of the best mode of legally controlling the great evil of prostitution, and confining its bad physical effects, is a very difficult one. The merely philosophical inquirer, or even the physician, regarding humanity "in the broad," comes naturally to the conclusion that this offense is one of the inevitable evils which always have followed, and always will follow, the track of civilization; that it is to be looked upon, like small-pox or scarlet fever, as a disease of civilized man, a
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CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XII.
As a simple, practical measure to save from vice the girls of the honest poor, nothing has ever been equal to the Industrial School. Along with our effort for homeless boys, I early attempted to found a comprehensive organization of Schools for the needy and ragged little girls of the city. Though our Free Schools are open to all, experience has taught that vast numbers of children are so ill-clothed and destitute that they are ashamed to attend these excellent places of instruction; or their mo
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CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIII.
Our next great effort was among the Germans. On the eastern side of the city is a vast population of German laborers, mechanics, and shop-keepers. Among them, also, are numbers of exceedingly poor people, who live by gathering rags and bones. I used at that time to explore these singular settlements, filled with the poor peasantry of the "Fatherland," and being familiar with the German patois, I had many cheery conversations with these honest people, who had drifted into places so different from
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CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XIV.
"It sometimes seems in our Industrial Schools as if each wretched, blear-eyed, half-starved, filthy little girl was a living monument of the curses of Intemperance. The rags, the disease, the ignorance, the sunny looks darkened, the old faces on young shoulders, are not necessarily the pitiable effects of overwhelming circumstances. The young creatures are not always cursed by poverty principally, but by the ungoverned appetites, bad habits and vices of their parents. On 'Dutch Hill' one can har
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CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XV.
It is not often that our efforts carry us among Protestant poor, but it happens that on the west side of the city, near Tenth Avenue and Twenty-seventh Street, is a considerable district of English and Scotch laboring people, who are mainly Protestants. A meeting of ladies was called in the western part of the city, in like manner with the proceedings at the formation of the other Schools; and a School was proposed. The wife of a prominent property-holder in the neighborhood, a lady of great ene
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CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVI.
A lady of high culture and position, who felt peculiarly the responsibilities of the fortunate toward the unfortunate, conceived the idea of doing something to elevate the condition of the destitute classes in the quarter of the city between the East River and Avenue B. She accordingly made the proposition to us of an Industrial School in that neighborhood. We gladly accepted, and soon secured a room, and gathered a goodly company of poor children, mostly Germans. Fortunately for our enterprise,
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CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVII.
Among the various rounds I was in the habit of making in the poorest quarters, was one through the Italian quarter of the "Five Points." Here, in large tenement-houses, were packed hundreds of poor Italians, mostly engaged in carrying through the city and country "the everlasting hand-organ," or selling statuettes. In the same room I would find monkeys, children, men and women, with organs and plaster-casts, all huddled together; but the women contriving still, in the crowded rooms, to roll thei
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CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Beyond a certain point, the history of these various schools becomes monotonous. It is simply a history of kindness, of patience, of struggles with ignorance, poverty, and intemperance; of lives poured out for the good of those who can never make a return, of steady improvement and the final elevation of great numbers of children and youth who are under these permanent and profound influences. In no one of the many branches whose labors and results I am describing, has probably so much vitality
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CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XIX.
"Ameliorer l'homme par le terre et la terre par l'homme." DEMETZ Among the lowest poor of New York, as we stated in a previous chapter, the influence of overcrowding has been incredibly debasing. When we find half a dozen families—as we frequently do—occupying one room, the old and young, men and women, boys and girls of all ages sleeping near each other, the result is inevitable. The older persons commit unnatural crimes; the younger grow up with hardly a sense of personal dignity or purity; th
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CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XX.
This most sound and practical of charities always met with an intense opposition here from a certain class, for bigoted reasons. The poor were early taught, even from the altar, that the whole scheme of emigration was one of "proselytizing" and that every child thus taken forth was made, a "Protestant." Stories were spread, too, that these unfortunate children were re-named in the West, and that thus even brothers and sisters might meet and perhaps marry! Others scattered the pleasant informatio
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CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXI.
——- BY A VISITOR. ——- "On Wednesday evening, with emigrant [Since this first experience, we have always sent our children by regular trains, in decent style.] tickets to Detroit, we started on the Isaac Newton for Albany. Nine of our company, who missed the boat, were sent up by the morning cars, and joined us in Albany, making forty-six boys and girls from New York, bound westward, and, to them, homeward
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CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXII.
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
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CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
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 resolu
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CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXIV.
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
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CHAPTER XXV.
CHAPTER XXV.
It was a fortunate event for our charity which led, in 1861, a certain New 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 some
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CHAPTER XXVI.
CHAPTER XXVI.
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 ins
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CHAPTER XXVII.
CHAPTER XXVII.
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
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CHAPTER XXVIII.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
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
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CHAPTER XXIX.
CHAPTER XXIX.
In our educational movements, we early opened Night-schools for the poor children. During the winter of 1870-71, we had some eleven in operation, reaching a most interesting class of children—those working hard from eight to ten hours a day, and then coming with passionate eagerness for schooling in the evening. The experience gained in these schools still further developed the fact, already known to us, of the great numbers of children of tender years in New York employed in factories, shops, t
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CHAPTER XXX.
CHAPTER XXX.
The power of every charity and effort at moral reform is in the spirit of the man directing or founding it. If he enter it mechanically, as he would take a trade or profession, simply because it falls in his way, or because of its salary or position, he cannot possibly succeed in it. There are some things which the laws of trade do not touch. There are services of love which seek no pecuniary reward, and whose virtue, when first entered upon, is that the soul is poured out in them without refere
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CHAPTER XXXI.
CHAPTER XXXI.
An important question often comes up in regard to our charitable associations: "How shall they best be supported?"—by endowment from the State or by private and annual assistance? There is clearly a right that all charities of a general nature should expect some help from the public Legislature. The State is the source of the charters of all corporations. One of the main duties of a Legislature is to care for the interests of the poor and criminal. The English system, dating as far back as Henry
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CHAPTER XXXII.
CHAPTER XXXII.
We were much struck by a reply, recently, of a City Missionary in East London, who was asked what he gave to the poor. "Give!" he said, "we never give now; we take!" He explained that the remedy of alms, for the terrible evils of that portion of London, had been tried ad nauseam , and that they were all convinced of its little permanent good, and their great object was, at present, to induce the poor to save; and for this, they were constantly urgent to get money from these people, when they had
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CHAPTER XXXIII.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
A child, whether good or bad, is, above all things, an individual requiring individual treatment and care. Let any of our readers, having a little fellow given to mischief, who had at length broken his neighbor's windows, or with a propensity to stealing, or with a quick temper which continually brings him into unpleasant scrapes, imagine him suddenly put into an "Institution" for reform, henceforth designated as "D" of "Class 43," or as "No. 193," roused up to prayers in the morning with eight
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CHAPTER XXXIV.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Some of our citizens are now seeking to open in New York a Foundling Asylum to be conducted under Protestant influences. A Roman Catholic Hospital for Foundlings was recently established, and is now receiving aid from the city treasury. In view of these humane efforts, attended, as they must be, by vast expense, it becomes necessary to inquire what is the best system of management attained by experience in other countries. Of the need of some peculiar shelter or shelters for illegitimate childre
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CHAPTER XXXV.
CHAPTER XXXV.
The subject of applying Religion as a lever to raise up the class of neglected children whom we have been describing, is a difficult one, but vital to the Science of Reform. The objects of those engaged in laboring for this class are to raise them above temptation, to make them of more value to themselves, and to Society, and, if possible, to elevate them to the highest range of life, where the whole character is governed by Religion. The children themselves are in a peculiar position. They have
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CHAPTER XXXVI.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Very few people have any just appreciation of the comparative cost of punishment and prevention in the treatment of crime. The writer recalls one out of many thousand instances in his experience, which strikingly illustrates the contrast A number of years ago, three boys (brothers), the oldest perhaps seventeen, applied at the Newsboys' Lodging-house of this city for shelter. It was soon suspected that the eldest was a thief, employing the younger as assistants in his nefarious business. The you
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CHAPTER XXXVII.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
In reviewing these long-continued efforts for the prevention of crime and the elevation of the neglected youth of this metropolis, it may aid others engaged in similar enterprises to note in summary the principles on which they have been carried out, and which account for their marked success. In the first place, as has been so often said, though pre-eminently a Charity, this Association has always sought to encourage the principle of Self-help in its beneficiaries, and has aimed much more at pr
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