Brace Charles Loring
The Dangerous Classes of New York, and Twenty Years' Work Among Them
OUR AGENTS
The Charity I am describing has been singularly fortunate in its agents; but in none more so than in those who performed its responsible work in the West.
Mr. E. P. Smith, who writes the interesting description above, of the first expedition we sent to the West, has since become honorably distinguished by labors among the freedmen as agent of the Christian Commission.
Our most successful agent, however, was Mr. C. C. Tracy, who had a certain quaintness of conversation and anecdote, and a solid kindness and benevolence, which won his way with the Western farmers, as well as the little flocks he conducted to their new fold.
One of his favorite apothegms became almost a proverb.
"Won't the boy ran away?" was the frequent anxious inquiry from the farmers.
"Did ye ever see a cow run away from a haystack?" was Mr. Tracy's, rejoinder. "Treat him well, and he'll be sure to stay."
And the bland and benevolent manner in which he would reply to an irritated employer, who came back to report that the "New-York boy" had knocked over the milk-pail, and pelted the best cow, and let the cattle in the corn, and left the young turkeys in the rain, etc, etc, was delightful to behold.
"My dear friend, can you expect boys to be perfect at once? Didn't you ever pelt the cattle when you were a boy?"
Mr. T. testified before the Senate Committee in 1871, that he had transplanted to the West some four or five thousand children, and, to the best of his knowledge and belief, very few ever turned out bad.
Whenever any of these children chanced to be defective in mind or body, or, from any other cause, became chargeable on the rural authorities, we made ourselves responsible for their support, during any reasonable time after their settlement in the West.
Our present agents, Mr. E. Trott and Mr. J. P. Brace, are exceedingly able and judicious agents, so that we transported, in 1871, to the country, some three thousand children, at an expense, including all salaries and costs, of $31,638.
We have also a resident Western agent, Mr. C. R. Fry, who looks after the interests of those previously sent and prepares for future parties, traveling from village to village. The duties of all these agents are very severe and onerous.
It is a matter of devout thankfulness that no accident has ever happened to any one of the many parties of children we have sent out, or to the agents.
The following testimony was given by Mr. J. Macy, Assistant Secretary of the Children's Aid Society, before the Senate Committee, in 1871: —
"Mr. J. Macy testified that he corresponds annually with from eight thousand to ten thousand persons, and, on an average, receives about two thousand letters from children and their employers. He has personal knowledge of a great many boys growing up to be respectable citizens, others having married well, others graduating in Western colleges. Out of twenty-one thousand, not over twelve children have turned out criminals, The percentage of boys returning to the city from the West is too small to be computed, not more than six annually. From correspondence and personal knowledge, he is thoroughly satisfied that but very few turned out bad, and that the only way of saving large boys from falling into criminal practices is to send them into good country-homes. He regarded the system of sending families to the West as one of the best features of the work of the Society. Not a family has been sent West which has not improved by the removal. The Society had never changed the name of a child, and Catholic children had often been intrusted to Catholic families." * * * * *
"Letter from a newsboy to the Superintendent of the Lodging-house: —
"M – , IND., Nov. 24, 1859.
"'TO MY FRIEND AND BENEFACTOR. – So I take my pen in my hand to let you know how I am, and how I am getting along; As far as I see, I am well satisfied with my place; but I took a general look around, and, as far as I see, all the boys left in M – are doing well, especially myself, and I think there is as much fun as in New York, for nuts and apples are all free. I am much obliged to you, Mr. O'Connor, for the paper you sent me. I received it last night; I read it last night – something about the Newsboys' Lodging-house.
"'All the newsboys of New York have a bad name; but we should show ourselves, and show them, that we are no fools; that we can become as respectable as any of their countrymen, for some of you poor boys can do something for your country-for Franklin, Webster, Clay, were poor boys once, and even Commodore V. C. Perry or Math. C. Perry. But even George Law, and Vanderbilt, and Astor – some of the richest men of New York – and Math. and V. C. Perry were nothing but printers, and in the navy on Lake Erie. And look at Winfield Scott. So now, boys, stand up and let them see you have got the real stuff in you. Come out here and make respectable and honorable men, so they can say, there, that boy was once a newsboy.
"'Now, boys, you all know I have tried everything. I have been a newsboy and when that got slack, you know I have smashed baggage. I have sold nuts; I have peddled, I have worked on the rolling billows up the canal. I was a boot-black; and you know when I sold papers I was at the top of our profession. I had a good stand of my own, but I found that all would not do. I could not get along, but I am now going ahead. I have a first-rate home, ten dollars a month, and my board; and I tell you, fellows, that is a great deal more than I could scrape up my best times in New York. We are all on an equality, my boys, out here, so long as we keep yourselves respectable.
"'Mr. O'Connor, tell Fatty or F. John Pettibone, to send me a Christmas number of Frank Leslie's and Harper's Weekly, a Weekly News or some other pictorials to read, especially the Newsboys' Pictorial, if it comes out. No old papers, or else none. If they would get some other boys to get me some books. I want something to read.
"I hope this letter will find you in good health, as it leaves me. Mr.
O'Connor, I expect an answer before two weeks – a letter and a paper.
Write to me all about the Lodging-house. With this I close my letter, with much respect to all.
"'I remain your truly obedient friend,"'J. K.'"
CHAPTER XXII
A PRACTICAL PHILANTHROPIST AMONG THE YOUNG "ROUGHS."
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
THE OFFICE OF THE CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY
This has become a kind of eddying-point, where the two streams of the fortunate and the unfortunate classes seem to meet. Such a varying procession of humanity as passes through these plain rooms, from one year's end to the other, can nowhere else be seen. If photographs could be taken of the human life revealed there, they would form a volume of pictures of the various fortunes of large classes in a great city. On one day, there will be several mothers with babes. They wish them adopted, or taken by any one. They relate sad stories of desertion and poverty; they are strangers or immigrants. When the request is declined, they beseech, and say that the child must die, for they cannot support both. It is but too plain that, they are illegitimate children; As they depart, the horrible feeling presses on one, that the child will soon follow the fate of so many thousands born out of wedlock. Again, a pretty young woman comes to beg a home for the child of some friend, who cannot support it. Her story need not be told; the child is hers, and is the offspring of shame. Or some person from the higher classes enters, to inquire for the traces of some boy, long disappeared – the child of passion and sin.
But the ordinary frequenters are the children of the street – the Arabs and gypsies of our city.
Here enters a little flower-seller, her shawl drawn over her head, barefooted and ragged – she begs for a home and bread; here a newsboy, wide-awake and impudent, but softened by his desire to "get West;" here "a bummer," ragged, frouzy, with tangled hair and dirty face, who has slept for years in boxes and privies; here a "canawl-boy," who cannot steer his little craft in the city as well as he could his boat; or a petty thief who wishes to reform his ways, or a bootblack who has conceived the ambition of owning land, or a little "revolver" who hopes to get quarters for nothing in a Lodging-house and "pitch pennies" in the interval. Sometimes some yellow-haired German boy, stranded by fortune in the city, will apply, with such honest blue eyes, that the first employer that enters will carry him off; or a sharp, intelligent Yankee lad, left adrift by sudden misfortune, comes in to do what he has never done before – ask for assistance. Then an orphan-girl will appear, floating on the waves of the city, having come here no one knows why, and going no one can tell whither.
Employers call to obtain "perfect children;" drunken mothers rush in to bring back their children they have already consented should be sent far from poverty and temptation; ladies enter to find the best object of their charities, and the proper field for their benevolent labors; liberal donors; "intelligent foreigners," inquiring into our institutions, applicants for teachers' places, agents, and all the miscellaneous crowd who support and visit agencies of charity.
A PRACTICAL PHILANTHROPIST
The central figure in this office, disentangling all the complicated threads in these various applications, and holding himself perfectly cool and bland in this turmoil, is "a character" – Mr. J. Macy.
He was employed first as a visitor for the Society; but, soon betraying a kind of bottled-up "enthusiasm of humanity" under a very modest exterior, he was put in his present position, where he has become a sort of embodied Children's Aid Society in his own person. Most men take their charities as adjuncts to life, or as duties enjoined by religion or humanity. Mr. Macy lives in his. He is never so truly happy as when he is sitting calmly amid a band of his "lambs," as he sardonically calls the heavy-fisted, murderous-looking young vagabonds who frequent the Cottage place Reading-room, and seeing them all happily engaged in reading or quiet, amusements. Then the look of beatific satisfaction that settles over his face, as, in the midst of a loving passage of his religious address to them, he takes one of the obstreperous lambs by the collar, and sets him down very hard on another bench – never for a moment breaking the thread or sweet tone of his bland remarks – is a sight to behold; you know that he is happier there than he would be in a palace.
His labors with these youthful scapegraces around Cottage Place, during the last fifteen years, would form one of the most instructive chapters in the history of philanthropy. I have beheld him discoursing sweetly on the truths of Christianity while a storm of missiles was coming through the windows; in fact, during the early days of the meeting, the windows were always barricaded with boards. The more violent the intruders were, the more amiable, and at the same time, the more firm he became.
In fact, he never seemed so well satisfied as when the roughest little "bummers" of the ward entered his Boys' Meeting. The virtuous and well-behaved children did not interest him half so much. By a patience which is almost incredible, and a steady kindness of years, he finally succeeded in subduing these wild young vagrants, frequently being among them every night of the week, holding magic-lantern exhibitions, temperance meetings, social gatherings, and the like, till he really knew them and attracted their sympathies. His cheerfulness was high when the meeting grew into an Industrial School, where the little girls, who perplexed him so, could be trained by female hands, and his happiness was at its acme when the liberality of one or two gentlemen enabled him to open a Reading-room for "the lambs." The enterprise was always an humble one in appearance; but such were the genuineness and spirit of humanity in it – the product of his sisters as well as himself – that it soon met with kind support from various ladies and gentlemen, and now is one of those lights in dark places which must gladden any observer of the misery and crime of this city.
Mr. Macy's salvation in these exhausting and nerve-wearing efforts, and divers others which I have not detailed, is his humor. I have seen him take two lazy-looking young men, who had applied most piteously for help, conduct them very politely to the door, and, pointing amiably to the Third Avenue, say, "Now, my boys, just be kind enough to walk right north up that avenue for one hundred miles into the, country, and you will find plenty of work and food. Good-by! good-by!" The boys depart, mystified.
Or a dirty little fellow presents himself in the office. "Please, sir, I am an orphant, and I want a home!" Mr. Macy eyes him carefully; his knowledge of "paidology" has had many years to ripen in; he sees, perhaps, amid his rags, a neatly-sewed patch, or notes that his naked feet are too white for a "bummer." He takes him to the inner office. "My boy! Where do you live? Where's your father?"
"Please, sir, I don't live nowhere, and I hain't got no father, and me mither is dead!" Then follows a long and touching story of his orphanage, the tears flowing down his cheeks. The bystanders are almost melted themselves. Not so Mr. Macy. Grasping the boy by the shoulder, "Where's your mother, I say?" "Oh, dear, I'm a poor orphant, and I hain't got no mither!" "Where is your mother, I say? Where do you live? I give you just three minutes to tell, and then, if you do not, I shall hand you over to that officer!" The lad yields; his true story is told, and a runaway restored to his family.
In the midst of his highest discouragements at Cottage Place, Mr. Macy frequently had some characteristic story of his "lambs" to refresh him in his intervals of rest And some peculiar exhibition of mischief or wickedness always seemed to act as a kind of tonic on him and restore his spirits.
I shall not forget the cheerfulness with which he related one day that, after having preached with great unction the Sunday previous on "stealing," he came back the next and discovered that a private room in the building, which he only occasionally used, had been employed by the boys for some time as a receptacle for stolen goods!
On another occasion, he had held forth with peculiar "liberty" on the sin of thieving, and, when he sat down almost exhausted, discovered, to his dismay, that his hat had been stolen! But, knowing that mischief was at the bottom, and that a crowd of young "roughs" were outside waiting to see him go home bareheaded, he said nothing of his loss, but procured a cap and quietly walked away.
I think the contest of wits among them – they for mischief and disturbance, and he to establish order and get control over them – gave a peculiar zest to his religious labors, which he would not have had in calmer scenes and more regular services. If they put pepper on the stove, he endured it much longer than they could, and kept them until they were half suffocated; and when they barricaded the door outside, he protracted the devotional exercises or varied them with a "magic lantern," to give time for forcing the door, and an orderly exit. [Mr. Macy, on one occasion, on a bitter winter day, found the lock of the room picked and the boys within. He accused some of the larger boys. They denied, "No sir – no: it couldn't be us; because we was in the liquor-shop on the corner; we ain't got nowhere else to go to!"]
The girls, however, were his great torment, especially when they stoned their spiritual guides; these, however, he eventually forwarded into the Cottage place Industrial School, which sprang from the Meeting, and there they were gradually civilized.
For real suffering and honest effort at self-help, he had a boundless sympathy; but the paupers and professional beggars were the terror of his life. He dreaded nothing so much as a boy or girl falling into habits of dependence. Where he was compelled to give assistance in money, he has been known to set one boy to throw wood down and the other to pile it up, before he would aid.
His more stormy philanthropic labors have been succeeded by calmer efforts among a delightful congregation of poor German children in Second Street, who love and revere him. When he needs, however, a little refreshment and intoning, he goes over to his Cottage-place Reading-room, and sits with or instructs his "lambs!"
His main work, however, is in the "office" of the Children's Aid Society, which I have described above. Though a plain half-Quaker himself, he has all the tact of a diplomat, and manages the complicated affairs of poverty and crime that come before him with a wonderful skin, getting on as well with the lady as the street-vagrant, and seldom ever making a blunder in the thousand delicate matters which pass through his hands. When it is remembered that some seventeen thousand street-children have passed through that office to homes in the country, and that but one lawsuit has ever occurred about them (and that through no mistake of the Society), while numbers of bitter enemies watch every movement of this charity, it will be seen with what consummate judgment these delicate matters have been managed. Besides all this, he is the guide, philosopher, and friend of hundreds of these young wayfarers in every part of the country, sustaining with them an enormous correspondence; but, as sympathy, and advice, and religious instruction on such a gigantic scale would soon weary out even his vitality, he stereotypes his letters, and, by a sort of pious fraud, says to each what is written for all. It is very interesting to come across the quaint, affectionate words and characteristic expressions of this devoted philanthropist addressed to "his boys," but put up in packages of a thousand copies, and to think to how many little rovers over the land they bring sympathy and encouragement.
CHAPTER XXIII
RAISING MONEY FOR A CHARITY
One of the trials of a young Charity is raising money. I was determined to put this on as sound and rational a basis as possible. It seemed to me, that, if the facts were well known in regard to the great suffering and poverty among the children in New York, and the principles of our operations were well understood, we could more safely depend on this enlightened public opinion and sympathy than on any sudden "sensation" or gush of feeling.
Our Board fully concurred in these views, and we resolutely eschewed all "raffles" and pathetic exhibitions of abandoned children, and "pedestrian" or other exhibitions offered as for the benefit of humanity, and never even enjoyed the perfectly legitimate benefit of a "fair." Once, in a moment of enthusiasm I was led into arranging a concert, for the benefit of a School; but that experience was enough. Our effort at musical benevolence became a series of most inharmonious squabbles. The leading soprano singer had a quarrel with the bass; the instrumental split with the vocal performers; our best solo went off in a huff, and, at last, by superhuman exertions, we reconciled the discordant elements and got our concert fairly before the public, and retired with a few hundred dollars.
Whatever gave the public a sensation, always had a reaction. The solid ground for us was evidently the most rational one. I accordingly made the most incessant exertions to enlighten and stir up the public. In this labor the most disagreeable part was presenting our "cause" to individuals. I seldom solicited money directly, but sought rather to lay the wants and methods before them. Yet, even here, some received it as if it were some new move of charlatanry, or some new device for extracting money from full purses. Evidently, to many minds, the fact of a man of education devoting himself to such pursuits was in itself an enigma or an eccentricity. Fortunately, I was able early to make use of the pulpits of the city and country, and sometimes was accustomed to spend every night in the week and the Sunday in delivering sermons and addresses throughout the Eastern States. As a general thing, I did not urge a collection, though occasionally having one, but chose rather to convince the understanding, and leave the matter before the people for consideration. No public duties of mine were ever more agreeable than these; and the results proved afterwards most happy, in securing a large rural "constituency," who steadily supported our movements in good times and bad; so quietly devoted, and in earnest, that death did not diminish their interest – some of our best bequests having come from the country.
The next great implement was that profession which has done more for this Charity than any other instrumentality. Having, fortunately, an early connection with the press, I made it a point, from the beginning, to keep our movements, and the evils we sought to cure, continually before the public in the columns of the daily journals. Articles describing the habits and trials of the poor; editorials urging the community to work in these directions; essays discussing the science of charity and reform; continual paragraphs about special charities, were poured forth incessantly for years through the daily and weekly press of New York, until the public became thoroughly, imbued with our ideas and a sense of the evils which we sought to reform. To accomplish this, I had to keep up a constant connection with the press, and was, in fact, often daily editor, in addition to my other avocations.
As a result of this incessant publicity, and of the work already done, a very superior class of young men consented to serve in our Board of Trustees; men who, in their high principles of duty, and in the obligations which they feel are imposed by wealth and position, bid fair hereafter to make the name of New York merchants respected as it never was before throughout the country. With these as backers and supervisors, we were enabled to approach the Legislature for aid, on the ground that we were doing a humane work which lightened the taxes and burdens of the whole community and was in the interest of all. Year after year our application was rejected, but finally we succeeded, and laid a solid and permanent basis thus for our future work.
SOURCES OF INCOME
Our first important acquisition of property was a bequest from a much-esteemed pupil of mine, J. B. Barnard, of New Haven, Conn., of $15,000, in 1856. We determined to use this at once in the work. For many years, finding the needs of the city so enormous, and believing that our best capital was in the results of our efforts, and not in funds, we spent every dollar we could obtain at once upon our labors of charity.
At length, in 1863, a very fortunate event occurred for us: a gentleman had died in New York, named John Rose, who left a large property which he willed should be appropriated to forming some charitable institution for neglected children, and, under certain conditions, to the Colonization Society. The will was so vaguely worded, that the brother, Mr. Chauncey Rose, felt it necessary to attempt to break it. This, after long litigation, he succeeded in doing, and the property – now swollen to the amount of nearly a million dollars – reverted mainly to him. With a rare conscience and generosity, he felt it his duty not to use any of this large estate for himself, but to distribute it among various charities in New York, relating to poor children, according to what appeared to be the intention of his brother. To our Society he gave, at different times, something like $200,000. Of this, we made $150,000 an invested fund; and henceforth we sought gradually to increase our permanent and assured income, so that the Association might continue its benevolent work after the present managers had departed.
And yet we were glad that a good proportion of our necessary expenses should be met by current contributions, so that the Society might have the vitality arising from constant contact with the public, as well as the permanency from invested property.
If we take a single year, 1870, as showing the sources of our income, we shall find that out of nearly $200,000 received that year, including $32,000 for the purchase of two Lodging-houses, and $7,000 raised by the local committees of the Schools, $60,000 came by tax from the county, $20,000 from the "Excise Fund" (now abolished), nearly $20,000 from the Board of Education, being a pro rata allotment on the average number of pupils, and about $9,000 from the Comptroller of the State; making about $109,000, or a little over one-half of our income, received from the public authorities. Of the ninety-odd thousand received from private sources, about eleven thousand came from our investments, leaving some $80,000 as individual contributions during one year – a remarkable fact, both as showing the generosity of the public and their confidence in the work.
This liberal outlay, both by the city and private individuals, has been and is being constantly repaid, in the lessening of the expenses and loss from crime and pauperism, and the increasing of the number of honest and industrious producers.