Brace Charles Loring
The Dangerous Classes of New York, and Twenty Years' Work Among Them
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 following amende from the two ingrates: —
HOPEFUL NEWS FROM HARD CASES
"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."
TABULAR STATEMENT SINCE ORGANIZATION
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.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE MINISTRY OF FLOWERS
THE LITTLE VAGABONDS OF CORLEAR'S HOOK
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 a dolce far niente life 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.
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… 2,659
Number of lodgings furnished...... 80,344
Number of meals furnished......... 78,756
Number of boys sent West......... 161
Number of boys provided with employment… 105
Number of boys restored to friends… 126
Number of boys patronizing the savings-bank. 310
Amount saved by the boys.........$ 2,873.00
Total expenses.............. 26,018.10
Amount paid by the boys......... 8,614.63
THE LITTLE COPPER-STEALERS
THE ELEVENTH-WARD LODGING-HOUSE
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 the gamins have 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.
STATISTICS FROM ORIGIN TO 1872
Number of lodgings............ 67,198
Number of meals............ 65,757
Sent West............... 278
Restored to friends........... 138
Number of different boys......... 3,036
Amount paid by boys...........$6,522.22
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE CHILD-VAGRANT
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.
A ROVER REFORMED
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 true gamin order: 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 than eight thousand different 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.
A CORRECTIVE
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.
Thus, now, as is well known, most of the begging children in New York are apparently engaged in selling "black-headed pins," or some other cheap trifle.
They can almost always pretend some occupation – if it be only sweeping sidewalks – which enables them to elude the law. Nor can we reasonably expect a judge to sentence a child for vagrancy, when it claims to be supporting a destitute parent by earnings in a street-trade, though the occupation may be a semi-vagrant one, and may lead inevitably to idleness and crime. Nor does the action of a truant-officer prevent the necessity of such a law, because this official only acts on the truant class of children, not on those who attend no school whatever. By an ordinance like this of Boston, every child can be forced to at least three hours' schooling each day; and, as any school is permitted, no sectarian or bigoted feeling is aroused by this injunction.
The police would be more ready to arrest, and the Judges to sentence, the violators of so simple and rational a law. The wanderers of the street would then be brought under legal supervision, which would not be too harsh or severe. Education may not, in all cases, prevent crime; yet we well know that, on a broad scale, it has a wonderful effect in checking it.
The steady labor, punctuality, and order of a good school, the high tone in many of our Free Schools, the self-respect cultivated, the emulation aroused, the love of industry thus planted, are just the influences to break up a vagabond, roving, and dependent habit of mind and life. The School, with the Lodging-house, is the best preventive institution for vagrancy.
The Massachusetts system of "Truant-schools" – that is, Schools to which truant officers could send children habitually truant – does not seem so applicable to New York. The number of "truants" in the city is not very large; they are in exceedingly remote quarters, and it would be very difficult to collect them in any single School.
Our "Industrial Schools" seem to take their place very efficiently. The present truant-officers of the city are active and judicious, and return many children to the Schools.
COMPULSORY EDUCATION
The best general law on this subject, both for country and city, would undoubtedly be, a law for compulsory education, allowing "Half-time Schools" to children requiring to be employed a part of the day.
There is no doubt that the time has arrived for the introduction of such laws throughout the country. During the first years of the national existence, and especially in New England and the States peopled from that region, there was so strong an impression among the common people, of the immense importance of a system of free instruction for all, that no laws or regulations were necessary to enforce it. Our ancestors were only too eager to secure mental training for themselves, and opportunities of education for their children. The public property in lands was, in many States, early set aside for purposes of school and college education; and the poorest farmers and laboring people often succeeded in obtaining for their families and descendants the best intellectual training which the country could then bestow.
But all this, in New England and other portions of the country, has greatly changed. Owing to foreign immigration and to unequal distribution of wealth, large numbers of people have grown up without the rudiments even of common-school education. Thus, according to the report of 1871, of the National Commissioners of Education, there are in the New England States 195,963 persons over ten years of age who cannot write, and, therefore, are classed as "illiterates." In New York State the number reaches the astounding height of 241,152, of whom 10,639 are of the colored race. In Pennsylvania the number is 222,356; in Ohio, 173,172, and throughout the Union the population of the illiterates sums up the fearful amount of 5,660,074 In New York State the number of illiterate minors between ten and twenty-one years amounts to 42,405. In this city there are 62,238 persons over ten who cannot write, of whom 53,791 are of foreign birth. Of minors between ten and twenty-one, there are here 8,017 illiterates.