Lights and Shadows of New York Life Part 43

Muhlenberg. It is the property of the Episcopal Church, by which body it is conducted. The sick are nursed here by the "Sisters of the Holy Communion," a voluntary a.s.sociation of unmarried Protestant ladies. The hospital has accommodations for over one hundred patients, and is said to be the best conducted of any denominational charity in the city.

Patients who are able to pay are required to do so, but the poor are received without charge.

The Roosevelt Hospital, a magnificent structure, is situated on West Fifty-ninth street, between Ninth and Tenth avenues, and is to furnish, when completed, accommodations for 600 patients. It is the gift of the late Jas. H. Roosevelt of New York to the suffering.

[Picture: ST. LUKE'S HOSPITAL.]

The Presbyterian Hospital, on Seventy-first street, between Fourth and Madison avenues, is not yet completed. It is a beautiful structure, and is to have accommodations for several hundred patients. It is the property of the Presbyterian Church of New York. The site, valued at $250,000, and a further sum of $250,000 in cash, were the gift of Mr.

James Lenox.

The Roman Catholic Church conducts the Hospitals of St. Francis and St.

Vincent, the former on East Fifth street, and the latter on the corner of Eleventh street and Seventh avenue. These two inst.i.tutions contain about 250 beds.

The German Hospital, Seventy-seventh street and Fourth avenue, is, as yet, incomplete. It was erected by the German citizens of New York, but receives patients of every nationality and color. The poor are received without charge under certain restrictions. There are accommodations for about seventy-five patients in the present buildings. Connected with the hospital is a dispensary from which medical advice and medicines are given to the poor.

The Jews of New York have just completed a magnificent edifice, known as the Mount Sinai Hospital, on Lexington avenue, between Sixty-sixth and Sixty-seventh streets. It will contain 200 beds. The present Hebrew Hospital, in Twenty-eighth street, near Eighth avenue, contains about sixty-five beds. The Jews also have a burial ground, in which those of their faith who die in the Hospital are buried without expense to their friends.

The Child's Hospital, Lexington avenue and Fiftieth street, embraces four distinct charities: A Foundling Asylum, a Nursery for the children of laboring women, a Child's Hospital, and a Lying-in Asylum. The buildings are very extensive. The annual Charity Ball is given in behalf of this inst.i.tution.

The Woman's Hospital of the State of New York, Fourth avenue and Fiftieth street, is a handsome building, and the only inst.i.tution of its kind in the country. It owes its existence to the exertions of Dr. J. Marion Sims, who is, together with Dr. Emmett, still in charge of it. It is devoted exclusively to the treatment of female diseases. It is attended by physicians from all parts of the country, who come to receive clinical instruction in this branch of their profession.

The other prominent hospitals are, Dr. Knight's Inst.i.tution for the Relief of the Ruptured and Crippled; the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary; the House of Rest for Consumptives; the New York Infirmary for Women and Children; the New York Medical College and Hospital for Women; the Hahneman Hospital; the Stranger's Hospital (a private charity); the New York Ophthalmic Hospital; the New York Aural Inst.i.tute; and the Manhattan Eye and Ear Hospital.

[Picture: INSt.i.tUTION FOR THE BLIND.]

Among the asylums are the Inst.i.tution for the Blind, on Ninth avenue and Thirty-fourth street; the New York Inst.i.tution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb, on Washington Heights, overlooking the Hudson; the Inst.i.tution for the Improved Instruction of Deaf Mutes, Broadway, near Forty-fifth street; the New York Orphan Asylum, Seventy-third street, west of Broadway; the Colored Orphan Asylum, One-hundred-and-tenth street and Tenth avenue; the Orphan Home and Asylum of the Protestant Episcopal Church, Forty-ninth street and Lexington avenue; the Sheltering Arms, an Episcopal inst.i.tution for the Protection and Care of Orphans and half Orphans, especially those whose bodily infirmities would exclude them from other inst.i.tutions; three Roman Catholic Orphan Asylums, one at the corner of Mott and Prince streets, one on Fifth avenue (for boys), on the block above the new Cathedral, and one in Madison avenue (for girls), immediately in the rear of that just mentioned; the New York Asylum for Lying-in Women, 83 Marion street; the Society for the Relief of Half Orphans and Dest.i.tute Children, 67 West Tenth street; the Leake and Watts Orphan House, West One-hundred-and-tenth street, near the Central Park; the New York Juvenile Asylum, One-hundred-and-seventy-sixth street, devoted to the reformation of juvenile vagrants; the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum, Third avenue and Seventy-seventh street; St. Barnabas House, 304 Mulberry street, an Episcopal "Home for Homeless Women and Children;" the Inst.i.tution of Mercy, 33 Houston street, a Roman Catholic inst.i.tution for the visitation of the sick and prisoners, the instruction of poor children, and the protection of virtuous women in distress; the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum of St. Vincent de Paul, Thirty-ninth street, near Seventh avenue; the Society for the Protection of Dest.i.tute Roman Catholic Children, the Protectory of which is located at West Farms, in Westchester County; the New York Foundling Asylum, in Washington Square; the Shepherd's Fold, Eighty-sixth street and Second avenue, an establishment similar to the "Sheltering Arms," and conducted by the Episcopal Church; the Woman's Aid Society and Home for Training Young Girls, Seventh avenue and Thirteenth street; and St. Joseph's Orphan Asylum (Roman Catholic), Avenue A and Eighty-ninth street.

Among the Homes and Missions are, the a.s.sociation for the Relief of Respectable Aged Indigent Females, in East Twentieth street; the Ladies'

Union Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Forty-second street, near Eighth avenue; the American Female Guardian Society and Home for the Friendless, 29 East Twenty-ninth, and 32 East Thirtieth streets; the Home for Incurables, an Episcopal inst.i.tution, with its buildings at West Farms; the Samaritan Home for the Aged, Ninth avenue and Fourteenth street; the Colored Home, First avenue and Sixty-fifth street; St. Luke's (Episcopal) Home for Indigent Christian Females, Madison avenue and Eighty-ninth street; the Presbyterian Home for Aged Women, Seventy-third street, between Fourth and Madison avenues; the Union Home School, for the Orphans of Soldiers and Sailors, on the Boulevard at One-hundred-and-fifty-first street; the Female Christian Home for Women, 314 East Fifteenth street; the Home for Friendless Women, 86 West Fourth street; the Women's Prison a.s.sociation, 213 Tenth avenue; the Roman Catholic Home for the Aged Poor, 447 West Thirty-second street; the Chapin Home for the Aged and Infirm (Universalist), now in course of erection; the Baptist Home for Aged and Infirm Persons, 41 Grove street; the Home for Aged Hebrews, 215 West Seventeenth street; the Ladies Christian Union or Young Women's Home, 27 and 28 Washington Square; the Water street Home for Women, 273 Water street, devoted to the reformation of fallen women, and occupying the building formerly used by John Allen, "the wickedest man in New York," as a dance house; Wilson's Industrial School for Girls, Avenue A and St. Mark's place; the New York House and School of Industry, 120 West Sixteenth street; and the Society for the Employment and Relief of Poor Women (Unitarian).

The city conducts five large and excellent dispensaries, at which the poor may receive medical advice, treatment and medicines free of charge.

There are also a number of dispensaries devoted to the gratuitous treatment of special diseases.

LIII. HENRY WARD BEECHER.

Although Mr. Beecher is a resident of Brooklyn, and although Plymouth Church is located in that city, yet the great preacher is sufficiently bound to New York by business and socialities to make him a part of the great metropolis.

He was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, on the 24th of June, 1813, and is now in his fifty-ninth year, though he looks very much younger. He was the eighth child of Dr. Lyman Beecher, and was regarded as the dunce of the family, and, according to his own account, had the usual unpleasant experience of ministers' children. Being of a naturally strong, vigorous const.i.tution, his body far outran his mind, and the little fellow lagged behind until nature a.s.serted her rights. The forcing process accomplished very little with him. He was quick-witted, however, and fond of fun. The gloomy doctrines of his learned father made him shudder, and he came to the conclusion that Sunday was a day of penance, and the Catechism a species of torture invented for the punishment of dull boys. At the age of ten, he was sent to a boarding-school in Bethlehem, where he studied by shouldering his gun and going after partridges. Then his sister, Catharine, took him in hand, but he spent his time in teazing the girls of her school, and she was compelled to give him up as a hopeless case. The boy of ten could not be made a mental prodigy, do what they would. The result is that the man of fifty-nine is as fresh and vigorous in body and mind as most others are at thirty-five.

[Picture: HENRY WARD BEECHER.]

When he was twelve years old, his father removed to Boston, and there Henry began to show his true powers. He learned rapidly, and was soon sent to the Mount Pleasant Inst.i.tute, at Amherst, from which he pa.s.sed to Amherst College, where he graduated with distinction in 1834. While at Mount Pleasant, he formed the resolution of entering the ministry, and all his studies were thenceforward shaped to that end. In 1832, his father had removed to Cincinnati, to a.s.sume the presidency of the Lane Theological Seminary, and, after leaving Amherst, Henry followed him to the West, and completed his theological course at the Lane Seminary in 1836. In that year he was admitted to the ministry of the Presbyterian Church.

Immediately after his ordination, Mr. Beecher married, and accepted a call to Lawrenceburg, Indiana, on the Ohio River, twenty miles below Cincinnati. He did not stay there long, but pa.s.sed to the charge of a church in Indianapolis, where he spent eight years--eight valuable years to him, for he says he learned how to preach there. In the summer of 1847, he received and accepted a call to the pastorate of Plymouth Church, in Brooklyn, which had just been founded, and on the 11th of November, 1847, he was publicly installed in the position which he has since held.

Few persons of education and taste ever come to New York without hearing the great preacher. Plymouth Church is a familiar place to them. It is located in Orange street, between Hicks and Henry streets, Brooklyn. It is a plain structure of red brick. The interior is as simple as the exterior. It is a plain, square room, with a large gallery extending entirely around it. At the upper end is a platform on which stands the pulpit--an exquisitely carved little stand of wood from the Garden of Gethsemane. In the gallery, back of the pulpit, is the organ, one of the grandest instruments in the country. The seats are arranged in semicircles. By placing chairs in the aisles, the house will seat with comfort twenty five hundred people. The congregation usually numbers about three thousand, every available place being crowded. The upholstering is in crimson, and contrasts well with the prevailing white color of the interior.

The singing is congregational, and is magnificent. One never hears such singing outside of Plymouth Church.

The gem of the whole service, however, is the sermon; and these sermons are characteristic of the man. They come warm and fresh from his heart, and they go home to the hearer, giving him food for thought for days afterward. Mr. Beecher talks to his people of what they have been thinking of during the week, of trials that have perplexed them, and of joys which have blessed them. He takes the merchant and the clerk to task for their conduct in the walks of business, and warns them of the snares and pitfalls which lie along their paths. He strips the thin guise of honesty from the questionable transactions of Wall street, and holds them up to public scorn. His dramatic power is extraordinary. He can hardly be responsible for it, since it breaks forth almost without his will. He moves his audience to tears, or brings a mirthful smile to their lips, with a power that is irresistible. His ill.u.s.trations and figures are drawn chiefly from nature, and are fresh and striking. He can startle his hearers with the terrors of the law, but he prefers to preach the gospel of love. His sermons are printed weekly in the _Plymouth Pulpit_, and are read by thousands.

His literary labors, apart from his ministerial duties, have been constant. He has published several books, has edited _The Independent_ and _The Christian Union_, and has contributed regularly to the _New York Ledger_ and other papers. He has been almost constantly in the lecture field, and has spoken frequently before public a.s.semblies on the various questions of the day.

Mr. Beecher is young-looking and vigorous. He has the face of a great orator, and one that is well worth studying. He dresses plainly, with something of the farmer in his air, and lives simply. He is blessed with robust health, and, like his father, is fond of vigorous exercise. He has a fine farm on the Hudson, to which he repairs in the summers. Here he can indulge his love of nature without restraint. He is said to be a capital farmer, though he complains that he does not find the pursuit any more remunerative than does his friend, Mr. Greeley.

LIV. BLACK-MAILING.

To live at the expense of other people, and to procure the means of living in comfort without working for it, is an art in which there are many proficients in New York. Certain of those who practise this art are known in city parlance as "Black-mailers," and they const.i.tute one of the most dangerous portions of the community. The Blackmailer is generally a woman, though she is frequently sustained or urged on by a rough, professional thief, or pick-pocket. The indiscretions of men of nominally spotless character are constantly becoming known through the instrumentality of the gossips, and as soon as these reach the ears of the Blackmailers, who are ever on the watch for them, they proceed to take advantage of them to extort money from the person implicated. They are not content, however, with making victims of those who are really guilty of indiscretions, but boldly a.s.sail the innocent and virtuous, well-knowing that nine persons out of ten, though guiltless of wrongdoing, will sooner comply with their demands than incur the annoyance of a public scandal. Such persons think the wretch will never dare to charge them with the same offence or endeavor to extort money from them a second time, and make the first payment merely to rid themselves of the annoyance. They ought never to yield, whether innocent or guilty, for the Blackmailer is sure to repeat her demand. The law makes it a crime for any one to endeavor to extort money in this way, and no person so threatened should hesitate to apply to the police for protection.

As a rule, the Blackmailer is easily driven off with the aid of the police, but sometimes her plans are so skilfully laid that it requires all the ingenuity of the most experienced detectives to ferret out the plot. These women act upon the well-established fact that respectable people dread scandal, and that a man guilty of an indiscretion will make many sacrifices to conceal it. They rarely a.s.sail women, as there is not much money to be made out of them, but they know that almost any story about a man will be believed, and they fasten themselves like leeches upon men. Young men about to make rich marriages are their favorite victims. These generally yield to them, not caring to risk a scandal which might break off the whole affair. If a young man refuses one of them on such occasions, she goes boldly to the lady he is to marry, and declares herself the innocent and wronged victim of the aforesaid young man. This is her revenge, and the majority of young men, knowing them to be capable of such a course, comply with their demands on the spot.

There is nothing these wretches will not do, no place they will not invade, in order to extort money from their victims.

Persons from the country, stopping at the hotels of the city, are frequently the objects of the attacks of the Blackmailers. A man's name is learned from the hotel register, and he is boldly approached and charged with conduct he never dreamed of being guilty of. The scoundrel professes to know him and his whole family, and names the price of his silence. Too often the demand is complied with, and the money paid. The proper course to pursue when accosted in such a manner, is to call upon the nearest policeman for a.s.sistance in shaking off the wretch.

A few years ago a minister, in charge of a prominent and wealthy city church abruptly left the city. There had never been a whisper of any kind of scandal connected with his name, and his friends were at a loss to account for his strange action. He refused, at first, when his retreat was discovered, to give any reason for his conduct, and begged that his hiding-place should be kept secret. At length, however, he confessed that he was the innocent victim of a female Blackmailer. He was a weak man, proud of his reputation, and more than usually timid in such matters. The woman had approached him, and had boldly charged him with a crime of which he was innocent, and had demanded a sum of money as the price of her silence. Finding it impossible to get rid of her, and dreading a scandal, the minister had paid the money. The demand was repeated again and again for two years, until the woman had wrung from her victim a sum of several thousand dollars, and had driven him to such a state of despair that he had abandoned his home and his prospects, and had fled to escape from her clutches. His friends came to his aid, and by securing the interposition of the police, compelled the woman to relinquish her hold upon her victim.

Many of the female Blackmailers are very young, mere girls. A couple of years ago, Police Captain Thorne discovered a regularly organized band of them. They are mostly flower girls, from twelve to sixteen years of age.

They are generally modest in demeanor, and some of them are attractive in appearance. They gain admittance to the offices and counting rooms of professional men and merchants, under the pretext of selling their flowers, and then, if the gentleman is alone, close the door, and threaten to scream and accuse him of taking improper liberties with them, unless he consents to pay them the sum they demand.

A merchant of great wealth, high position, and irreproachable character, called upon Captain Thorne, about two years ago, and "frankly stated that he was the victim of one of these flower girls, who had already despoiled him of large sums of money, and whose persecutions were actually killing him. It appears that she always came to his counting-house on particular days, and, watching until he was alone, went boldly into his private office. In police parlance, they 'put up a job on her.' Captain Thorne was secreted in the office the next time she called, and the gentleman talked to her as previously arranged. He began by asking her why she persisted in her demands upon him, for, said he, 'you know I never had anything to do with you, never said an improper word to you.' The young a.n.a.lyst of human nature answered, unabashed, 'I know that; but who'll believe you if I say you did?' Captain Thorne, dressed in full police uniform, stepped from the closet with, 'I will for one, Mary.' The girl, young as she was, had experience enough in devious ways to see that her game had escaped, and readily, although sullenly, promised to cease exacting tribute in that particular quarter. The gentleman would go no further, and to the earnest entreaties of Captain Thorne to prosecute the girl, both for her own good and that of society, returned an absolute refusal. Captain Thorne was, therefore, obliged to let her go with a warning not to attempt her operations again anywhere. He also remonstrated with her upon her way of living, and asked her why she did such things. The hardened girl morosely answered that all the other girls did them, and thus gave a clue which was followed until it developed a gang of feminine blackmailers of tender years, working in concert. Although the band was then dispersed, the method of robbery it employed survived, and is yet extensively used by scores of girls, under the cover of selling not only flowers, but apples and other fruits."

LV. FEMALE SHARPERS.

I. FORTUNE-TELLERS AND CLAIRVOYANTS.

The city journals frequently contain such advertis.e.m.e.nts as the following:

A TEST MEDIUM.--THE ORIGINAL MADAME F--- tells everything, traces absent friends, losses, causes speedy marriages, gives lucky numbers. Ladies, fifty cents; gentlemen, one dollar. 464 ---th Avenue.

A FACT--NO IMPOSITION. THE GREAT EUROPEAN Clairvoyant. She consults you on all affairs of life. Born with a natural gift, she tells past, present, and future; she brings together those long separated; causes speedy marriages; shows you a correct likeness of your future husband or friends in love affairs. She was never known to fail. She tells his name; also lucky numbers free of charge. She succeeds when all others fail. Two thousand dollars reward for any one that can equal her in professional skill. Ladies, fifty cents to one dollar. Positively no gents admitted. No 40 --- Avenue.

It seems strange that, in this boasted age of enlightenment, the persons who make such announcements as the above can find any one simple enough to believe them. Yet, it is a fact, that these persons, who are generally women, frequently make large sums of money out of the credulity of their fellow creatures. Every mail brings them letters from persons in various parts of the country. These letters are generally answered, and the contents have disgusted more than one simpleton. The information furnished is such as any casual acquaintance could give, and just as trustworthy as the reports of the "reliable gentleman just from the front," used to prove during the late war. The city custom of these impostors is about equal to that brought to them from the country by means of their advertis.e.m.e.nts. Some of them make as much as one hundred dollars per day, all of which is a clear profit. The majority earn from three to six dollars per day. Servant girls are profitable customers.

Indeed, but for female credulity the business would go down.

Still, there are many male visitors. Speculators, victims of the gaming table and the lottery, come to ask for advice, which is given at random.

The woman knows but little of her visitors, and has no means of learning anything about them. Sometimes her statements are found to be true, but it is by the merest accident.