The Dangerous Classes of New York Part 22

The opening is thus described in our Journal:--

We must confess, as one of the managers of that inst.i.tution, we felt particularly nervous about that opening meeting.

"Messrs. Beecher and Cochrane and other eminent speakers had been invited to speak, and the Mayor was to preside. It was certainly an act of some self-denial to leave their countryseats or cool rooms, and spend a hot summer evening in talking to Fourth-ward rowdies. To requite this with any sort of 'accident' would have been very awkward. Where would we of the committee have hid our heads if our friends the 'roughs' had thought best to have a little bit of a shindy, and had knocked Brother Beecher's hat in, and had tossed the Hon. John Cochrane out of the window, or rolled the Mayor down-stairs? We confess all such possible eventualities did present themselves, and we imagined the st.u.r.dy form of our eminent clerical friend breasting the opposing waves of rowdies, and showing himself as skillful in demolishing corporeal enemies as he is in overthrowing spiritual. We were comforted in spirit, however, by remembering that the saint at the head of our establishment-the renowned Gardner--would now easily take a place in the church militant, and perhaps not object to a new exercise of muscle in a good cause.

"After other addresses, Gardner--'Awful Gardner'--was called for. He came forward--and a great trial it must have been to have faced that crowd, where there were hundreds who had once been with him in all kinds of debaucheries and deviltries--men who had drunk and fought and gambled and acted the rowdy with him--men very quick to detect any trace of vanity or cant in him. He spoke very simply and humbly; said that he had more solid peace and comfort in one month now than he had in years once; spoke of his 'black life' his sins and disgrace, and then of his most cordial desire to welcome all his old companions there. In the midst of these remarks there seemed to come up before him suddenly a memory of Him who had saved him, his eyes filled with tears, and, with a manly and deep feeling that swept right through the wild audience, he made his acknowledgment to 'Him who sticketh closer than a brother--even the Lord Jesus Christ.'

"No sermon could have been half so effective as these stammering ungrammatical, but manly remarks."

Our Reading-room under this guidance became soon a very popular resort; in fact, it deserved the nickname one gentleman gave it, "The Drunkards'

Club." The marked, simple, and genuine reform in a man of such habits as this pugilist, attracted numbers of that large cla.s.s of young men who are always trying to break from the tyranny of evil habits and vices.

The rooms used to be thronged with reformed or reforming young men. The great difficulty with a man under vices is to make him believe that change for him is possible. The sight of Gardner always demonstrated this possibility. Those men who are sunk in such courses cannot get rid of them gradually, and nothing can arouse them and break the iron rule of habits but the most tremendous truths.

"Awful Gardner" had but one theory of reform--absolute and immediate change, in view of the love of Christ, and of a deserved and certain d.a.m.nation.

The men to whom he spoke needed no soft words; they knew they were "in h.e.l.l" now; some of them could sometimes for a moment realize what such a character as Christ was, and bow before it in unspeakable humility. No one whom I have ever seen could so influence the "roughs" of this city.

He ought to have been kept as a missionary to the rowdies. I extract from our Journal:--

"The moral success of the room has been all that we could have desired.

Hundreds of young men have come there continually to read or chat with their friends--many of them even who had habitually frequented the liquor-saloons, and many persons with literally no homes. The place, too, has become a kind of central point for all those who have become more or less addicted to excessive drinking, and who are desirous of escaping from the habit.

"There are days when the spectacle presented there is a most affecting one; the room filled with young men, each of whom has a history of sorrow or degradation--broken-down gentlemen, ruined merchants, penniless clerks, homeless laboring-men and printers (for somehow this most intelligent profession seems to contain a large number of cases who have been ruined by drunkenness), and outcast men of no a.s.signable occupation. These have been attracted in part by the cheerfulness of the room and the chances for reading, and in part by Gardner's influence, who has labored indefatigably in behalf of these poor wretches. Under the influences of the Room, incredible as it may seem, over _seven hundred_ of these men have been started in sober courses and provided with honest employments, and many of them have become hopefully religious. It is believed that the whole quarter has been improved by the opening of this agreeable and temperate place of resort."

But, alas! even with a man so truly repentant and reformed, Nature does not let him off so easily. He had to bear in his body the fruits of his vices. His nervous system began to give way under the fearful strain both of his sins and his reform. He found it necessary to leave this post of work and retire to a quiet place in New Jersey, where he has since pa.s.sed a calm and virtuous life, working, I suppose, at his trade, and, so far as I know, he has never been false to the great truths which once inspired him. With his departure, however, we thought it best to close the Reading-room, especially as we could not realize our hope of making it self-supporting. So ended the second of our experiments at "virtuous amus.e.m.e.nts."

I now resolved to try the experiment, without any expectation of sustaining the room with sales of refreshments. The working cla.s.ses seem to be utterly indifferent to such attractions. They probably cannot compete a moment with those of the liquor-shops. With the aid of friends, who are always ready in this city to liberally support rational experiments of philanthropy, we have since then opened various Free Reading-rooms in different quarters of the city.

One of the most successful was carried on by Mr. Macy at Cottage Place, for his "lambs."

Here sufficient books and papers were supplied by friends, little temperance and other societies were formed, the room was pleasant and cozy, and, above all, Mr. Macy presided or infused into it his spirit.

The "lambs" were occasionally obstreperous and given to smashing windows, but to this Mr. M. was sufficiently accustomed, and in time the wild young barbarians began to feel the influences thrown around the place, until now one may see of a winter evening eighty or a hundred lads and young men quietly reading, or playing backgammon or checkers.

The room answers exactly its object as a place of innocent amus.e.m.e.nt and improvement, competing with the liquor-saloons. The citizens of the neighborhood have testified to its excellent moral influences on the young men.

A similar room was opened in the First Ward by the kind aid of the late Mr. J. Couper Lord, and the good influences of the place have been much increased by the exertions of Mr. D. E. Hawley and a committee of gentlemen.

There are other Reading-rooms connected with the Boys' Lodging-houses.

Most of them are doing an invaluable work; the First ward room especially being a centre for cricket-clubs and various social reunions of the laboring cla.s.ses, and undoubtedly saving great numbers of young men from the most dangerous temptations. Mr. Hawley has inaugurated here also a very useful course of popular lectures to the laboring people.

This Reading-room is crowded with young men every night, of the cla.s.s who should be reached, and who would otherwise spend their leisure hours at the liquor-saloons. Many of them have spoken with much grat.i.tude of the benefit the place has been to them.

The Reading-rooms connected with Boys' Lodging-houses, though sometimes doing well, are not uniformly successful, perhaps from the fact that workingmen do not like to be a.s.sociated with homeless boys.

Besides those connected with the Children's Aid Society, the City Mission and various churches have founded others, so that now the Free Reading-room is recognized as one of the means for improving the "dangerous cla.s.ses," as much as the Sunday School, Chapel, or Mission.

The true theory of the formation of the Reading-room is undoubtedly the inducing the laboring cla.s.s to engage in the matter themselves, and then to a.s.sist them in meeting the expenses. But the lowest poor and the young men who frequent the grog-shops are so indifferent to mental improvement, and so seldom a.s.sociate themselves for any virtuous object, that it is extremely difficult to induce them to combine for this.

Moreover, as they rise in the social scale, they find organizations ready to hand, like the "Cooper Union," where Reading-rooms and Libraries are provided gratuitously. For the present, the Reading-room may be looked upon, like the Public School, as a means of improvement offered by society, in its own Interest, to all.

CHAPTER XXV.

HOMELESS GIRLS.

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 a.s.sembly or board on the points before them--for even business men have sometimes the female tendency of rather wide-reaching discussions and conversations--his wonderful clearness of comprehension, and a judicial faculty which nearly always enabled him to balance with remarkable fairness both sides of a question, made him beyond comparison the best presiding officer for a business-board I have ever seen. With him, we always had short and very full sessions, and reached our points rapidly and efficiently. He had, too, the capacity, rare among men of organizing brains, of accepting a rejection or rebuff to any proposition he may have made (though this happened seldom) with perfect good humor. Perhaps more than with his public services in our Board, I was struck with his private career. Hour after hour in his little office, I have seen different committees and officials of numerous societies, charities, and financial a.s.sociations come to him with their knotty points, and watched with admiration as he disentangled each question, seeming always to strike upon the course at once wise and just. A very small portion of his busy time was then given to his own interests, though he had been singularly successful in his private affairs. He seemed to me to carry out wonderfully the Christian ideal in practical life in a busy city; living day after day "for others," and to do the will of Him whom he followed.

In our first labors together, I feared that, owing to his stricter school of Presbyterian theology, we might not agree in some of our aims and plans; but the practical test of true benefit to these unfortunate children soon brought our theoretic views to a harmony in religious practice; and as we both held that the first and best of all truths to an outcast boy is the belief and love of Christ as a friend and Saviour, we agreed on the substantial matter. I came, year by year, greatly to value his judgment and his clear insight as to the _via media._

Both with him and our Treasurer, Mr. Williams, the services of love rendered so many years to this cause of humanity, could not, as mere labor, have been purchased with very lucrative salaries.

Mr. Booth's wise policy with the Society was to encourage whatever would give it a more permanent foot-hold in the city, and, in this view, to stimulate especially the founding of our Lodging-houses by means of "funds," or by purchasing buildings.

How this plan succeeded, I shall detail hereafter.

At this present stage in our history, his attention was especially fixed on the miserable condition of the young street-girls, and he suggested to me what I had long been hoping for, the formation of a Lodging-house for them, corresponding to that which had been so successful with the newsboys.

As a preparatory step, I consulted carefully the police. They were sufficiently definite as to the evil, but not very hopeful as to the cure.

THE STREET-GIRLS.

I can truly say that no cla.s.s we have ever labored for seemed to combine so many elements of human misfortune and to present so many discouraging features as this. They form, indeed, a cla.s.s by themselves.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HOMELESS.]

Their histories are as various as are the different lots of the inhabitants of a populous town. Some have come from the country, from kind and respectable homes, to seek work in the city; here they gradually consume their scanty means, and are driven from one refuge to another, till they stand on the street, with the gayly-lighted house of vice and the gloomy police-station to choose between. Others have sought amus.e.m.e.nt in the town, and have been finally induced to enter some house of bad character as a boarding-house, and have been thus entrapped; and finally, in despair, and cursed with disease, they break loose, and take shelter even in the prison-cell, if necessary. Others still have abandoned an ill-tempered step-mother or father, and rushed out on the streets to find a refuge, or get employment anywhere.

Drunkenness has darkened the childhood of some, and made home a hideous place, till they have been glad to sleep in the crowded cellar or the bare attic of some thronged "tenement," and then go forth to pick up a living as they could in the great metropolis. Some are orphans, some have parents whom they detest, some are children of misfortune, and others of vice; some are foreigners, some native. They come from the north and the south, the east and the west; all races and countries are represented among them. They are not habitually vicious, or they would not be on the streets. They are unlucky, unfortunate, getting a situation only to lose it, and finding a home, to be soon driven from it. Their habits are irregular, they do not like steady labor, they have learned nothing well, they have no discipline, their clothes are neglected, they have no appreciation of what neatness is, yet if they earn a few shillings extra, they are sore to spend them on some foolish gewgaw. Many of them are pretty and bright, with apparently fine capacities, but inheriting an unusual quant.i.ty of the human tendencies to evil. They are incessantly deceived and betrayed, and they as constantly deceive others. Their cunning in concealing their indulgences or vices surpa.s.ses all conception. Untruth seems often more familiar to them than truth. Their worst quality is their superficiality. There is no depth either to their virtues or vices. They sin, and immediately repent with alacrity; they live virtuously for years, and a straw seems suddenly to turn them. They weep at the presentation of the divine character in Christ, and pray with fervency; and, the very next day, may ruin their virtue or steal their neighbor's garment, or take to drinking, or set a whole block in ferment with some biting scandal. They seem to be children, but with woman's pa.s.sion, and woman's jealousy and scathing tongue. They trust a superior as a child; they neglect themselves, and injure body and mind as a child might; they have a child's generosity, and occasional freshness of impulse and desire of purity; but their pa.s.sions sweep over them with the force of maturity, and their temper, and power of setting persons by the ears, and backbiting, and occasional intensity of hate, belong to a later period of life. Not unfrequently, when real danger or severe sickness arouses them, they show the wonderful qualities of womanhood in a power of sacrifice which utterly forgets self, and a love which shines brightly, eyen through the shadow of death.

But their combination of childishness and undisciplined maturity is an extremely difficult one to manage practically, and exposes them to endless sufferings and dangers. Their condition fifteen years ago seemed a thoroughly hopeless one.

There was then, if we mistake not, but a single refuge in the whole city, where these unfortunate creatures could take shelter, and that was Mr. Pease's Five Points Mission, which contained so many women who had been long in vicious courses, as to make it unsuitable for those who were just on the dividing line.

Our plan for their relief took the shape of

THE GIRLS' LODGING-HOUSE.

It is no exaggeration to say that this instrument of charity and reform has cost us more trouble than all our enterprises together.

The simple purpose and plan of it was, like that of our other efforts, to reform habits and character through material and moral appliances, and subsequently through an entire change of circ.u.mstances, and at the same time to relieve suffering and misfortune.

We opened first a shelter, where any drifting, friendless girl could go for a night's lodging. If she had means, she was to pay a trifling sum--five or six cents; if not, she aided in the labor of the house, and thus in part defrayed the expense of her board. Agents were sent out on the docks and among the slums of the city to pick up the wayfarers; notices were posted in the station-houses, and near the ferries and railroads depots, and even advertis.e.m.e.nts put into the cheap papers. We made a business of scattering the news of this charity wherever there were forlorn girls seeking for home or protection, or street-wandering young women who had no place to lay their heads.

We hoped to reach down the hand of welcome to the darkest dens of the city, and call back to virtue some poor, unbefriended creature, who was trembling on the very line between purity and vice. Our charity seemed to stand by the ferries, the docks, the police-stations, and prisons, and open a door of kindness and virtue to these hard-driven, tired wanderers on the ways of life. Our design was that no young girl, suddenly cast out on the streets of a great city, should be without a shelter and a place where good influences could surround her. We opened a House for the houseless; an abode of Christian sympathy for the utterly unbefriended and misguided; a place of work for the idle and unthrifty.