The Dangerous Classes of New York Part 4

CHAPTER VI.

THE CAUSES OF CRIME.

INTEMPERANCE.

The power of the appet.i.te for alcoholic stimulus is something amazing. A laboring-man feels it especially on account of the drag on his nervous system of steady and monotonous labor, and because of the few mental stimuli which he enjoys. He returns to his tenement-house after a hard day's work, "dragged out" and craving excitement; his rooms are disagreeable; perhaps his wife cross, or slatternly, and his children noisy; he has an intense desire for something which can take him out of all this, and cause his dull surroundings and his fatigue to be forgotten. Alcohol does this; moreover, he can bear alcohol and tobacco, to r.e.t.a.r.d the waste of muscle, as the sedentary man cannot. In a few steps, he can find jolly companions, a lighted and warmed room, a newspaper, and, above all, a draught which, for the moment, can change poverty to riches, and drive care and labor and the thought of all his burdens and annoyances far away.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FORTUNES OF A STREET WAIF. (Third Stage.)]

The liquor-shop is his picture-gallery, club, reading-room, and social _salon,_ at once. His gla.s.s is the magic trans.m.u.ter of care to cheerfulness, of penury to plenty, of a low, ignorant, worried life, to an existence for the moment buoyant, contented, and hopeful. Alas that the magician who thus, for the instant, transforms him with her rod, soon returns him to his low estate, with ten thousand curses haunting him! The one thus touched by the modern Circe is not even imbruted, for the brutes have no such appet.i.te; he becomes a demonized man; all the treasures of life are trampled under his feet, and he is fit only to dwell "among the tombs." But, while labor is what it is, and the liquor-shop alone offers sociality and amus.e.m.e.nt to the poor, alcohol will still possess this overwhelming attraction. The results in this climate, and under the form of alcoholic stimulus offered here, are terrible beyond all computation. The drunkards' homes are the darkest spots even in the abyss of misery in every large city. Here the hearts of young women are truly broken, and they seek their only consolation in the same magic cup; here children are beaten, or maimed, or half-starved, until they run away to join the great throng of homeless street-rovers in our large towns, and grow up to infest society. From these homes radiate misery, grief, and crime. They are the nests in which the young fledgelings of misfortune and vice begin their flight.

Probably two-thirds of the crimes of every city (and a very large portion of its poverty) come from the over-indulgence of this appet.i.te.

As an appet.i.te, we do not believe it can ever be eradicated from the human race.

If we look at criminal statistics for the effects of this appet.i.te, we will find that in the New York City prisons, during 1870, there were, out of 49,423 criminals, 30,507 of confessedly intemperate habits, while no doubt, with a large portion of the rest, indulgence in liquor was the cause of their offenses.

In the Albany Penitentiary there were, in 1869-70, 1,093 convicts, of whom 893 admitted they were intemperate. Of this whole number only 563 could read and write, and only 568 were natives of this country.

Among the children of misfortune in our city, the homeless boys and girls, and those compelled by poverty to attend the Industrial Schools (which I shall hereafter describe), it would be safe to say that ninety out of a hundred are the children of drunkards.

As a direct cause of crime in children, drunkenness takes but a small place. This is not an appet.i.te of childhood. Very few boys or girls of the poorest cla.s.s are addicted to it till they become mature.

The effort for Total Abstinence has been, indeed, an untold blessing to the working cla.s.s in this country and many parts of Europe. It may be said, in many regions, to have broken the wand of the terrible enchantress. It has introduced a new social habit in drinking. It has connected abstinence with the ceremonial of religion and the pleasures of social organizations. It has addressed the working-man--as, in fact, he often is--as a child, and saved him from his own habits, by a sworn abstinence. Thousands of men could never have freed themselves from this most tyrannical appet.i.te, except by absolute refusal to touch. In fact, it may be said that no vice is ever abandoned by gradual steps. The only hope for any one under the control of any wrong indulgence is in entire and immediate abandonment.

With those, too, who had not fallen under the sway of this appet.i.te, especially if of the working cla.s.s, abstinence was the safest rule.

The "Total Abstinence Reform" in this country, in Great Britain, and in Sweden, was one of the happiest events that ever occurred in the history of the working cla.s.ses. Its blessings will descend through many generations. But in its nature it could not last. It was a tremendous reaction against the heavy and excessive drinking of fifty years since.

It was a kind of n.o.ble asceticism. Like all asceticism, it could not continue as a permanent condition. Its power is now much spent. Wherever it can be introduced now among the laboring cla.s.ses, it should be; and we believe one of the especial services of the Irish Catholic clergy, at this day, to the world, is in supporting and encouraging this great reform.

All who study the lower cla.s.ses are beginning, however, now to look for other remedies of the evil of intemperance.

It has become remarkably apparent, during the last few years, that one of the best modes of driving out low tastes in the ma.s.ses is to introduce higher. It has been found that galleries and museums and parks are the most formidable rivals of the liquor-shops. The experience near the Sydenham Palace, in England, and other places of instructive and pleasant resort for the laboring ma.s.ses, is, that drinking-saloons do not flourish in opposition. Wherever, in the evening, a laboring-man can saunter in a pleasant park, or, in company with his wife and family, look at interesting pictures, or sculpture, or objects of curiosity, he has not such a craving for alcoholic stimulus.

Even open-air drinking in a garden--as is so common on the Continent--is never so excessive as in an artificial-lighted room. Where, too, a working-man can, in a few steps, find a cheerfully-lighted reading-room, with society or papers, or where a club is easily open to him without drinking, it will also be found that he ceases to frequent the saloon, and almost loses his taste for strong drink.

Whatever elevates the taste of the laborer, or expands his mind, or innocently amuses him, or pa.s.ses his time pleasantly without indulgence, or agreeably instructs, or provides him with virtuous a.s.sociations, tends at once to guard him from habits of intoxication. The Kensington Museum and Sydenham Palace, of London; the Cooper Union, the Central Park, and free Reading-rooms of New York, are all temperance-societies of the best kind. The great effort now is to bring this cla.s.s of influences to bear on the habits of the laboring-people, and thus diminish intemperance.

It is a remarkable fact, in this connection, that, though ninety out of the hundred of our children in the Industrial Schools are the children of drunkards, not one of the thousands who have gone forth from them has been known to have fallen into intemperate habits. Under the elevating influences of the school, they imperceptibly grow out of the habits of their mothers and fathers, and never acquire the appet.i.te.

Another matter, which is well worthy of the attention of reformers, is the possibility of introducing into those countries where "heavy drinking" prevails, the taste for light wines and the habit of open-air drinking. The pa.s.sion for alcohol is a real one. On a broad scale it cannot be annihilated. Can we not satisfy it innocently? In this country, for instance, light wines can be made to a vast extent, and finally be sold very cheaply. If the taste for them were formed, would it not expel the appet.i.te for whisky and brandy, or at least, in the coming generation, form a new habit?

There is, it is true, a peculiar intensity in the American temperament which makes the taking of concentrated stimulus natural to it. It will need some time for men accustomed to work up their nervous system to a white heat by repeated draughts of whisky or brandy to be content with weak wines. Perhaps the present generation never will be. But the laws of health and morality are so manifestly on the side of drinking light wines as compared with drinking heavy liquors, that any effort at social improvement in this direction would have a fair chance of success. Even the slight change of habit involved in drinking leisurely at a table in the open air with women and children--after the German fashion--would be a great social reform over the hasty bar-drinking, while standing. The worst intoxication of this city is with the Irish and American bar-drinkers, not the German frequenters of gardens.

LIQUOR LAWS.

In regard to legislation, it seems to me that our New York License laws of 1866 were, with a few improvements, a very "happy medium" in law-making. The ground was tacitly taken, in that code, that it subserved the general interests of morality to keep one day free from riotous or public drinking, and allow the majority of the community to spend it in rest and worship; and, inasmuch as that day was one of especial temptation to the working-cla.s.ses, they were to be treated to a certain degree like minors, and liquor was to be refused to them on it.

Under this law, also, minors and apprentices, on weekdays, were forbidden to be supplied with intoxicating drinks, and the liquor-shops were closed at certain hours of the night. Very properly, also, these sellers of intoxicating beverages, making enormous profits, and costing the community immensely in the expenses of crime occasioned by their trade, were heavily taxed, and paid to the city over a million dollars annually in fees, licenses, and fines. The effects of the law were admirable, in the diminution of cases of arrest and crime on the Sunday, and the checking of the ravages of intoxication.

But it was always apparent to the writer that, with the peculiar const.i.tution of the population of this city, it could not be sustained, unless concessions were made to the prejudices and habits of certain nationalities among our citizens. Our reformers, however, as a cla.s.s, are exceedingly adverse to concessions; they look at questions of habits as absolute questions of right and wrong, and they will permit no half-way or medium ground. But legislation is always a matter of concession. We cannot make laws for human nature as it ought to be, but as it is. If we do not get the absolutely best law pa.s.sed, we must content ourselves with the medium best. If our Temperance Reformers had permitted a clause in the law, excepting the drinking in gardens, or of lager-beer, from the restrictions of the License Law, we should not, indeed, have had so good a state of things as we had for a few years, under the old law, but we might have had it permanently. Now, we have nearly lost all control over drinking, and the Sunday orgies and crimes will apparently renew themselves without check or restraint. If a reform in legislation claim too much, there is always a severe reaction possible, when the final effects will be worse than the evils sought to be corrected.

The true plan of reform for this city would be to cause the License Law of 1866 to be re-enacted with certain amendments. The "intoxicating drinks" mentioned should be held not to include lager-beer or certain light wines; and garden-drinking might be permitted, under strict police surveillance.

The Excise Board should be allowed very summary control, however, even over the German gardens and lager-beer drinking-places, so that, if they were perverted into places of disturbance and intoxication, the licenses could be revoked.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FORTUNES OF A STREET WAIF. (Fourth Stage.)]

By separating absolutely the licenses for light drinks and those for rum, whisky, and heavy ales, a vast deal of drunkenness might be prevented, and yet the foreign habits not be too much interfered with, and comparatively innocent pleasures permitted. In small towns and villages, a reasonable compromise would seem to be to allow each munic.i.p.ality to control the matter in the mode it preferred: some communities in this way, forbidding all sale of intoxicating liquors, and others permitting it, under conditions; but each being responsible for the evils or benefits of the system it adopted.

If a student of history were reviewing the gloomy list of the evils which have most cursed mankind, which have wasted households, stained the hand of man with his fellow's blood, sown quarrels and hatreds, broken women's hearts, and ruined children in their earliest years, bred poverty and crime, he would place next to the b.l.o.o.d.y name of War, the black word--INTEMPERANCE. No wonder that the best minds of modern times are considering most seriously the soundest means of checking it. If abstinence were the natural and only means, the n.o.ble soul would still say, in the words of Paul: "It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth."

But abstinence is not thoroughly natural; it has no chance of a universal acceptance; and experience shows that other and wider means must be employed. We must trust to the imperceptible and widely-extended influences of civilization, of higher tastes, and more refined amus.e.m.e.nts on the ma.s.ses. We must employ the powers of education, and, above all, the boundless force of Religion, to elevate the race above the tyranny of this tremendous appet.i.te.

CHAPTER VII.

ORGANIZATION OF A REMEDY.

In New York, we believe almost alone among the great capitals of the world, a profound and sustained effort for many years has been made to cut off the sources and diminish the numbers of the dangerous cla.s.ses; and, as the records of crime show, with a marked effect.

In most large cities, the first practical difficulty is the want of a united organization to work upon the evils connected with this lowest cla.s.s. There are too many scattered efforts, aiming in a desultory manner at this and that particular evil, resulting from the condition of the children of the streets. There is no unity of plan and of work.

Every large city should form one a.s.sociation or organization, whose sole object should be to deal alone with the sufferings, wants, and crimes, arising from a cla.s.s of youth who are homeless, ignorant, or neglected.

The injuries to public morals and property from such a cla.s.s are important enough to call out the best thought and utmost energy and inventiveness of charitable men and women to prevent them. Where an a.s.sociation devotes itself thus to one great public evil, a thousand remedies or ingenious devices of cure and prevention will be hit upon, when, with a more miscellaneous field of work, the best methods would be overlooked. So threatening is the danger in every populous town from the children who are neglected, that the best talent ought to be engaged to study their condition and devise their improvement, and the highest character and most ample means should be offered to guarantee and make permanent the movements devised for their elevation.

The lack of all this in many European capitals is a reason that so little, comparatively, has been done to meet these tremendous dangers.

Then, again, in religious communities, such as the English and American, there is too great a confidence in _technical religious_ means.

We would not breathe a word against the absolute necessity of Christianity in any scheme of thorough social reform. If the Christian Church has one garland on its altars which time does not wither nor skepticism destroy, which is fresh and beautiful each year, it is that humble offering laid there through every age by the neglected little ones of society, whom the most enlightened Stoicism despised and Paganism cast out, but who have been blessed and saved by its ministrations of love. No skeptical doubt or "rationalism" can ever pluck from the Christian Church this, its purest crown.

To attempt to prevent or cure the fearful moral diseases of our lowest cla.s.ses without Christianity, is like trying to carry through a sanitary reform in a city without sunlight.

But the mistake we refer to, is a too great use of, or confidence in, the old technical methods--such as distributing tracts, and holding prayer-meetings, and, scattering Bibles. The neglected and ruffian cla.s.s which we are considering are in no way affected directly by such influences as these. New methods must be invented for them.

Another obstacle, in American cities, to any comprehensive results of reform or prevention among these cla.s.ses, has been the too blind following of European precedents. In Europe, the labor-market is fully supplied. There is a steady pressure of population on subsistence. No general method of prevention or charity can be attempted which interferes with the rights of honest and self-supporting labor. The victims of society, the unfortunate, the _enfants perdus,_ must be retained, when aided at all, in public inst.i.tutions. They cannot be allowed to compete with outside industry. They are not wanted in the general market of labor. They must be kept in _Asylums._

Now, Asylums are a bequest of monastic days. They breed a species of character which is monastic-indolent, unused to struggle; subordinate indeed, but with little independence and manly vigor. If the subjects of the modern monastery be unfortunates--especially if they be already somewhat tainted with vice and crime--the effect is a weakening of true masculine vigor, an increase of the apparent virtues, and a hidden growth of secret and contagious vices. Moreover, the life under the machinery of an "Inst.i.tution" does not prepare for the thousand petty hand-labors of a poor man's cottage. But, greatest of all objections, the asylum system is, of necessity, immensely expensive, and can reach but a comparatively small number of subjects.

These various obstacles and difficulties, which impede thorough work for the elevation of our worst cla.s.ses, can, however, be overcome.

PIONEER WORK.

Some twenty years ago, the then Chief of Police of New York, Captain Matsell, put forth a report on the condition of the street-children of the city, which aroused universal anxiety, and called forth much compa.s.sion. The writer of this was then engaged (in 1852) outside of his professional duties in rather desultory and despairing labors for the reform of adult prisoners on Blackwell's Island and the squalid poor in the Five Points district. It was a Sisyphus-like work, and soon discouraged all engaged in it. We seemed in those infernal regions to repeat the toil of the Danaides, and to be attempting to fill the leaky vessel of society by efforts which left it as empty as before. What soon struck all engaged in those labors was the immense number of boys and girls floating and drifting about our streets, with hardly any arguable home or occupation, who continually swelled the mult.i.tude of criminals, prost.i.tutes, and vagrants.

Saddest of all sights was the thin child's face, so often seen behind prison-bars, and the melancholy procession of little children who were continually pa.s.sing through that gloomy Egyptian portal, which seemed to some of us then always inscribed with the scroll over the entrance of the Inferno, "Here leave all hope behind!"

It was evident soon, to all who thought upon the subject, that what New York most of all needed was some grand, comprehensive effort to check the growth of the "dangerous cla.s.ses."

The "Social Evil," of course, was pressed continually on the minds of those engaged in these labors. Mr. Pease was then making a most heroic effort to meet this in its worst form in the Five-Points region. No one whom we have ever known was so qualified for this desperate work, or was so successful in it. Still, it was but one man against a sea of crime.