Established by Edward L. Youmans
APPLETONS'
POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY
EDITED BY
WILLIAM JAY YOUMANS
VOL. LV
MAY TO OCTOBER, 1899
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1899
COPYRIGHT, 1899,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
[Illustration: THOMAS EGLESTON.]
APPLETONS' POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
JUNE, 1899.
NEW METHOD OF ESTIMATING THE AGE OF NIAGARA FALLS.
BY G. FREDERICK WRIGHT.
Both the interest and the importance of the subject make it worth
while to follow out every clew that may lead to the approximate
determination of the age of Niagara Falls. During this past season, in
connection with some work done for the New York Central Railroad upon
their branch line which runs along the eastern face of the gorge from
Bloody Run to Lewiston, I fortunately came into possession of data
from which an estimate of the age of the falls can be made entirely
independent of those which have heretofore been current. The bearing
and importance of the new data can best be seen after a brief _résumé_
of the efforts heretofore made to solve this important problem.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Looking north from below the Whirlpool,
showing the electric road at the bottom of the east side of the gorge,
and the steam road descending the face about halfway to the top.]
In 1841 Sir Charles Lyell and the late Prof. James Hall visited the
falls together; but, having no means of determining the rate of
recession, except from the indefinite reports of residents and guides,
they could place no great confidence in the "guess," made by Sir
Charles Lyell, that it could not be more than one foot a year. As the
length of the gorge from Lewiston up is about seven miles, the time
required for its erosion at this rate would be thirty-five thousand
years. The great authority and popularity of Lyell led the general
public to put more confidence in this estimate than the distinguished
authors themselves did. Mr. Bakewell, another eminent English
geologist, at about the same time estimated the rate of the recession
as threefold greater than Lyell and Hall had done, which would reduce
the time to about eleven thousand years.
But, to prepare the way for a more definite settlement of the
question, the New York Geological Survey, under Professor Hall's
direction, had a careful trigonometric survey of the Horseshoe Fall
made in 1842, erecting monuments at the points at which their angles
were taken, so that, after a sufficient lapse of time, the actual rate
of recession could be more accurately determined. In 1886 Mr.
Woodward, of the United States Geological Survey, made a new survey,
and found that the actual amount of recession in the center of the
Horseshoe Fall had proceeded at an average rate of about five feet per
annum. The subject was thoroughly discussed by Drs. Pohlman and
Gilbert, at the Buffalo meeting of the American Association in 1886,
when it was proved, to the satisfaction of every one, that, if the
supply of water had been constant throughout its history, the whole
work of eroding the gorge from Lewiston to the Falls would have been
accomplished, at the present rate of recession, in about seven
thousand years.
But the question was immediately raised, Has the supply of water in
Niagara River been constant? It was my privilege, in the autumn of
1892 (see Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, vol. iv, pp.
421-427), to bring forth the first positive evidence that the water
pouring over Niagara had for a time been diverted, having been turned
through Lake Nipissing down the valley of the Mattawa into the Ottawa
River, following nearly the line of Champlain's old trail and of the
present Canadian Pacific Railroad. The correctness of this inference
has been abundantly confirmed by subsequent investigations of Mr. F.
B. Taylor and Dr. Robert Bell.[A] The occasion of this diversion of
the drainage of the Great Lakes from the Niagara through the Ottawa
Valley was the well-known northerly subsidence of the land in Canada
at the close of the Glacial period. When the ice melted off from the
lower part of the Ottawa Valley the land stood five hundred feet lower
than it does now, but the extent of this subsidence diminished both to
the south and the west, making it difficult to estimate just how great
it was at the Nipissing outlet. A subsidence of one hundred feet at
that point, however, would now divert the waters into the Ottawa
River. That it actually was so diverted is shown both by converging
high-level shore lines at the head of the Mattawa Valley and by the
immense delta deposits at its junction with the Ottawa, to which
attention was first called in my paper referred to above.
[Footnote A: See article by Mr. Taylor on The Scoured Bowlders of the
Mattawa Valley, in the American Journal of Science, March, 1897, pp.
208-218.]
The indeterminate question which remained was, At what rate did this
postglacial elevation of land which has brought it up to its present
level proceed? Dr. Gilbert, Professor Spencer, and Mr. Taylor have
brought forth a variety of facts which, according to their
interpretation, show that this rate of elevation was so slow that from
twenty thousand to thirty thousand years was required to restore to
the Niagara River its present volume of water. Their arguments are
based upon the varying width and depth of the Niagara gorge, proving,
as they think, the presence of a smaller amount of water during the
erosion of some portions. Dr. Gilbert has also brought forward some
facts concerning the extent of supposed erosion produced by the
diverted waters of Niagara when passing over an intermediate outlet
between Lake Simcoe and Lake Nipissing. But the difficulty of
obtaining any safe basis for calculation upon these speculative
considerations has increased the desire to find a means of calculation
which should be independent of the indeterminate problems involved.
That I think I have found, and so have made a beginning in obtaining
desired results. _The new evidence lies in the extent of the
enlargement of the mouth of the Niagara gorge at Lewiston since the
recession of the falls began._
It is evident that the oldest part of the Niagara gorge is at its
mouth, at Lewiston, where the escarpment suddenly breaks down to the
level of Lake Ontario. The walls of the gorge rise here to a height of
three hundred and forty feet above the level of the river. It is clear
that from the moment the recession of the falls began at Lewiston the
walls of the gorge on either side have been subject to the action of
constant disintegrating agencies, tending to enlarge the mouth and
make it V-shaped. What I did last summer was to measure the exact
amount of this enlargement, and to obtain an approximate estimate of
the rate at which it is going on.[B] As this enlargement proceeds
wholly through the action of atmospheric agencies, the conditions are
constant, and it is hoped that sufficiently definite results have been
obtained to set some limits to the speculations which have been made
upon more indefinite grounds.
[Footnote B: For opportunity to do this work I am indebted to the
interest of President S. R. Callaway, of the New York Central
Railroad. The measurements were made by Mr. George S. Tibbits,
engineer of the western division. The photographs were taken by Mr. C.
F. Dutton, of Cleveland.]
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--View looking east across the gorge near the
mouth, showing the railroads and the outcrops of Clinton and Niagara
limestones above the steam road.]
The face on the east side of the gorge presents a series of alternate
layers of hard and soft rocks, of which certain portions are very
susceptible to the disintegrating agencies of the atmosphere. The
summit consists of from twenty to thirty feet of compact Niagara
limestone, which is underlaid by about seventy feet of Niagara shale;
which in turn rests upon a compact stratum of Clinton limestone about
twenty feet thick, which again is underlaid by a shaly deposit of
seventy feet, resting upon a compact stratum of Medina sandstone
twenty feet thick, below which a softer sandstone, that crumbles
somewhat readily, extends to the level of the river.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Looking up the gorge from near Lewiston,
showing on the left the exposed situation of the eastern face of the
gorge at the extreme angle, where the measurements were made.]
The present width of the river at the mouth of the gorge is seven
hundred and seventy feet. It is scarcely possible that the original
width of the gorge was here any less than this, for in the narrowest
places above, even where the Niagara limestone is much thicker than at
Lewiston, it is nowhere much less than six hundred feet in width. Nor
is it probable that the river has to any considerable extent enlarged
its channel at the mouth of the gorge at the water level. On the
contrary, it is more probable that the mouth has been somewhat
contracted, for the large masses of Niagara and Clinton limestone and
Medina sandstone which have fallen down as the shales were undermined
have accumulated at the base as a talus, which the present current of
the river is too feeble to remove. This talus of great blocks of hard
stone has effectually riprapped the banks, and really encroached to
some extent upon the original channel.
We may therefore assume with confidence that the enlargement, under
subaërial agencies, of the mouth of the gorge at the top of the
escarpment has been no greater than the distance from the present
water's edge to the present line of the escarpment at the summit of
the Niagara limestone. This we found to be three hundred and
eighty-eight feet--that is, the upper stratum of hard rock on the east
side of the gorge had retreated that distance, through the action of
atmospheric agencies, since the formation of the gorge first began.
The accompanying photogravures and diagram will present the facts at a
glance. The total work of enlargement on the east side of the gorge
has been the removal of an inverted triangular section of the rock
strata three hundred and forty feet high and three hundred and
eighty-eight feet base, which would be the same as a rectangular
section of one hundred and ninety-four feet base. From this one can
readily see that if the average erosion has been at the rate of one
quarter of an inch per annum, the whole amount would have fallen down
in less than ten thousand years; while if the time is lengthened, as
some would have it, to forty thousand years, the rate would be reduced
to one sixteenth of an inch per year.
Fortunately, the construction of the railroad along the face of the
eastern wall of the gorge affords opportunity to study the rate of
erosion during a definite period of time. The accompanying
photogravures will illustrate to the eye facts which it is hard to
make impressive by words alone. The course of the road is diagonally
down the face of the gorge from its summit for a distance of about two
miles, descending in that space about two hundred feet to the outcrop
of hard quartzose Medina sandstone. The lower mile of this exposure
presents the typical situation for making an estimate of the rate at
which the face is crumbling away.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Nearer view of the upper portion of the face
near the mouth, showing the exposure of the situation at that point.]
Beginning at what used to be known as the "Hermit's Cave," near the
Catholic College grounds, where the Niagara shale is well exposed, and
extending to the outer limit of the gorge, the height of the face
above the railroad averages one hundred and fifty feet. Now, the
crumbling away of the superincumbent cliffs gives continual trouble to
the road. Three watchmen are constantly employed along this distance
to remove the _débris_ which falls down, and to give warning if more
comes down than they can remove before trains are due. The seventy
feet of Niagara shale, and the equal thickness of shaly Medina rock
which underlies the Clinton limestone, are constantly falling off,
even in fair weather, as any one can experience by walking along the
bank; while after storms, and especially in the spring, when the frost
is coming out, the disintegration proceeds at a much more rapid rate.
Sometimes two or three days are required by the whole force of section
hands to throw over the bank the result of a single fall of material.
At a rate of one quarter of an inch of waste each year the amount of
_débris_ accumulating for removal on the track along this distance
would be only six hundred and ten cubic yards per annum--that is, if
six hundred and ten cubic yards of material falls down from one mile
of the face of the wall where it is a hundred and fifty feet high, the
whole amount of enlargement of the mouth of the gorge would be
accomplished in less than ten thousand years. Exact accounts have not
been kept by the railroad; but even a hasty examination of the face of
the wall makes it sure that the actual amount removed has been greatly
in excess of six hundred yards annually. This estimate is based partly
on the impression of the railroad officials as to the cost of removal,
and partly on the impressions of the watchmen who spend their time in
keeping guard and in the work of removing it.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--Showing extent of erosion at base of the
Niagara shale since 1854. (See description in the text.)]
But that is not all. The accompanying photogravures indicate an actual
amount of removal over a part of the area enormously in excess of the
rate supposed. Fig. 5 shows a portion of the precipice, a hundred feet
high, where the road first comes down to the level of the Clinton
limestone, and where, consequently, the whole thickness of the Niagara
shale is accessible to examination. Fortunately, Patrick MacNamara,
the watchman at this station, was a workman on the road at the time of
its construction in 1854, and has been connected with the road ever
since, having been at his present post for twelve years. We have
therefore his distinct remembrance, as well as the appearance of the
bank, to inform us where the face of the original excavation then was.
In the picture he is standing at the original face, while the other
figure is nearly at the back of the space which has been left empty by
the crumbling away of the shale. The horizontal distance is fully
twenty feet, and the rocks overhang to that amount for the whole
distance exposed in the photograph. All this amount of shale has
fallen down in forty-four years, making a rate many times larger than
the highest we have taken as the basis of our estimate. Of course,
this rate for the crumbling away of the Niagara shale on its fresh
exposure is much in excess of the average rate for a long period of
time; but it is clear that the rate of erosion at the base of the
Niagara limestone at the mouth of the gorge can never have been
sufficiently slow to reduce the total average much below the assumed
rate of a quarter of an inch a year.
To impress the truth of this statement it is only necessary to follow
the progress, in imagination, of the crumbling process which has
brought the side of the gorge to its present condition. At first the
face of the gorge was perpendicular, the plunging water making the
gorge as wide at the bottom as at the top. At successive stages the
strata of shale on the side would crumble away, as is shown in our
photograph, and undermine the strata of hard rock. The large fragments
would fall to the bottom, and, being too large to be carried away by
the current, would form the talus to which we have already referred,
which would grow in height with every successive century. The actual
progress of the enlargement would thus be periodic, and not capable of
measurement by decades; but after centuries the progress would be
clearly marked, and especially whenever there was a falling away of
the lower stratum of compact Medina sandstone, which is about
two hundred feet below the top, would a new cycle of rapid
disintegrations in the superincumbent strata follow.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--Section, drawn to equal vertical and
horizontal scale, showing enlargement of Niagara gorge on the east
side at its mouth at Lewiston: 1, Niagara limestone, 20 to 30 feet; 2,
Niagara shale, 70 feet; 3, Clinton limestone, 20 to 30 feet; 4,
Clinton and Medina shale, 70 feet; 5, Quartzose Medina sandstone, 20
to 30 feet; 6, softer Medina sandstone, 120 feet above water level.]
An important point to be noticed, and which is evident from two of the
reproduced photographs (Figs. 3 and 4), is that the talus has never
reached up so high as to check the disintegration at the mouth of the
gorge of the Niagara shale and limestone which form the upper one
hundred feet of the face, and which exhibit the maximum amount of
enlargement which has taken place. The thickness of the Niagara
limestone is here so small that it has not been so important an
element in forming the talus as it has been farther up the stream,
where it is two or three times as thick. Now, while our original
supposition was that one quarter of an inch annually was eroded from
the upper two hundred feet, this would involve the erosion of a half
inch per annum over the top of the gorge to bring the calculation
within the limit of ten thousand years. It certainly is difficult for
one who examines the facts upon the ground to believe that the
crumbling away of this exposed Niagara shale could have been at any
less rate than that; so that the estimate of about ten thousand years
for the date of that stage of the Glacial period in which Niagara
River first began its work of erosion at Lewiston (an estimate which
is supported by a great variety of facts independent of those relating
to the Niagara gorge) is strongly confirmed by this new line of
evidence.
So far as I can see, the only question of serious doubt that can be
raised respecting this calculation will arise from the possible
supposition that, when the eastern drainage over the Niagara channel
began, the land stood at such a relatively lower level as would reduce
the height of the fall to about half that of the present escarpment at
that point; when it might be supposed that a protecting talus had
accumulated which would interrupt the lateral erosion for the
indefinite period when the drainage was being drawn around by way of
the recently opened Lake Nipissing and Mattawa outlet. Then, upon the
resumption of the present line of drainage, with the land standing at
nearly its present level, the talus may have been undercut, and so
fallen down to leave the upper strata exposed as at present. But there
does not seem to be sufficient warrant for such a supposition to make
it necessary seriously to entertain it, while the objections to it are
significant and serious. First, the present narrowness of the river at
the water level is such that it does not give much opportunity for
enlargement after the first formation of the gorge; secondly, the
Niagara limestone at the mouth of the gorge is so thin (stated by Hall
to be twenty feet thick) that it would not form a protecting talus,
even at half its present height.
* * * * *
P. S.--Since the above was written there has been reported in the
papers an immense fall of rock from the east side of the gorge, near
the head of the Whirlpool rapids. The estimate made of the amount is
one hundred thousand tons. If that estimate is correct, it is a very
impressive illustration of how the average fall of material from the
side of the gorge is occasionally increased by a single instance. In
making our calculations above, the total amount of material annually
falling off from the portion of the side of the gorge under
consideration amounted only to 1,237 tons, while the amount of
material was 611 cubic yards. But the 100,000 tons which came off in a
single slide a few weeks ago would be equal to twenty inches in
thickness from the whole face of the cliff, where our estimate was
only a quarter of an inch.
N. B.--In the diagram (Fig. 6) extend the Niagara shale (2) up to
occupy lower two layers of (1), thus making Niagara limestone (1) half
as thick as now.
* * * * *
A piece of skin which the authors maintained to be of great
antiquity and to have belonged to the extinct mylodon or ground
sloth, found in a cave in Patagonia, was recently exhibited to
the London Zoölogical Society by Mr. A. Smith Woodward and Dr. F.
P. Moreno.
ABUSE OF PUBLIC CHARITY.
BY BIRD S. COLER,
COMPTROLLER OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
Ten per cent of all the human beings who die in New York city are
buried in Potter's Field at public expense; but the records of
organized charity, official and semiofficial, show that less than one
per cent of the living are paupers or dependent persons. There are two
explanations of the difference between the number of living poor and
penniless dead. The chief one is that abuse of public charity has
grown to such proportions that the city has become the Mecca of the
chronic idlers and tramps of the entire country. It is easier for an
industrious and shrewd professional beggar to live in luxury in New
York than to exist in any other city in the world. No magic wand of
ancient fable was ever more potent to unlock the gates of castle or
prison than the name of charity is to open a way to the public
treasury. The liberal and well-nigh indiscriminate giving of the money
of the taxpayers for the relief of sickness and poverty has been
commanded by law, sanctioned by custom, and approved by public opinion
until the possibility of checking or reforming the abuse grows more
and more remote as the burden increases and the evil results multiply.
The city of New York gives annually to public charity more than
$5,000,000, and contributes indirectly $2,000,000 more. Of the money
raised by taxation for city purposes proper (State taxes, interest,
and county expenses eliminated), almost twelve per cent is properly
chargeable to relief of poverty and sickness. Of this expenditure more
than $3,000,000 is paid to private institutions and societies over
which the city authorities have no control or supervision. The
payments are made in compliance with the provisions of acts of the
State Legislature. The only provision in these laws that enables the
city officers to protect the treasury from fraud is a clause under
which the comptroller is permitted to verify the bills of the
institutions for the care of committed persons. There is a
constitutional safeguard against outright swindling of the city, in
the requirement that charitable institutions shall be inspected and
their bills approved by the State Board of Charities, but the system
is open to many abuses where the public officers are powerless.
The present comptroller of the city has found that a number of alleged
charitable institutions and societies receiving money from the city
apply nearly all their funds to the payment of salaries of officers
and employees, while their relief work is very limited and of doubtful
character. Other societies, he found upon investigation, really
encourage professional beggars without in any case relieving deserving
poor. A few cases were so flagrant in their abuse of public charity
that the further payment of city money to the societies was refused.
In one case he found that a society which claimed a board of directors
and numerous officers was really managed by one person, who in one
year had received $1,500 from the city and $70 from all other sources,
and had expended $1,300 of the amount for salaries and $40 for the
relief of the destitute.
The Department of Public Charities, for the maintenance of which the
sum of $1,941,215 is appropriated for the year 1899, is controlled
entirely by the city. The balance of the $5,000,000 appropriated
annually for the same general purpose is divided among more than two
hundred societies and institutions managed by corporations or private
individuals. In theory none of these private institutions is supported
by the city, the municipality merely paying to them a fixed sum, which
is supposed to be supplemented by private donations. In reality nine
tenths of them could not exist six months without the money they
receive from the public treasury. Very few of these semipublic
charities have an income from all other sources equal to the
appropriation from the city.
The city pays for the support of a child in a private institution the
sum of $110 a year, and the average allowance for the maintenance of
an adult is $150. The percentage of children among the dependent
persons is almost three to one, so the $5,000,000 public charity fund
would feed and clothe more than forty thousand persons each year if
applied directly to that purpose. In the distribution of this great
sum of public money, however, fully $2,000,000 of the amount is
absorbed in the payment of salaries and expenses, and therein exists
an abuse of public charity so great that the present comptroller of
the city some months ago appealed to the Legislature for relief in the
form of legislation which would enable the local authorities to stop
payments to many societies. There are numerous small institutions,
some of them having the indorsement and moral support of leading
citizens, that spend from sixty to eighty per cent of all the money
they receive in the payment of salaries, and in one case discovered by
the comptroller the expenses absorbed ninety-four per cent of the
total income of the society!
There is no evidence that any of these societies are deliberately
dishonest in their dealings with the city and the public. They are as
a rule conducted by men and women whose motives are good, but who have
no experience or practical knowledge to fit them for the management of
a charitable institution. They are easily imposed upon by professional
beggars, and in most cases fail in their well-meant efforts to reach
and relieve the deserving who are in actual need. Most of the small
organizations that waste public money in misdirected charity are
controlled by women of eminent respectability, but with no knowledge
whatever of the details of the work they have undertaken. The result
in many cases has been that they employ enough help to absorb the bulk
of the money received without realizing that they are doing more harm
than good.
The city does not spend its own money cheaply. Of the appropriation of
$1,941,215 for the support of the Department of Charities for the
current year the sum of $529,626 is allowed for the payment of
salaries of commissioners and employees. No private business could
long endure if conducted on such a basis. Some of the institutions
where hundreds of homeless waifs from the streets are cared
for--institutions semipublic in character, managed by men of more than
local reputation as experts in such work, societies founded by men and
women whose lives have been devoted to doing good--show by their
annual reports that more than half their income is paid out in
salaries. One institution that received $30,000 from the city in 1898
and $20,000 from all other sources, reported a salary account of
$31,000. Another, receiving $100,000 from the city and $120,000 in
donations, had a salary account of $115,000. For every five persons
supported by public charity there are three persons employed on salary
in the work of relief. Of every five dollars paid out by the city
treasury to relieve the sick and destitute, two dollars is absorbed by
the salary and expense accounts.
The theory of the law under which city money is paid to private
charitable institutions is that they relieve the municipal authorities
of the care of a certain number of persons who would otherwise become
public charges to be maintained in the hospitals, asylums, or homes
owned by the city. It is also a popular theory that young children who
have become a public charge will receive better care and training in a
home controlled by a private society than they would in a public
institution. Appropriations and legislation are also obtained by
private organizations on the representation that for every dollar paid
to them by the city or State an equal amount will be contributed by
founders and subscribers. This representation is not always true, and
in many cases it happens that when a society begins to receive money
from the city private contributions fall off. When the city
authorities first took up the question of caring for homeless and
destitute persons and found that they had to deal with a grave
problem, some of the private charitable institutions were already in
existence and came forward with offers to share the burden. At that
time it was considered a good business arrangement for the city to use
private societies in the work of relief. This plan, it was expected,
would save the city considerable money, because the officers of the
societies would contribute their services, and the cost of applying
public charity to necessary relief would in that way be reduced to a
minimum. That expectation has not been realized. With the rapid
increase of necessity and demand for public relief the expenses of
administration of the societies have increased out of all proportion
to the work accomplished. In the beginning the city authorities
shirked a public duty, and by giving city money to private persons who
were willing to relieve them of a burden they invited the creation of
new societies and a steadily increasing demand for more funds.
Of the two hundred and twenty charitable societies that receive money
from the city more than one hundred have been organized during the
past ten years. The records of the finance department and the annual
reports of these new organizations show that many of them have
received from the city sixty to ninety per cent of all the funds they
have handled, and that almost the same percentage of their total
income was charged to expenses, the chief item of expense in every
case being the payment of salaries to officers. Year after year the
promoters and officers of these small organizations appear before the
city authorities when the annual budget is to be passed, and,
attempting to excuse the poor showing they make, say, in pleading for
a larger appropriation, "We hope to do better next year." The most
liberal-minded defender of indiscriminate public charity would find it
difficult to excuse the existence of some of these societies.
There are scores of small organizations helping to spend public money
that are unknown to the general public. In fact, some of them are
never heard of except when their officers appear before the Board of
Estimate once a year to ask for more money. There is a society,
organized for the purpose of supplying clothing to shipwrecked
sailors, which for several years obtained a small appropriation from
the city. When the officers requested an increase of the amount
allowed, the city authorities asked for some particulars of the work
done. The report submitted in reply showed that the society had
received, in addition to the money obtained from the city, several
donations of second-hand clothing and one box of wristlets (knit bands
to be worn on the wrists); had sent to a sailor shipwrecked on the
coast of Oregon a suit of underwear, a pair of hose, and a rubber
coat; to a crew wrecked on the reefs of Florida some shoes and oilskin
caps. There was no report of relief or clothing supplied to a sailor
or any other person in the city or State of New York, but there was a
charge for salaries that almost balanced the amount received from the
city treasury.
Another of the minor institutions is a society that is engaged in an
original method of charitable work. The agents of this society, or the
members themselves, go out into the slums of the city on Sunday
mornings and gather in a number of tramps. The homeless wanderers are
assembled in a room hired for the purpose and supplied with a warm
breakfast, after which they are compelled to listen to a sermon and a
lecture. They are then allowed to depart and live as best they can
until the following Sunday. For a number of years this society has
received a small appropriation from the city on the ground that it is
a useful public charity. To all of these small societies, no matter
what may be their alleged field of charitable work, city money is
appropriated without specific knowledge of the exact purpose to which
it is applied. By legislation or petition, backed by the influence of
prominent citizens, scores of these petty organizations, some of them
merely a fad or whim of an idle man or woman, have been placed on the
list of semipublic charities to be aided at the expense of the
taxpayers, and there they remain year after year without so much as a
serious inquiry as to their merits or the work they accomplish. The
city authorities who grant the appropriations do not and can not know
how the money they give to such societies is to be expended, because
they have no legal authority to investigate the conduct of such
institutions. The city officers, therefore, are not to blame. The
fault seems to rest primarily upon that condition of public opinion
that is cheerfully tolerant of any fraud committed in the name of
charity, and secondly upon the members of the Legislature who vote
without question or investigation for all legislation asked for by any
benevolent person or society.
To the large charitable and correctional institutions of established
reputation, to which children or pauper adults are committed by the
local authorities, city money is appropriated on a business basis. A
fixed sum is paid for the support of each committed person, and the
taxpayers may know what they are getting for their money. While the
city authorities can not regulate the expenses or salaries in these
institutions, they know that the city is paying for a specific service
and that the work is performed. That it might be done better or more
cheaply need not concern them. But to the institutions and societies
that do not undertake to support dependent persons, but engage in
indiscriminate charitable work, the giving of city money is as
doubtful a method of relieving the deserving poor as throwing coin in
the streets.
The appropriation of city money made for 1899 direct to two hundred
and fifteen charitable and correctional institutions and societies
amounts to $1,784,846. The appropriations from the excise funds to
institutions that support pauper children and adults will slightly
exceed $1,000,000. The county of New York pays to State and private
charitable institutions for the same period the sum of $118,682; Kings
County, $82,669; and Richmond County, $4,845; all of which comes out
of the general treasury. The money received for licenses for theaters,
concert and music halls, amounting to $50,000 a year, is divided among
eighty-two private societies and institutions. This makes an aggregate
of $3,000,000 paid out of the city treasury annually and expended
under the direction of private organizations. With the exception of
less than $100,000 it is all appropriated under the provisions of
special acts of the Legislature, or sections of the city charter, and
the city officers have no control whatever over the methods of
expenditure or the work undertaken by the societies that receive the
money. Under such a system the possibilities for abuse of public
charity are well-nigh unlimited.
These direct appropriations of money do not represent all of the
city's contribution to the cause of charity. The property of all the
charitable institutions and societies is exempt from taxation and from
assessments for public improvements. The tax commissioners report that
the assessed value of the property of such organizations is
$70,781,990. At the present rate of taxation this means a loss to the
city of more than $1,400,000 a year. The assessments upon the same
property for public improvements exceed $100,000 a year, which is paid
by the city. These exemptions materially affect the tax rate as well
as the bonded indebtedness and annual interest charges of the city, so
that the yearly contribution of the taxpayers of New York to charity
is nearly if not quite $7,000,000, or about fifteen per cent of the
direct expenses of the city government.
Some figures from the budget for 1899 will show the relative cost of
caring for the poor. The city will pay for public education
$13,040,052; for police, $11,797,596; for the fire department,
$4,443,664; for the health department, $1,110,538; for lighting,
$2,000,000; for water, $1,450,817; for cleaning the streets,
$4,575,800; for parks, $1,729,235; for paving and repaving streets,
$2,520,099; and for charity direct and indirect, $7,000,000.
The chief abuses of the present system of public charity are the
extravagant expenditures for salaries and the steady and rapid
increase of pauperism due to the misdirected efforts of the
inexperienced persons who control so many of the smaller societies
that receive city money.
One of the oldest and most important charitable organizations in the
city is the Children's Aid Society. The report of the treasurer for
1898 shows the following expenditures:
Industrial schools--
Salaries of superintendent and teachers $106,265.71
Rent of schoolrooms 5,119.26
Books and school supplies 5,178.54
Provisions 8,509.70
Clothing and special relief 5,512.56
Fuel, gas, repairs, etc. 20,497.88
---------
Sick Children's Mission $655.48
Children's Summer Home 9,405.37
Health Home 8,307.45
Farm for Boys--Summer Charities 2,719.59
Brace Memorial Lodging House 12,914.13
Elizabeth Home for Girls 10,366.33
Tompkins Square Lodging House 7,546.38
West Side Lodging House 9,079.26
East Side Lodging House 1,848.06
Forty fourth Street Lodging House 7,948.56
Fogg Lodging House 1,942.26
Brace Farm School 12,150.64
Reading rooms 402.96
Medical examinations 312.00
Salaries, executive officers 8,659.92
Immigration, fares, food, clothing, etc. 30,162.69
Reinvestment, bonds sold 29,902.50
Amount due treasurer, November 1, 1898 435.71
Printing, stationery, car fares, and incidental expenses 3,551.85
--------
$309,394.79
This shows a total salary account of $114,925.63, or about
thirty-seven per cent of the expenditure. The society received from
the city $100,764, and from general subscriptions and donations
$119,768. The balance of the income was derived from legacies,
endowments, special trust funds, and sale of bonds.
One of the private institutions in the city for the instruction of
deaf-mutes receives city, State, and county pupils under the
provisions of special acts of the Legislature. The report of the
treasurer for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1898, shows the
following receipts:
Balance on hand, October 1, 1897 $2,885.03
New York State 44,216.74
New York County 27,179.54
Kings County 12,697.05
Queens County 1,217.19
Westchester County 1,060.94
Various other counties 2,727.02
Paying pupils 791.75
Donations 11,754.46
All other sources 613.89
--------
$105,143.61
The expenditures for the same period were $102,570.64, of which
$33,613.56 was for salaries and wages. This is a private institution
exempt from city or State control, subject to no governmental
supervision except examination by the State Board of Charities, yet
ninety per cent of its income is public money, and almost one third of
the cost of maintenance is charged to salaries and wages. These two
cases are mentioned not in criticism of the work or methods of the
institutions, but as representing a fair average of the salary account
of all the larger private charitable societies. They also fairly
represent the two extremes in the source of their income, one
receiving ninety per cent of public money, the other a little more
than thirty per cent.
Recent investigations conducted by the city comptroller and
supplemented by the agents of the State Board of Charities disclose
abuses in the expenditure of public money by certain small societies
so flagrant that the appropriations for the current year have been
withheld. In these cases the salary account was always the chief
expenditure, but it was also discovered that whatever relief got
beyond the headquarters of the societies went to professional beggars,
who had no difficulty in deceiving the persons in charge. It was found
that persons in good health had lived comfortably for months, perhaps
for years, on public charity dispensed through private organizations.
These professional beggars would obtain food at one place, clothing at
another, coal at a third, small sums of money from all three perhaps,
then reverse the order of application or appeal to newer organizations
if detection threatened. Relief was extended in many instances with
little or no effort on the part of the societies to ascertain the
merits of a case or the honesty of an applicant.
One small society was found to have expended practically all of the
money received from the city in the payment of the living expenses of
the person who had the entire management of the organization. The
charitable work of a year consisted in the distribution of a small
quantity of cast-off clothing and a few bushels of potatoes. The
reports of the society contained the names of directors who had never
served and knew nothing of the true condition of the organization.
They had merely consented that their names might be used as a
guarantee of reliability and to aid in the work of soliciting
contributions.
One case has been found where a mother and daughter lived comfortably
by selling coal given to them by charitable societies. One private
institution, now abolished, boarded committed children and received
two dollars a week from the city for each child. The children were fed
on fish and potatoes at a cost of forty-four cents each per week.
After these facts were discovered the city authorities could not
remove the children until the Board of Health condemned and closed the
building under the provisions of the sanitary code. The minor abuses
in the way of aiding undeserving persons extend to nearly all the
private societies that receive city money. Those that exercise care
and have been long established are often deceived by professional
beggars.
After his investigation of the subject the city comptroller
established in his office a bureau of examination for the purpose of
placing a check on the many small societies that indulge in
indiscriminate charity at the expense of the city, but he soon found
that he was powerless to correct all abuses. The present condition can
not be corrected and public charity placed upon a practical basis and
limited to the real necessities of the deserving poor until the city
government begins to deal with each society and institution upon its
merits. Changes and reforms to the present system will come in time,
but progress will be slow because charity is a valid excuse at the bar
of public opinion for the reckless expenditure of city money, and for
that reason it appeals strongly to the average politician and
lawmaker. Charity will cover with a mantle of commendation a multitude
of abuses and crave pardon for gross frauds. It is the pastime of the
rich and their gratuity to the poor. The magic of the word seems to
move a Legislature and open the treasure vaults of city and State.
ALASKA AND THE KLONDIKE.
A JOURNEY TO THE NEW ELDORADO.
BY ANGELO HEILPRIN,
PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY AT THE ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES OF
PHILADELPHIA, FELLOW OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.
II.--SAN FRANCISCO OF THE NORTH.
[Illustration: DAWSON AND KLONDIKE CITY (SOUTH DAWSON) IN SEPTEMBER,
1898.]
A first impression of Dawson, in August, 1898, could not be other than
one calculated to bring up comparisons with strange and foreign lands.
As we saw it, approaching from the water side, it persistently
suggested the banks of the Yang-tse-kiang, or of some other Chinese
river, on which a densely apportioned population had settled.
Hundreds--one is almost tempted to say thousands--of boats were lined
up against the river front, and so packed in rows back of one another
that exit from the inner line was made possible only by a passive
accommodation from the outside. There were steam craft, house-boats,
scows, and a variety of minor bottoms, ranging from the hay-packed
raft to the graceful Peterboro canoe. Many had canvas spread over
them, giving house quarter to those who preferred the economy of an
owned estate to the high-priced cabins of log huts and hotels, and
the purity of the open air to what was at least considered to be the
polluted atmosphere of the stable city. It would be far from the truth
to assume that this floating population was composed exclusively of
men, women, and children; there were dogs galore, abundant by both
presence and voice, horses and mules, and an occasional goat betrayed
itself munching among hay-packs and the usual combination of simple
and hard things which make up goat food. One canvas bore the tempting
inscription "Hot and Cold River Baths," several carried legends of
variously designated laundries, and a few even invited to "Board and
Lodging, Cheap." Of course, the word cheap had here a special
etymologic significance, and bore little relation to the same form of
word which is current in lexicons.
[Illustration: SOME MUD IN THE MAIN STREET--FIRST AVENUE.]
The first favorable impression of dry land in Dawson was tempered by a
knowledge that even here were many moist spots. The mud lay in great
pools along the main street--First Avenue or Front Street--but hardly
in sufficient depth to make walking dangerous. Dogs and goats could
alone drown in it. It is true that an occasional wading burro or even
a mule would find a dangerously low level, but I am not aware that any
in this condition had added to a list of serious casualties. No
mention is made in this connection of cats, for, in truth, only two
specimens of the feline family had up to this time reached
Dawson--one, a blue-ribboned kitten, which was endearingly received as
the mascot of the Yukon Mining Exchange.
[Illustration: THE MAIN STREET IN A SPRING FRESHET.]
The Dawsonites are not entirely oblivious to the discomforts of mud,
for an effort is being made to block it out with sawdust, of which the
three or four sawmills in the town furnish a goodly supply. In some
parts a rough corduroy has been attempted, but the price of lumber,
two hundred dollars per thousand linear feet, renders this form of
construction too expensive for general use, especially in a community
all of whose members, female as well as male, are prepared to stem the
tide with high-top boots. About one half the street length shows the
pretense of wooden sidewalks, but no one has yet recognized a special
responsibility for repairs, or seemingly considered that a continuous
walk requires a continuous support. Walking is a succession of ups and
downs; boards are missing here, other are smashed elsewhere, and the
whole walk gives the impression of having been in existence for
centuries rather than for the period of a short twelvemonth.