Poverty is a terrible misfortune in any city. In New York it is
frequently regarded as a crime. But whether the one or the other, it
assumes here proportions which it does not reach in other American
communities. The city is overrun with those who are classed as paupers,
and in spite of the great efforts made to relieve them, their suffering
is very great.
The deserving poor are numerous. They have been brought to their sad
condition by misfortune. A laboring man may die and leave a widow with a
number of small children dependent on her exertions. The lot of such is
very hard. Sickness may strike down a father or mother, and thus deprive
the remaining members of a family of their accustomed support, or men and
women may be thrown out of work suddenly, or may be unable to procure
employment. Again, a man may bring himself and his family to want by
drunkenness. If the children are too young to earn their bread, the
support of the family falls upon the wife. Whatever may be the cause of
the misfortune, the lot of the poor in New York is very hard. Their
homes are the most wretched tenement houses, and they are compelled to
dwell among the most abandoned and criminal part of the population. No
wonder poverty is so much dreaded here. The poor man has little, if any,
chance of bettering his condition, and he is gradually forced down lower
and lower in the scale of misery, until death steps in to relieve him, or
he takes refuge in suicide.
[Picture: THE POOR IN WINTER.]
The Missionaries are constant in their labors among the poor. They
shrink from no work, are deterred by no danger, but carry their spiritual
and temporal relief into places from which the dainty pastors of
fashionable churches shrink with disgust. They not only preach the
Gospel to the poor, who would never hear it but for them, but they watch
by the bed-sides of the sick and the dying, administer the last rites of
religion to the believing pauper or the penitent criminal, and offer to
the Great Judge the only appeal for mercy that is ever made in behalf of
many a soul that dies in its sins. There is many a wretched home into
which these men have carried the only joy that has ever entered its
doors. Nor are they all men, for many of the most effective Missionaries
are gentle and daintily nurtured women. A part of the Missionary's work
is to distribute Bibles, tracts, and simple religious instruction. These
are simple little documents, but they do a deal of good. They have
reformed drunkards, converted the irreligious, shut the mouth of the
swearer, and have brought peace to more than one heart. The work is done
so silently and unpretendingly that few but those engaged in it know how
great are its effects. They are encouraged by the evidences which they
have, and continue their work gladly.
Thanks to the Missionaries, many of the deserving poor have been brought
under the constant care of the Mission Establishments, from which they
receive the assistance they need. Yet there are many who cannot be
reached, or at least cannot be aided effectively. The officers of the
Howard Mission relate many touching incidents of the suffering that has
come under their notice.
There was among the inmates of the Mission, about a year ago, a girl
named Rose ---. She was ten years old, and was so lame that she was
unable to walk without crutches. When she became old enough to do
anything, her mother, a drunken and depraved woman, sent her on the
streets to sweep the crossings and beg. She managed to secure a little
money, which she invested in "songs." She paid three-quarters of a cent
for each "song," and sold them at a cent apiece. With her earnings she
supported her mother. Their home was the back room of a cellar, into
which no light ever shone, and their bed was a pile of rags. To reach
this wretched spot, the little girl was compelled to pass through the
front cellar, which was one of the vilest and most disgusting dens in the
city.
The mother at length fell ill, and the child in despair applied to the
Howard Mission for aid, which she received. Food and clothing were given
to the mother, but they were of little use to her, as she died within two
days. The breath had scarcely left her body, when the wretches who
occupied the outer cellar stripped her of all her clothing, and left her
naked. She was wrapped in an old sheet, put into a pine box, nailed up
and buried in the potter's field, without the pretence of a funeral.
The little girl, now left alone, succeeded in obtaining some sewing. She
worked on one occasion from Tuesday until Saturday, making eleven dozen
leaves for trimming ladies' velvet cloaks. She furnished her own thread,
and paid her own car fare. She received eight cents a dozen for the
leaves, or eighty-eight cents in all, or less than the thread and car
fare had actually cost her. The officers of the Howard Mission now came
to her aid, and gave her a home in their blessed haven of rest.
One of the evening papers, about a year ago, contained the following
"Incident of City Life:"
"In a cellar, No. 91 Cherry street, we found an Irish woman with five
children, the oldest probably ten years old. Her husband had been out of
work for nearly six months, and was suffering severely from bronchitis.
There was no appearance of liquor about the place, and the Missionary who
had visited them often said she was sure they did not drink. The woman
was suffering severely from heart disease, and had a baby three weeks
old. But what a place for a baby! There were two windows, two feet by
two feet, next to the street, so splashed on the outside and stained by
the dust and mud that they admitted but little light. A tidy housewife
might say, Why don't the woman wash them? How can she stop to wash
windows, with a baby three weeks old and four helpless little ones
besides, crying around her with hunger and cold? The floor had no
carpet. An old stove, which would not draw on account of some defect in
the chimney of the house, had from time to time spread its clouds of
smoke through the cellar--the only room--even when the baby was born. A
few kettles, etc., stood around the floor, some crumbs of bread were on a
shelf, but no sign of meat or vegetables. A wash-tub, containing
half-washed clothing, stood near the middle of the room; there was a
table, and a bedstead stood in a corner pretty well furnished--the bed
clothing the gift of charity. In this the father, mother, babe, and
perhaps a little boy two years old, slept. But the other children? O,
they had some old bundles of rags on the floor, and here they were
compelled to lie like pigs, with little or nothing to cover them. When
it rained, the water from the street poured into this hole, and saturated
the rags on which the children slept, and they had to lie there like poor
little drowned rats, shivering and wailing till morning came, when they
could go out and gather cinders enough to make a fire. The privilege of
living in this place cost five dollars per month. And yet this woman was
willing to talk about God, and believed in his goodness. She believed
that he often visited that place. Yes, he does go down there when the
good Miss --- from the Mission descends the slimy steps."
[Picture: THE CITY MISSIONARY.]
"I have been astounded," said a city clergyman to the writer, "to find
so much genuine piety in the wretched places I visit. A few nights ago I
was called to see a woman who was very ill. The messenger conducted me
to a miserable cellar, where, on a bed of rags, I found a woman, about
sixty years old, gasping for breath. She greeted me with feverish
anxiety, and asked me if I thought it possible for her to get well; I
told her I did not know, and as she seemed very ill, I sent the man who
had been my conductor, to the nearest police station, to ask for medical
aid. I asked her if she wished to live, she answered, 'No, unless it be
God's will that I should.' Well, the reply startled me, for the tone was
one of unquestioned resignation, and I had not expected to discover that
virtue here. In reply to my questions she told me her story--a very
common one--of a long life of bitter poverty, following close on a few
years of happiness and comfort at the beginning of her womanhood. Her
trial had been very hard, but she managed by God's grace to keep her soul
pure and her conscience free from reproach.
"In a little while the physician I had sent for came in. He saw her
condition at a glance, and turning to me said, in a low tone, that she
would not live through the night, that she was literally worn out. As
low as he spoke, she overheard him. She clasped her bony hands
exultantly, her poor wan face gleamed with joy, and she burst out in her
thin, weak voice, into the words of the hymn:
"'Happy soul! thy days are ended,
Leave thy trials here below:
Go, by angel guards attended,
To the breast of Jesus, go!'
"Well, she died that night, and I am sure she is in heaven now."
Great efforts are made by the organized charities of the city to relieve
the sufferings of the deserving poor. Prominent among these charities is
the "Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor." The object of
the Society is to help them by enabling them to help themselves and
gradually to lift them up out of the depths of poverty. The city is
divided into small districts, each of which is in charge of a visitor,
whose duty it is to seek out the deserving poor. All the assistance is
given through these visitors, and nothing is done, except in extreme
cases, until the true condition of the applicant is ascertained. Money
is never given, and only such supplies as are not likely to be improperly
used. Every recipient of the bounty of the Society is required to
abstain from intoxicating liquors, to send young children to school, and
to apprentice those of a suitable age. During the twenty-seven years of
its existence, ending October 1st, 1870, the Society has expended in
charities the sum of $1,203,767, and has given relief to 180,000
families, or 765,000 persons. The office of the Society is in the Bible
House.