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 classes;
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
class. 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 Association or organization, whose sole
object should be to deal alone with the sufferings, wants, and crimes,
arising from a class of youth who are homeless, ignorant, or neglected.
The injuries to public morals and property from such a class are
important enough to call out the best thought and utmost energy and
inventiveness of charitable men and women to prevent them. Where an
association 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
classes 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 class
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 classes, 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 institutions. 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 "Institution" 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 classes, 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
compassion. 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 multitude of criminals,
prostitutes, 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 passing 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 classes."
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.
The waves soon rolled over these enthusiastic and devoted labors, and
the waste of misfortune and guilt remained as desolate and hopeless as
before. It was clear that whatever was done there, must be done in the
source and origin of the evil--in prevention, not cure.
The impression deepened both with those engaged in these benevolent
labors and with the community, that a general Organization should be
formed which should deal alone with the evils and dangers threatened
from the class of neglected youth then first coming plainly into public
view. Those who possessed property-interests in the city saw the immense
loss and damage which would occur from such an increasing community of
young thieves and criminals. The humane felt for the little waifs of
society who thus, through no fault of their own, were cast out on the
currents of a large city; and the religious recognized it as a solemn
duty to carry the good news of Christianity to these "heathen at home."
Everything seemed in readiness for some comprehensive and well-laid
scheme of benevolence and education for the street-children of New
York.
A number of our citizens, with the present writer threw themselves into
a somewhat original method for benefiting the young "roughs" and
vagabond boys of the metropolis. This was known as the effort of the
"BOYS' MEETINGS."
The theory of these original assemblages was, that the "sympathy of an
audience" might be used to influence these wild and untutored young
Arabs when ordinary agencies were of no avail. The street-boys, as is
well-known, are exceedingly sharp and keen, and, being accustomed to
theatrical performances, are easily touched by real oratory, and by
dramatic instruction; but they are also restless, soon tired of long
exhortations, and somewhat given to _chaff._
The early days of those "Boys' Meetings" were stormy. Sometimes the
salutatory exercises from the street were showers of stones; sometimes a
general scrimmage occurred over the benches; again, the visitors or
missionaries were pelted, by some opposition-gang, or bitter enemies of
the lads who attended the meeting. The exercises, too, must be conducted
with much tact, or they broke up with a laugh or in a row. The platform
of the Boys' Meeting seemed to become a kind of chemical test of the
gaseous element in the brethren's brains. One pungent criticism we
remember--on a pious and somewhat sentimental Sunday-school brother,
who, in one of our meetings, had been putting forth vague and
declamatory religious exhortation--in the words "Gas! gas!" whispered
with infinite contempt from one hard-faced young disciple to another.
Unhappy, too, was the experience of any more daring missionary who
ventured to question these youthful inquirers.
Thus--"In this parable, my dear boys, of the Pharisee and the publican,
what is meant by the 'publican?'"
"Alderman, sir, wot keeps a pot-house!" "Dimocrat, sir!" "Black
Republican, sir!"
Or--"My boys, what is the great end of man? When is he happiest? How
would _you_ feel happiest?"
"When we'd plenty of hard cash, sir!"
Or--"My _dear_ boys, when your father and your mother forsake you, _who_
will take you up?"
"The Purlice, sir (very seriously), the Purlice!"
They sometimes took their own quiet revenge among themselves, in
imitating the Sunday-school addresses delivered to them.
Still, ungoverned, prematurely sharp, and accustomed to all vileness, as
these lads were, words which came forth from the depths of a man's or
woman's heart would always touch some hidden chord in theirs. Pathos and
eloquence vibrated on their heartstrings as with any other audience.
Beneath all their rough habits and rude words was concealed the solemn
monitor, the _Daimon,_ which ever whispers to the lowest of human
creatures, that some things are wrong--are not to be done.
Whenever the speaker could, for a moment only, open the hearts of the
little street-rovers to this voice, there was in the wild audience a
silence almost painful, and every one instinctively felt, with awe, a
mysterious Presence in the humble room, which blessed both those who
spake and those who heard.
Whatever was bold, or practical, or heroic in sentiment, and especially
the dramatic in oratory, was most intently listened to by these children
of misfortune.
The Boys' Meetings, however, were not, and could not, in the nature of
things, be a permanent success. They were the pioneer-work for more
profound labors for this class. They cleared the way, and showed the
character of the materials. Those engaged in them learned the fearful
nature of the evils they were struggling with, and how little any moral
influence on one day can do to combat them. These wild gatherings, like
meetings for street-preaching, do not seem suited to the habits of our
population; they are too much an occasion for frolic. They have given
way to, and been merged in, much more disciplined assemblages for
precisely the same class, which again are only one step in a long series
of moral efforts in their behalf, that are in operation each day of
every week and month, and extend through years.
The first of these meetings was opened in 1848, under the charge of Mr.
A. D. F. Randolph by the members of a Presbyterian church, in a hall on
the corner of Christopher and Hudson Streets. This was followed by
another in a subsequent year in Wooster Street, commenced by the
indefatigable exertions of the wife of Rev. Dr. G. B. Cheever, and
sustained especially by Mr. B. J. Howland and W. C. Russell.
The writer took more or less part in those, but was especially engaged
in founding one in Sixth Street, near Second Avenue; another in 118
Avenue D, from which arose the "Wilson School" and the Avenue D Mission;
one in King Street, near Hudson, from which came the Cottage-Place
Mission; and another in Greenwich Street, near Vandam Street.