THE GERMAN RAG-PICKERS.
Our next great effort was among the Germans. On the eastern side of the
city is a vast population of German laborers, mechanics, and
shop-keepers. Among them, also, are numbers of exceedingly poor people,
who live by gathering rags and bones.
I used at that time to explore these singular settlements, filled with
the poor peasantry of the "Fatherland," and being familiar with the
German _patois,_ I had many cheery conversations with these honest
people, who had drifted into places so different from their
mountain-homes. In fact, it used to convey to me a strange contrast, the
dirty yards piled with bones and flaunting with rags, and the air
smelling of carrion; while the accents reminded of the glaciers of the
Bavarian Alps or the fresh breezes and wild scenes of the Harz. The poor
people felt the contrast terribly, and their children most of all.
From ignorance of the language and the necessity of working at their
street-trades, they did not attend our schools, and seldom entered a
church. They were growing up without either religion or education. Yet
they were a much more honest and hopeful class than the Irish. There
seemed always remaining in them something of the good old German
_Biederkeit,_ or solidity. One could depend on the children if they were
put in places of trust, and in school they seemed to grasp knowledge
with much more tenacity and vigor. The young girls, however, coming from
a similar low class were weaker in virtue than the Irish.
The number of the Germans in the poor quarters may be somewhat measured
by the population of the Wards which they inhabited. The Eleventh Ward
at that time (1854) was reckoned to contain 50,000 inhabitants; at
present (1870) it contains 64,372, and the Sixteenth Ward, another
strong German district, has 99,375.
The Association of ladies which we called together for labors among this
population happened to be composed mainly of Unitarians, a religious
body that has always felt a peculiar interest in the moral condition of
our German poor. The moving spirit in the association was a lady of such
singular grace and delicacy of character, that I hardly venture, even
after these many years, to make public her name. She occupied then one
of the foremost positions in New York society--a position accorded in
part to her name, honored for intellectual services to the Republic,
beyond almost any other in our history, but above all due to her own
singular sweetness and dignity of manner and a very highly cultivated
and strong intellect. Her power, whether with rich or poor, was her
wonderful consideration for others, and her quick sympathy. The highest
inspiration of Christian faith breathed through her life and animated
her in laboring with these children of poverty. The same inspiration
sustained her subsequently in a prolonged and terrible trial of months
under a fearful disease, and made her death a sun-set of glory to all
who knew her. Never did the faith in immortal union with God through
Christ attain a more absolute certainty in any human being. Her death,
even to many skeptics who were intimate with her, became a new and
astonishing argument for Immortality.
She numbered among her friends many of the leading intellects of the
country, as well as those among the poor who depended on her advice,
sympathy, and aid.
Into this labor of love among the Germans, Mrs. S. threw herself, in
company with a few friends, with profound earnestness.
In view of the peculiar temptations of the young German girls, one of
our objects in this school was to offer a social as well as educational
resort in the evenings. We furnished the rooms pleasantly and
tastefully, and proposed to vary our school exercises by games or an
occasional dance and frolic. Mrs. S. and other ladies consented to be
often present, to instruct and talk with the girls. Our visitors and
myself at once gathered in a needy-looking assembly of the poor German
girls of the Eleventh Ward, not as ragged or wild as the Irish throng in
the Fourth Ward, but equally poor and quite as much exposed to
temptation. The School went on day by day in its ministrations of love
and its patient industry, and gradually produced the same effects as
have been experienced under all these Schools. The wild became tamer,
the wayward more docile. The child of the rag-picker soon began to like
in-door industry better than the vagrant business of the streets, and to
lose something of her boldness and correct her slovenliness.
After laboring thus for some years with a board of ladies, a strong
effort was made to secure the assistance of the German merchants of the
city.
In 1859, a subscription of about $1,000 was obtained from them, and the
School was enlarged and made still more attractive, so as to reach the
young working German girls in the evening. At this time a young lady of
high culture, from one of the prominent intellectual families of New
England, offered herself for this difficult task, and she was placed at
the head of the School. For two years she labored unceasingly for this
wild, uncontrolled class, being present every evening in the school, and
bringing all her education and earnestness of character to bear upon
them. They never forgot her, and she left an indelible impression on
these children, and aided in saving them from the temptations which have
ruined so many of their companions.
Our German patrons gradually left us, and it was only in 1870 that their
assistance was secured again for a charity which was saving so many
thousand children of their countrymen.
The School is now held at No. 272 Second Street, and contains some four
hundred children.
"DUTCH HILL" AND THE SWILL-GATHERERS.
On the eastern side of the city, in the neighborhood of Fortieth Street,
is a village of squatters, which enjoys the title of "Dutch Hill." The
inhabitants are not, however, "Dutch," but mainly poor Irish, who have
taken temporary possession of unused sites on a hill, and have erected
shanties which serve at once for pig-pens, hen-coops, bed-rooms, and
living-rooms. They enjoy the privilege of squatters in having no rent to
pay; but they are exposed to the penalty of being at any moment turned
out from their dens, and losing land and house at once. Usually they
remain while the quarrymen who are opening streets almost undermine
their shanties, and then if the buildings are not blown away, they pull
them down and pack them away like tents to another dwelling-place.
The village is filled with snarling dogs, which aid in drawing the swill
or coal carts, for the children are mainly employed in collecting swill
and picking coals through the streets.
The shanty family are never quite so poor as the tenement-house family;
as they have no rent to pay. But the filth and wretchedness in which
they sometimes live are beyond description.
It happened that for many years (not wishing to scatter my efforts too
much), I made this quarter my special "parish" for visitations; and very
discouraging visits they were, many of them. The people had very little
regular occupation, many being widows who did occasional "chores" in
families; others lived on the sale of the coal their children gathered,
or on the pigs which shared their domicile; others kept fowls, and all
had vast flocks of goats, though where the profits from these latter
came I could never discover, as no one seemed to buy the milk, and I
never heard of their killing them. Money, however, in some way they did
procure, and one old red-faced swill-gatherer I knew well, whose bright
child we tried so long to save, who died finally, it was said, with a
large deposit in the Savings-Bank, which no one could claim; yet one
corner of her bed-chamber was filled with a heap of smelling bones, and
the pigs slept under her bed.
Another old rag-picker I remember whose shanty was a sight to behold;
all the odds and ends of a great, city seemed piled up in it,--bones,
broken dishes, rags, bits of furniture, cinders, old tin, useless lamps,
decaying vegetables, ribbons, cloths, legless chairs, and carrion, all
mixed together, and heaped up nearly to the ceiling, leaving hardly room
for a bed on the floor where the woman and her two children slept. Yet
all these were marvels of health and vigor, far surpassing most children
I know in the comfortable classes. The woman was German, and after years
of effort could never be induced to do anything for the education of her
children, until finally I put the police on their track as vagrants, and
they were safely housed in the "Juvenile Asylum."
Many a time have I come into their shanties on a snowy morning and found
the people asleep with the snow lying thick on their bed-clothes. One
poor creature was found thus one morning by the police, frozen stiff.
They all suffered, as might be expected, terribly from rheumatism.
Liquor, of course, "prevailed." Every woman drank hard, I suppose to
forget her misery; and dreadful quarrels raged among them.
The few men there worked hard at stone-quarrying, but were often
disabled by disease and useless from drunkenness. Many of the women had
been abandoned by their husbands, as their families increased and became
burdensome, or as they themselves grew plain and bad-tempered. Some of
these poor creatures drank still more to heal their wounded affections.
The children, of course, were rapidly following the ways of their
parents. The life of a swill-gatherer, or coal-picker, or _chiffonnier_
in the streets soon wears off a girl's modesty and prepares her for
worse occupation.
Into this community of poor, ignorant, and drunken people I threw
myself, and resolved, with God's aid, to try to do something for them.
Here for years I visited from cabin to cabin, or hunted out every cellar
and attic of the neighboring tenement-houses; standing at death-beds and
sick-beds, seeking to administer consolation and advice, and, aided by
others, to render every species of assistance.
In returning home from these rounds, amidst filth and poverty, I
remember that I was frequently so depressed and exhausted as to throw
myself flat upon the rug in front of the fire, scarcely able to move.
The discouraging feature in such visits as I was making, and which must
always exist in similar efforts, is that one has no point of religious
contact with these people.
Among all the hundreds of families I knew and visited I never met but
two that were Protestants. To all words of spiritual warning or help
there came the chilling formalism of the ignorant Roman Catholic in
reply, implying that certain outward acts made the soul right with its
Creator. The very inner ideas of our spiritual life of free love towards
God, true repentance and trust in a Divine Redeemer, seemed wanting in
their minds. I never had the least ambition to be a proselytizer, and
never tried to convert them, and I certainly had no prejudice against
the Romanists; on the contrary, it has been my fortune in Europe to
enjoy the intercourse of some most spiritual-minded Catholics. But these
poor people seemed stamped with the spiritual lifelessness of Romanism.
At how many a lonely death-bed or sick-bed, where even the priest had
forgotten to come, have I longed and tried to say some comforting word
of religion to the dull ear, closing to all earthly sounds; but even if
heard and the sympathy gratefully felt, it made scarcely more religious
impression than would the chants of the Buddhists have done. One
sprinkle of holy water were worth a volume of such words.
A Protestant has great difficulty in coming into connection with the
Romanist poor. I was often curious to know the exact influence of the
priests over these people. The lowest poor in New York are not, I think,
much cared for by the Romanist priesthood. One reason, without doubt, is
that their attention has thus far been mainly (and wisely) directed to
building handsome churches, and that they have not means to do much for
these persons. Another and more powerful reason is, probably, that the
old "enthusiasm of humanity" which animated a Guy, a Vincent de Paul, or
Xavier, has died out among them.
I have known, however; individual cases in our city, where a priest has
exercised a marked influence in keeping his charge from intoxication.
There were also occasionally, in this very region, something like
"Revivals of Religion" among the people, stimulated by the priests, in
which many young girls joined religious societies, and did lead, to my
knowledge, for a time more pure and devout lives.
When one thinks what a noble-minded and humane Priest might accomplish
among the lowest classes of New York, how many vices he could check, and
what virtues he might cherish, and what public blessings on the whole
community he might confer, by elevating this degraded population; and
then as one looks at the moral condition of the Roman Catholic poor, one
can only sigh, that that once powerful body has lost so much of the
inspiration of Christ which once filled it.
The plan which I laid out in working in this quarter was in harmony with
all our previous efforts; it was especially to influence and improve the
children.
It so happened that near "Dutch Hill" was another hill covered with
handsome houses and inhabited by wealthy people, "Murray Hill." The
ladies in this prosperous quarter were visited, and finally assembled in
a public meeting; and, with the same preliminaries as in the other
Schools, we at length organized in 1854.
THE EAST RIVER INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL.
Early in the history of this School, we secured the services of a lady,
Miss Spratt, now Mrs. Hurley, who has been ever since the main-stay of
that most useful charity.
For seventeen years this woman of refinement and education has spent her
days in this School of poor children, and her hours of leisure in those
wretched shanties--an angel of mercy and sympathy to every unfortunate
family for miles around. Whatever woman falls into misfortune, loses
husband or child, is driven from home by poverty, or forced from work by
depression of business, or meets with troubles of mind or body, at once
comes to her for sympathy and relief. She has become so used to scenes
of misery, that to her, she says, "the house of mourning" is more
natural than "the house of feasting."
The present writer, for his own part, confesses that he could not
possibly have borne the harrowing and disagreeable scenes with which he
has been so long familiar, without making a strict rule never to think
or speak of the poor when he was away from his work, and immediately
absorbing himself in some entirely different subject. The spring of the
mind would have been broken.
But Mrs. Hurley lived in and for the poor; her only relaxation was
hearing Mr. Beecher on Sunday; and yet, when she occasionally visited us
in the country, she devoured books--her great favorite being a
translation I had of Plato.
The children, of course, became passionately attached to this missionary
of charity. During her labors, she was married to a physician, Dr.
Hurley, who subsequently was killed in the army during the War of the
Rebellion. While she was temporarily absent, and a strange teacher
employed, six of the wildest girls were expelled, so unmanageable were
they. When she came back, they returned and welcomed her eagerly,
behaving perfectly well; and it was discovered that so attached were
they to her, they had each carried fragments of her dress as mementos in
their bosom!
The peculiar value of our common experience in this School was, that we
were enabled through so many years to follow carefully the results of
the School on a large class of very destitute little girls. We know
personally what was here accomplished. A very hopeful feature appeared
soon in the work. The children rose above the condition of their
parents; sometimes they improved, by their own increasing neatness and
good behavior, the habits and appearance of their fathers and mothers.
More often they became ashamed of their paternal piggeries and nasty
dens, and were glad to get away to more decent homes or new occupations.
One great means of influence here was, as in the other Schools, through
the regular assistance of volunteer teachers, the ladies of the
Association.
It happened that there was among them more of a certain tenacity of
character, of the old Puritan faithfulness, than was manifested by some
of our co-laborers; having put their hands to the plow, they never
thought of turning back. They gave time and labor, and money freely, and
they continued at their posts year after year.
The children felt their refining and elevating influence. We soon found
that the daughters of the drunkards did not follow their mothers'
footsteps, simply because they had acquired higher tastes. We hardly
ever knew of one who indulged in drinking; indeed, one old red-faced
tippler, Mrs. McK., who was the best chore-woman on the Hill when sober,
eventually was entirely reformed by her children. No child seemed to
fall back into the degradation of the parents. And recalling now the
rank foul soil from which so many sweet flowers seemed to spring, one
can only wonder and be grateful that efforts so imperfect bore such
harvest.
I remember the F. family--such a cheery, healthy-looking family living
in a damp, dark basement, and almost always half-starved, wretchedly
poor, but very industrious! The youngest daughter passed through our
School, and is now becoming a teacher; another married a mechanic (these
girls never marry day-laborers). Still another proved herself a heroine.
We sent her as nursery-maid to a family, and as they were all sailing
down the Hudson in the _St. John,_ the boiler burst; amid the horrible
confusion and panic where so many perished, this girl had the courage to
rush through the steam and boiling water, and save the three children
entrusted to her charge. Of course, after this, she was no longer a
servant, but a "sister beloved" in the family. A gentleman of fortune,
attracted by her appearance and intelligence, ultimately married her. He
died, and she was left with a nice fortune. She bore her change of
fortune beautifully.
The following is another similar incident from our Journal:
A ROMANTIC INCIDENT IN AN INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL.
"A few years ago I remember an old shanty on 'Dutch Hill,' where a
wretched-looking man lived with his pigs and goats, called K----. He was
considered a bad man even among his bad neighbors, and the story of him
was (I do not know how true), that he had committed murder, and had
escaped the law by some legal quibble. He was a swill-gatherer, and had
two little bright daughters to assist him at home. These came to our
Fortieth-street School. They improved very fast, and one used to attract
much attention from the ladies by her pretty face and intelligent
answers. Nellie finally left the school, and was sent by us to the West.
She improved much there, and, after some time spent in different
families, came back to the city, where she became an 'operator' on the
sewing-machine. While at this business and living in a respectable
boarding-house, she attracted the attention of a gentleman of some means
and position, much older than herself, who, at length, offered himself
to her in marriage.
She declined, on the ground that she was so much inferior in position to
him, and that his family would object. He insisted, and declared that
'he wished to please himself, not his family,' and they were married.
"He took his wife away to a foreign country, where his business lay, and
there she has been a number of years, gradually improving in manners,
taste, and education, living like a lady of fortune, with her maid and
carriage, and making herself, in every way, a most suitable wife for one
who had been so much above her. We had often heard of her good fortune.
But during our Christmas Festival at the East River School, she herself
came in to see it again and thank those who had been so kind to her. We
all knew her at once; and yet she was so changed--a pretty,
tasteful-looking young lady, with a graceful manner and a Spanish accent
now--all the old stamp of 'Dutch Hill' quite gone, even the brogue lost
and replaced by foreign intonations. She was perfectly simple and
unaffected, and thanked us all for our former kindness with the utmost
heartiness; and told her story very simply, and how anxious she still
was to improve her education, seemingly not ashamed of her poor origin.
It is a pleasant circumstance that she has taken out her beloved
teacher, Mrs. Hurley, a number of times to drive in her carriage."
Several changes of fortune of this kind have made it quite a natural
question, when I visit Mrs. Hurley's School, "What about the
heiresses?"
Another girl, I remember, in one of these shanties, who came to school
in an old petticoat, and barefooted, a most destitute-looking child. She
was subsequently employed in our own family. I doubt whether many girls
of the highest classes show a greater natural refinement; and she was as
clever in every part of household work as she was nice. She finally
married a hotel-keeper in San Francisco, and is doing well.
Generally, the girls married mechanics and people above their rank of
life. Some became Protestants; those who married Catholics were never
bigoted. A number went to the West, and have done well there.
Mrs. Hurley reckons over at least two thousand different girls who have
been in this school and under its influence, since she has been there
during the past eighteen years. The condition of all these we know
probably pretty well. We count _but five_ who have become drunkards,
prostitutes, or criminals! Such a wonderful result can be shown by
hardly any preventive efforts in the world. Yet, there were certain
cases which we used to call
"OUR FAILURES."
There was the D. family--they lived on the lucrative spoils of their
infant, who sold toilet-covers to compassionate ladies. This little
Julia was an imp of deceit and mischief She had, fortunately for her, a
worn, sad face, and a capacity and imagination for lying unequaled at
her years. With inarticulate sobs, and the tears coursing down her thin
cheeks, she told of her dying mother and her labors to get her bread;
or, again, she was an orphan supporting herself and her deformed little
brother; or her disabled father depended on her feeble efforts for his
slender support. The addresses she gave of her house were always wrong;
and so, year by year, she gathered in a plenteous harvest from the pity
of the ladies.
At home, a little band of able-bodied, slatternly sisters were living
mainly on the money thus begged. They naturally became each day more
lazy and dissolute; and little Julia more bold and brazen-faced. We
tried to bribe the young beggar to go to school, we paid her rent, we
offered the sisters work, we remonstrated and threatened, we even set
the police on her track, but nothing could check or turn her; she eluded
the police as easily as she did the ladies. If she came to school, she
stayed but a day; all effort failed against the ingrained slovenliness
and vagrancy of the family; day by day they sank; one daughter was
seduced, and to their number was now added an illegitimate child. They
grew dirtier and more miserable; and here, years ago, we left them. No
doubt, Julia is still pursuing her profitable vocation from house to
house, and the girls are in yet lower depths.
A STREET-CHILD. (FROM OUR JOURNAL.)
"Some ten years ago, I made many efforts to save a little homeless girl,
who was floating about the quarter near East Thirty-second Street. Her
drunken mother had thrown her out of doors, and she used to sleep under
stairways or in deserted cellars, and was a most wretched, half-starved
little creature. I talked with her often, but could not induce her to go
to school, or to seek a home in the country. She grew up steadily
vagrant. At length we succeeded in getting her away to the family of an
excellent lady in Buffalo. There she speedily gave up her roving habits,
became neat and orderly under the influence of the lady, attended church
and Sabbath School, and altogether seemed quite a changed child.
Unfortunately, the lady was obliged to move to this city, and instead of
placing the little girl in another family in the country, she brought
her with her to New York, and, no longer having room for her in her
house, let her go to her old associates. In a few weeks, the nice, tidy
little girl began to look like the idle and vagrant young girls who were
her companions. She became slatternly in her habits, and instead of
seeking a place in some family, she joined a company of poor
working-girls, who earned their living by manufacturing children's
torpedoes. She lodged in the crowded tenement-houses, and gradually fell
into all their low associations. The next I knew of her, I heard that
she had been seduced under a promise of marriage, and that she was about
to be a mother. Again I knew of her, with her unfortunate little babe,
driven about from one low lodging-house to another, dependent upon
charity for support. Finally, the child was adopted by the parents of
her seducer, and she was left free again. Though in extreme destitution,
she would not take a situation away from the city. She resumed her work
at torpedoes, and lived about in the tenement-houses, a poor,
bedraggled-looking creature. Again, after some time, I heard of her as
having married a low fellow in that district. She had only been married
a few days when her husband abandoned her, and never returned to her.
She now hangs about the low lodging-houses between First and Second
Avenues, in East Thirty-first and Thirty-second Streets, a
forlorn-looking, slovenly woman, who will almost certainly end in the
lowest vice and penury."
Thus far in the Journal. Our constant pursuit of this girl did tend, I
think, to keep her from utter ruin.
She fell no lower; and subsequently connected herself with one of the
charitable institutions, where she is living a virtuous life.