REFORM AMONG THE ROWDIES--FREE READING ROOMS.
At first sight, it would seem very obvious that a place of mental
improvement and social resort, with agreeable surroundings, offered
gratuitously to the laboring-people, would be eagerly frequented. On its
face, the "FREE READING-ROOM" appears a most natural, feasible method of
applying the great lever of sociality (without temptations) to lifting
up the poorer classes. The working-man and the street-boy get here what
they so much desire, a pleasant place, warmed and lighted, for meeting
their companions, for talking, playing innocent games, or reading the
papers; they get it, too, for nothing. When we remember how these people
live, in what crowded and slatternly rooms, or damp cellars, or close
attics, some even having no home at all, and that their only social
resort is the grog-shop, we might suppose that they would jump at the
chance of a pleasant and Free Saloon and Reading-room. But this is by no
means the case. This instrument of improvement requires peculiar
management to be successful. Our own experience is instructive.
The writer of this had had the Reading-room "on the brain" for many
years, when, at length, on talking over the subject with a gentleman in
the eastern part of the city--one whose name has since been a tower of
strength to this whole movement--he consented to further the enterprise,
and be the treasurer--an office in young charities, be it remembered, no
sinecure.
We opened, accordingly, near the Novelty Iron Works, under the best
auspices,
THE ELEVENTH WARD FREE READING-ROOM.
The rooms were spacious and pleasant, furnished with a plenty of papers
and pamphlets, and, to add to the attractions and help pay expenses, the
superintendent was to sell coffee and simple refreshments. Our theory
was, that coffee would compete with liquor as a stimulus, and that the
profits of the sale would pay most of the running cost. We were right
among a crowded working population, and everything promised success.
At first there were considerable numbers of laboring-men present every
day and evening; but, to our dismay, they began to fall off. We tried
another superintendent; still the working-man preferred his "dreary
rooms," or the ruinous liquor-shops, to our pleasant Reading-room. The
coffee did not suit him; the refreshments were not to his taste; he
would not read, because he thought he ought to call for something to eat
or drink if he did; and so at length he dropped off. Finally, the
attendance became so thin and the expenses were accumulating to such a
degree, that we closed the room, and our magnanimous treasurer footed
the bills. This failure discouraged us for some years, but the idea
seemed to me sound, and I was resolved to try it once more under better
circumstances.
In looking about for some specially-adapted instrument for influencing
"the dangerous classes," I chanced, just after the remarkable religious
"Revival of 1858" on a singular character,
A REFORMED PUGILIST.
This was a reformed or converted prize-fighter, named Orville (and
nicknamed "Awful") Gardner. He was a broad-shouldered, burly individual,
with a tremendous neck, and an arm as thick as a moderate-sized man's
leg. His career had been notorious and infamous in the extreme, he
having been one of the roughs employed by politicians, and engaged in
rows and fights without number, figuring several times in the
prize-ring, and once having bitten off a man's nose!
Yet the man must have been less brutal than his life would show. He was
a person evidently of volcanic emotions and great capacity of affection.
I was curious about his case, and watched it closely for some years, as
showing what is so often disputed in modern times--the reforming power
of Christianity on the most abandoned characters.
The point through which his brutalized nature had been touched, had been
evidently his affection for an only child--a little boy. He described to
me once, in very simple, touching language, his affection and love for
this child; how he dressed him in the best, and did all he could for
him, but always keeping him away from all knowledge of his own
dissipation. One day he was off on some devilish errand among the
immigrants on Staten Island, when he saw a boat approaching quickly with
one of his "pals." The man rowed up near him, and stopped and looked at
him "very queer," and didn't say anything.
"What the devil are you looking at me in that way for?" said Gardner.
"Your boy is drownded!" replied the other.
Gardner says he fell back in the boat, as if you'd hit him right
straight from the shoulder behind the ear, and did not know anything for
a long time. When he recovered, he kept himself drunk for three weeks,
and smashed a number of policemen, and was "put up," just so as to
forget the bright little fellow who had been the pride of his heart.
This great loss, however, must have opened his nature to other
influences. When the deep religious sympathy pervaded the community,
there came over him suddenly one of those Revelations which, in some
form or other, visit most human beings at least once in their lives.
They are almost too deep and intricate to be described in these pages.
The human soul sees itself, for the first time, as reflected in the
mirror of divine purity. It has for the moment a conception of what
Christ is, and what Love means. Singularly enough, the thought and
sentiment which took possession of this ruffian and debauchee and
prize-fighter, and made him as one just cured of leprosy, was the
Platonic conception of Love, and that embodied in the ideal form of
Christianity. Under it he became as a little child; he abandoned his
vices, gave up his associates, and resolved to consecrate his life to
humanity and the service of Him to whom he owed so much. The spirit,
when I first met him, with which he used to encounter his old companions
must have been something like that of the early Christian converts.
Thus, an old boon companion meets him in the street: "Why, Orful, what
the h--ll's this about your bein' converted?"
And the other turns to him with such pent-up feeling bursting forth,
telling him of the new things that have come to him, that the "rough" is
quite melted, and begins a better course of life.
Again, he is going down a narrow street, when he suddenly sees coming up
a bitter enemy. His old fire flames up, but he quenches it, walks to the
other, and, with the tears streaming down his cheeks, he takes him by
the hand and tells him "the old story" which is always new, and the two
ruffians forget their feuds and are friends.
Could the old Greek philosopher have seen this imbruted athlete, so
mysteriously and suddenly fired with the ideal of Love till his past
crimes seemed melted in the heat of this great sentiment, and his rough
nature appeared transformed, he would have rejoiced in beholding at
length the living embodiment of an ideal theory for so many ages held
but as the dream of a poetic philosopher.
Gardner was only a modern and striking instance of the natural and
eternal power of Christianity.
We resolved to put him where he could reach the classes from which he
had come. With considerable exertion the necessary sums were raised to
open a "Coffee and Reading Boom" in the worst district of the city--the
Fourth Ward. Great numbers of papers and publications were furnished
gratuitously by that body who have always been so generous to this
enterprise--the conductors of the press of the city. A bar for coffee
and cheap refreshments was established, and Gardner was put at the head
of the whole as superintendent.
THE DRUNKARDS' CLUB
The opening is thus described in our Journal:--
We must confess, as one of the managers of that institution, we felt
particularly nervous about that opening meeting.
"Messrs. Beecher and Cochrane and other eminent speakers had been
invited to speak, and the Mayor was to preside. It was certainly an act
of some self-denial to leave their countryseats or cool rooms, and spend
a hot summer evening in talking to Fourth-ward rowdies. To requite this
with any sort of 'accident' would have been very awkward. Where would we
of the committee have hid our heads if our friends the 'roughs' had
thought best to have a little bit of a shindy, and had knocked Brother
Beecher's hat in, and had tossed the Hon. John Cochrane out of the
window, or rolled the Mayor down-stairs? We confess all such possible
eventualities did present themselves, and we imagined the sturdy form of
our eminent clerical friend breasting the opposing waves of rowdies, and
showing himself as skillful in demolishing corporeal enemies as he is in
overthrowing spiritual. We were comforted in spirit, however, by
remembering that the saint at the head of our establishment-the renowned
Gardner--would now easily take a place in the church militant, and
perhaps not object to a new exercise of muscle in a good cause.
* * * * * * * *
"After other addresses, Gardner--'Awful Gardner'--was called for. He
came forward--and a great trial it must have been to have faced that
crowd, where there were hundreds who had once been with him in all kinds
of debaucheries and deviltries--men who had drunk and fought and gambled
and acted the rowdy with him--men very quick to detect any trace of
vanity or cant in him. He spoke very simply and humbly; said that he had
more solid peace and comfort in one month now than he had in years once;
spoke of his 'black life' his sins and disgrace, and then of his most
cordial desire to welcome all his old companions there. In the midst of
these remarks there seemed to come up before him suddenly a memory of
Him who had saved him, his eyes filled with tears, and, with a manly and
deep feeling that swept right through the wild audience, he made his
acknowledgment to 'Him who sticketh closer than a brother--even the Lord
Jesus Christ.'
"No sermon could have been half so effective as these stammering
ungrammatical, but manly remarks."
Our Reading-room under this guidance became soon a very popular resort;
in fact, it deserved the nickname one gentleman gave it, "The Drunkards'
Club." The marked, simple, and genuine reform in a man of such habits as
this pugilist, attracted numbers of that large class of young men who
are always trying to break from the tyranny of evil habits and vices.
The rooms used to be thronged with reformed or reforming young men. The
great difficulty with a man under vices is to make him believe that
change for him is possible. The sight of Gardner always demonstrated
this possibility. Those men who are sunk in such courses cannot get rid
of them gradually, and nothing can arouse them and break the iron rule
of habits but the most tremendous truths.
"Awful Gardner" had but one theory of reform--absolute and immediate
change, in view of the love of Christ, and of a deserved and certain
damnation.
The men to whom he spoke needed no soft words; they knew they were "in
hell" now; some of them could sometimes for a moment realize what such a
character as Christ was, and bow before it in unspeakable humility. No
one whom I have ever seen could so influence the "roughs" of this city.
He ought to have been kept as a missionary to the rowdies. I extract
from our Journal:--
"The moral success of the room has been all that we could have desired.
Hundreds of young men have come there continually to read or chat with
their friends--many of them even who had habitually frequented the
liquor-saloons, and many persons with literally no homes. The place,
too, has become a kind of central point for all those who have become
more or less addicted to excessive drinking, and who are desirous of
escaping from the habit.
"There are days when the spectacle presented there is a most affecting
one; the room filled with young men, each of whom has a history of
sorrow or degradation--broken-down gentlemen, ruined merchants,
penniless clerks, homeless laboring-men and printers (for somehow this
most intelligent profession seems to contain a large number of cases who
have been ruined by drunkenness), and outcast men of no assignable
occupation. These have been attracted in part by the cheerfulness of the
room and the chances for reading, and in part by Gardner's influence,
who has labored indefatigably in behalf of these poor wretches. Under
the influences of the Room, incredible as it may seem, over _seven
hundred_ of these men have been started in sober courses and provided
with honest employments, and many of them have become hopefully
religious. It is believed that the whole quarter has been improved by
the opening of this agreeable and temperate place of resort."
But, alas! even with a man so truly repentant and reformed, Nature does
not let him off so easily. He had to bear in his body the fruits of his
vices. His nervous system began to give way under the fearful strain
both of his sins and his reform. He found it necessary to leave this
post of work and retire to a quiet place in New Jersey, where he has
since passed a calm and virtuous life, working, I suppose, at his trade,
and, so far as I know, he has never been false to the great truths which
once inspired him. With his departure, however, we thought it best to
close the Reading-room, especially as we could not realize our hope of
making it self-supporting. So ended the second of our experiments at
"virtuous amusements."
I now resolved to try the experiment, without any expectation of
sustaining the room with sales of refreshments. The working classes seem
to be utterly indifferent to such attractions. They probably cannot
compete a moment with those of the liquor-shops. With the aid of
friends, who are always ready in this city to liberally support rational
experiments of philanthropy, we have since then opened various Free
Reading-rooms in different quarters of the city.
One of the most successful was carried on by Mr. Macy at Cottage Place,
for his "lambs."
Here sufficient books and papers were supplied by friends, little
temperance and other societies were formed, the room was pleasant and
cozy, and, above all, Mr. Macy presided or infused into it his spirit.
The "lambs" were occasionally obstreperous and given to smashing
windows, but to this Mr. M. was sufficiently accustomed, and in time the
wild young barbarians began to feel the influences thrown around the
place, until now one may see of a winter evening eighty or a hundred
lads and young men quietly reading, or playing backgammon or checkers.
The room answers exactly its object as a place of innocent amusement and
improvement, competing with the liquor-saloons. The citizens of the
neighborhood have testified to its excellent moral influences on the
young men.
A similar room was opened in the First Ward by the kind aid of the late
Mr. J. Couper Lord, and the good influences of the place have been much
increased by the exertions of Mr. D. E. Hawley and a committee of
gentlemen.
There are other Reading-rooms connected with the Boys' Lodging-houses.
Most of them are doing an invaluable work; the First ward room
especially being a centre for cricket-clubs and various social reunions
of the laboring classes, and undoubtedly saving great numbers of young
men from the most dangerous temptations. Mr. Hawley has inaugurated here
also a very useful course of popular lectures to the laboring people.
This Reading-room is crowded with young men every night, of the class
who should be reached, and who would otherwise spend their leisure hours
at the liquor-saloons. Many of them have spoken with much gratitude of
the benefit the place has been to them.
The Reading-rooms connected with Boys' Lodging-houses, though sometimes
doing well, are not uniformly successful, perhaps from the fact that
workingmen do not like to be associated with homeless boys.
Besides those connected with the Children's Aid Society, the City
Mission and various churches have founded others, so that now the Free
Reading-room is recognized as one of the means for improving the
"dangerous classes," as much as the Sunday School, Chapel, or Mission.
The true theory of the formation of the Reading-room is undoubtedly the
inducing the laboring class to engage in the matter themselves, and then
to assist them in meeting the expenses. But the lowest poor and the
young men who frequent the grog-shops are so indifferent to mental
improvement, and so seldom associate themselves for any virtuous object,
that it is extremely difficult to induce them to combine for this.
Moreover, as they rise in the social scale, they find organizations
ready to hand, like the "Cooper Union," where Reading-rooms and
Libraries are provided gratuitously. For the present, the Reading-room
may be looked upon, like the Public School, as a means of improvement
offered by society, in its own Interest, to all.