words on door-steps and fences with bits of chalk, which he keeps on
hand for this purpose. Or, if a servant has just nicely cleaned a
window, he chews gum into little balls wherewith to plaster it; or he
kicks over an ash-barrel in passing upon a nicely swept side-walk; or
he rings the door-bell violently, and makes a flying exit, having
ascertained previously the policeman's "beat" on that district; or he
climbs the box round a favorite tree, which has just begun by its
grateful shade to refresh your eye and reward your care, and,
stripping off the most promising bough for a switch, goes up street
picking off the leaves and scattering them as he goes; or he will
stand at the bottom of a high flight of steps, upon the top step of
which is a lady waiting for admittance, and scream, "Oh, my--aint
_you_ got bully boots on?" He also is expert at stealing newspapers
from door-steps, and vociferating bogus extras about shocking murders
and fires, and "lass of life;" and flowers out in full glory in a red
shirt, in a pit of a Bowery theatre of an evening.
Sometimes he diverts himself throwing stones at the windows of passing
cars, and splintering the glass into the eyes of frightened ladies and
children, and suddenly disappearing as if the earth had opened and
swallowed him, as you wish some day it would.
What this boy will be as a man, it is not difficult to tell. He counts
one at the ballot-box, remember that, when you deny cultivated,
intelligent, loyal _women_ a vote there.
* * * * *
If there is one sight more offensive to me in New York than another,
it is that of a servant in livery. Daily my republican soul is vexed
by the different varieties of this public nuisance. Sometimes he
appears to me in the sacerdotal garb--a long, petticoat-y suit of
solemn black, with stainless stiff white cravat. Then again he crosses
my path, bedizzened in blue, with yellow facings, and top-boots. Then
again he flames out like a poll-parrot, in green coat, and scarlet
waistcoat. Again, his white gloves, and broad hat-band, are the only
public advertisements of his servitude. Generally upon the hat of this
animal is mounted the "cockade," which his parvenu master imagines is
just the thing, but which in reality is in "the old country" only worn
by servants of _military_ men. Yesterday I saw a vehicle, in which was
seated a gentleman, driving a fine pair of horses, and behind him, on
a small seat, was his man-servant with his arms folded like a trussed
turkey, _and his back turned to his master_. This last fact seemed to
me a very funny one; but, I dare say, it is satisfactorily accounted
for in some book of heraldry, unfortunately not in my library. Now, it
is not for a moment to be supposed, that when but so lately the nation
was struggling for its "God-given rights," that the _men_ of America
are interested in these finikin-equine-millineries. Of course not.
They are to be pitied; they are undoubtedly the too compliant victims
of weak wives and silly daughters. For themselves, I have no doubt
they are sick at their manly hearts at these servile and
badly-executed imitations of old-country flunkeyism, and blush, with
an honest shame, at being obliged to parade this disgusting and
ill-timed exhibition, in the same streets where our maimed soldiers
are limping home, with our torn and blackened flag, which tells so
well its mute, eloquent story.
* * * * *
Let me speak of a pleasanter topic: my visit to the newsboys. One
Sunday evening I went to "The Newsboys' Lodging House, 128 Fulton
Street, New York." Few people who stop these little fellows in the
street to purchase a paper, ever glance at their faces, much less give
a thought to their belongings, associations or condition. Oh! had you
only been down there with me that evening, and looked into those
hundred and fifty intelligent, eager faces, numbered their respective
ages, inquired into their friendless past, given a thought to the
million temptations with which their _present_ is surrounded, spite of
all the well directed efforts of Christian philanthropy, and looked
forward into their possible future, your eyes would have filled, and
your heart beat quicker, as you have said to yourself, Oh, yes;
something _must_ be done to save these children.
Children! for many of them are no more. Children! already battling
with life, though scarce past the nursery age. Imagine your own dear
boy, with the bright eyes and the broad, white forehead, whom you tuck
so comfortably in his little soft bed at night, with a prayer and a
kiss; whom you look at the last thing on retiring; for whom you gladly
toil; whom you hedge around with virtuous, wholesome influences from
the cradle; who does not yet know even the meaning of the word "evil;"
who jumps into your arms as soon as he wakes in the morning, with the
sweet certainty of a warm love-clasp; who has the nicest bit, at
breakfast, laid on his little plate; whose little stories and
questions always find eager and sympathizing ears; imagine this little
fellow of seven or eight, or ten years, getting out of his bed at one
or two o'clock in the morning, going out into the dark, chill,
lonesome street, half-clad, hungry, alone to some newspaper office, to
wait for the damp morning papers, as they are worked from the press,
and seizing his bundle, hurrying, barefoot and shivering, to some
newspaper stand or depot, at the farther part of the city. Imagine
_your_ little Charley doing that! Then, if that were all! If this
drain on the physical immaturity of childhood were the worst of it.
The devil laughs as he knows it is not. Big boys--_men_,
even--_cheat_; why not he? If he can pass off bad change--surely, who
has more need to make a sixpence, though it be not an honest one? What
care customers if he grow up a good or a bad man, so that the
newspaper comes in time to season their warm breakfast? Who will ever
care for him living, or mourn for him dead? What does it matter,
anyhow?
That's the way this poor friendless child reasons. I understood it all
last night. All too that this noble philanthropy called "The Newsboys'
Lodging House" meant. And as I looked round on those boys, I felt
afraid when they were addressed, that the right thing might not be
said to so peculiar an audience. For children though they were, they
had seen life as men see it. Untutored, uneducated, in one sense, in
others they knew as much as any adult who should address them.
Sharpened by actual hard-fisted grappling with the world, let him be
careful who should speak to these grown-up children of seven, and ten,
and fourteen years. Thinking thus, I said, as their friend, Mr. C. L.
Brace, rose to speak--pray God, he may take all this into
consideration. Pray God, he may give them neither creeds nor theology;
but, instead, the wide open arms of the good, pitiful, loving
Saviour, whose home on earth was with the lowly and the friendless.
And he did! It was a human address. The God he told them of was not
out of their reach. It was every word pure gold. Bless him for it! He
had them all by the hand, and the heart too. I saw that. Promptly,
frankly, and with the confidence of children in the family, they
answered his questions as to their views on the chapter in the Bible
he read them. And if you smiled at some of their queer notions, the
tear was in your eye the next minute at the blessed thought that they
had friends who cared whether the immortal part of them slumbered or
woke; who recognized and fanned into a flame even the smallest
particle of mentality. Now and then among the crowd a head or face
would attract your eye, and you would be lost in wonder to see it
_there_! The head and face of what I call "_a mother's boy_." God
knows if its owner had one, or, if it had, if she cared for him! And
as they sang together of "The Friend that never grew weary," my heart
responded, aye--aye--why should I forget that?
I hope you will go--and you and you--on some Sabbath evening, if you
come to New York. They love to feel that people take an interest in
them. It brightens and cheers their lives. It gives them self-respect
and motive for trying to do right; and don't forget to ask the
Superintendent, Mr. O Conner, to show you the nice little beds where
they sleep. _Do_ go; and if you can say a few words to them, or tell
them a bright short story, so much the better. They will know you
next time they sell you a newspaper; don't forget to shake hands with
them _then_. And take your little pet boy Charley down there. Show him
the little fellows who go into business in New York at seven and ten
years old, and have no father or mother at night to kiss them to
sleep. It will be a lesson better than any he will ever learn at
school. He will find out that all boys are not born to plum-cake and
sugar candy, and some of the best and smartest boys too. He will open
his eyes when you tell him that without plum-cake, or candy, or a
grandpa, or an aunt, or father or mother to care for them, some of the
newsboys who came from that very house, to-day own farms in the West,
that they earned selling newspapers, and have since come back for
other newsboys to go out there and help them work on it. Tell Charley
that. I think he will be ashamed to cry again because there was "not
sugar enough in his milk."
* * * * *
People who visit a great city, and explore it with a curious eye,
generally overlook the most remarkable things in it. They "do it up"
in Guide-Book fashion, going the stereotyped rounds of custom-ridden
predecessors. If _my_ chain were a little longer, I would write you a
book of travels that would at least have the merit of ignoring the
usual finger-posts that challenge travellers. I promise you I would
cross conservative lots, and climb over conservative fences, and leave
the rags and tatters of custom fluttering on them, behind me, as I
strode on to some unfrequented hunting-ground.
That's the way I'd do. Never a "lord" or "lady," or a "palace," or a
"picture gallery," should figure in my note-book. "Old masters" and
young masters would be all the same to me. When my book was finished,
if nobody else wanted to read it, I'd sit down and read it myself. Of
course you know such a method pre-supposes a little capital to start
with, at the present price of paper; but really, I put it to you,
wouldn't that be the only honest and racy way to write a book?
Don't be alarmed--there's no chance of my doing it. I dream of it,
though, sometimes--this deliciousness of "speaking right out in
meetin'" without fear of the bugbear of excommunication. And speaking
of "meetin,'" that's what I have been coming at. The "Fulton-street
daily prayer-meeting." It is one of the most wonderful sights in New
York. In the busiest hour of the day, in its busiest business street,
noisy with machinery of all kinds, even the earth under your feet
sending out puffs of steam at every other step, to remind you of its
underground labor, is a little plain room, with a reading-desk and a
few benches, with hymn-books scattered about. Take a seat, and watch
the worshippers as they collect. _Men_, with only a sprinkling of
bonnets here and there. Business men, evidently; some with good coats,
some with bad; porters, hand-cartmen, policemen, ministers; the young
man of eighteen or twenty, the portly man of forty, and the bent
form, whitening head, and faltering step of age. For _one_ hour they
want to ignore, and get out of, that maelstrom-whirl, into a spiritual
atmosphere. They feel that they have souls as well as bodies to care
for, and they don't want to forget it. How lonely soever yonder man,
in that great rough coat, may be, in this great, strange city, to
which he has just come, here is sympathy, here is companionship, here
are, in the best sense, "brethren." Never mind creeds; that is not
what they assemble to discuss. _But has that man a burden, a grief or
a sorrow, which is intensified tenfold_ by want of sympathy? Nobody
knows his name; nobody is curious to know. He has sent a little slip
of paper up to the desk, and he wants them all to pity and pray for
him. It may be the man on this seat, or that yonder--nobody knows.
Yes--"_pray_" for him. Perhaps you are smiling. You "don't believe in
prayer." Oh, wait till some strand of earthly hope is parting, before
you are quite sure of that. Was there ever an hour of peril or human
agony through which he or she who "did not believe in prayer," was
passing, that the lips did not involuntarily frame the short prayer,
"Oh, God?"
Well, they "pray" for him. He feels stronger and better as he listens.
He has found friends, even here in this great whirling city, who are
sorry for him; of whose circle he can make one, whenever he chooses;
and to whom he can more fully introduce himself, if he cares to be
better known.
_I say it is a good and a noble thing._ It warmed and gladdened my
heart to see it. And all the more, that at every step, on leaving, I
saw the "traps" of the Evil One, sprung for that man's return
footsteps.
One of the pleasantest features of this "one-hour meeting" to me was
the hymns. I don't know or care whether they were "sung in tune." It
wasn't _hired_ singing, thank God! It came straight from orthodox
lungs, with a will and a spirit. Those old "come-to-Jesus" hymns! I
tell you I long for them sometimes with a homesick longing, like that
of the exiled Swiss for his favorite mountain song. You may pick up
the hymn-books containing them, and with your critical forefinger
point to "hell" and "an angry God," and all that. It makes no
difference to me. Don't I take pleasure in looking at your face,
though your nose isn't quite straight, and your eyes are not perfect,
and your shoulders are not shaped to my mind. I don't mind _that_, so
that there's a heart-tone in your voice, a love-look in your eye, when
I'm heart-sore--don't you see?
Oh! I liked that meeting. I'm going again. It was so homely, and
hearty, and Christian. One man said, "_them_ souls." Do you think I
flounced out of the meeting for that? I liked it. One poor foreigner
couldn't pronounce straight, for the life of him. So much the better.
His stammering tongue will be all right some day. I haven't the least
idea who all those people were, singing and praying there; but I never
can tell you how I liked it. That "Come to Jesus" was sung with a
_heart-ring_ that I haven't stopped hearing, yet, though I have slept
on it once or twice. You may say "priestcraft!" "early education!" and
all that. There are husks with the wheat, I know; but for all that--I
tell you there is _wheat_!
* * * * *
With submission, to the authorities it seems to me that the Sunday
Schools of to-day are somewhat perverted from the original intention
of their founders. As I understand it, their object was to collect the
children of poor, ignorant parents for Biblical instruction. I look
out of my window, every Sunday morning, upon the spectacle of gaily
attired little ladies and gentlemen, leaving their brown-stone fronts
of handsome dwellings, and tripping lightly in dainty boots to the
vestries of well-to-do churches. As I watch them, I wonder why their
parents, educated, intelligent people, or at least with plenty of
leisure, should shift upon the shoulders of Sunday-school teachers so
responsible a duty? I say "duty," and it is a cold, hard word to use,
in connection with a dear little child whose early lessons on
religious subjects should be carefully and cautiously and judiciously
unfolded. I cannot understand, and I say this without meaning any
disrespect to the great army of well-meaning, good-hearted
Sunday-school teachers all over the land, how these parents can
reserve to themselves on Sunday morning only the dear pleasure of
decking their little persons in gay Sunday attire, and never
ask--never inquire--never think--what may be the answer given by a
Sunday-school teacher, to the far reaching childish question, which
may involve a lifetime of bewilderment, perplexity, and spiritual
unrest, to the little creature, each shining fold of whose garment has
been smoothed and patted into place by these "doting" parents; it may
be treasonable to say so, but it seems to me an unnatural proceeding.
Then again I think these children should not occupy the time and
attention of teachers, while the poor, who are always with us, are
totally uninstructed, far beyond all the humane attempts that have
been made, and are daily making, to accomplish this purpose. Surely no
teacher whose heart is in his or her work, would let the want of fine
clothes stand in the way of such effort. Now when I see the children
in a locality like the Five Points, or in the various mission schools
established for the benefit of children, I say--Now _that_ is "a
Sunday-school" after the plan of the founders. These children, who
have nothing inviting at their miserable homes on Sunday; whose weary
parents have no heart or strength or knowledge for these things;
gathered in here by kind men and women; to whom this weekly reunion is
perhaps the only bright spot in their whole little horizon; who sing
their little songs with real heart and feeling; who believe in their
teachers, because they know they have come down to inodorous,
disagreeable localities, and love them because their lives are not
cast in pleasant places; these teachers who, if the children have had
no dinner or breakfast, _give_ them dinner or breakfast--why--that I
call a practical Sunday School! It is a blessed thing; and no one can
listen to the hearty singing of these little uncared-for waifs of the
street, without a choking feeling in the throat, that, if voiced,
would be, God bless these teachers? If they were taught nothing but
those simple little songs, it were worth all the time, and money, and
self-sacrifice involved in the teaching.
Those words ring in their ears during the week. They sing them on the
door-steps of the miserable dwellings they call home; there is a
"heaven" somewhere, they feel, where misery, and dirt, and degradation
are unknown. The passer-by listens--some discouraged man, perhaps,
whom the world has roughly used--some wretched woman who weeps, as she
listens; and this little bit of Gospel, so unobtrusive, so accidental,
so sweetly voiced, is like the seed the wind wafts to some far-off
rock--when you look again, there is the full-blown flower; no one knew
how it took root or whence it came, but, thank God, winds and storms
have no power to dislodge it. My heart warms to such Sunday-schools;
and, without any wish to disparage others, I cannot but think that, if
the parents who are in condition to instruct their own children, would
not delegate this duty, the hundreds of teachers by this means freed,
might gather in the stray lambs, whose souls and bodies no man cares
for.
* * * * *
The stranger in New York will not find that its population affect
Evening Lectures as much as in smaller cities, and in rural districts,
owing to the surfeit of all kinds of amusements there; but it is very
curious to study an expectant audience in New York. Some sit resignedly
upon their seats, comfortable or the reverse, as the case may be;
thinking of nothing, or thinking of something, just as it happens, in a
sort of amiable-chew-the-cud-stupor, oblivious of the slow-dragging
moments. Others pull out watches for frequent consultation, shuffle
feet, and take an affectionate and mournful and fond look at a furtive
cigar, which can be of no possible present use. Others, with an
enviable forethought, draw from the depths of coat-pockets the daily
papers, and studiously apply themselves to the contents, to the
manifest envy of that improvident class who are obliged to fall back
upon the unsatisfactory employment of twiddling their fidgety thumbs.
As for the _ladies_, bless 'em! they are never at a loss. Are there not
gloves to pull off, to show a diamond ring to advantage, and glistening
bracelets to settle, and the last finishing polish to put upon hair,
already groomed to the satin smoothness of a respectable hair-sofa?
This duty done, the first bonnet within range passes under the
inspection of an inexorable martinet, viz: "Did _she_ make it herself?"
or, "Is it the approved work of a milliner?" "Does her hair curl
naturally?" or, "Does she curl it?" "Is her collar _real_ lace?" or,
"Only imitation?" These professional detective-queries, so amusing to
the general female mind, while away the time edifyingly, especially
when there is a variety of heads within eye-range for minute
inspection.
* * * * *
"What can _she_ have to tell us that we did not know before?" I heard
some one say, as we took our seats in the Lecture-room to hear a
Female Lecturess. Have you always, thought I, heard new and original
remarks from the _male_ speakers, whose audiences yawned through
fifty-cents-worth of bombast, and platitudes, and repetition, in this
very place? And is it not worth while, sometimes, to look at a subject
from an intelligent _woman's_ stand-point? And granting she were
wanting in every requisite that you consider essential in a public
speaker, if she can draw an audience, why shouldn't she fill her
pocket? Is it less commendable than marrying somebody--anybody--for
the sake of being supported, and finding out too late, as many women
do, that it is the toughest possible way of getting a living? As I
view it, her life is not unpleasant. She takes long journeys _alone_,
it is true--and very likely so she would have to do, if she took any,
were she married. At least, she circulates about in the fresh air,
among fresh people, makes many acquaintances, and, let us hope, some
friends; instead of gnawing the bone of monotony all her colorless
life. And what if a hiss should meet her sensitive ear from some adder
in her audience? Does it sting more than would a brutal word at her
own fireside, whither she was lured by promises of love until death?
If conservatism is shocked to hear a woman speak in public, let
conservatism stay away; but let it be consistent, and not forget to
frown on its own women, who elbow and push their way in a crowded
assembly, and with sharp tongue and hurrying feet "grab"--yes, that's
the word--the most eligible seat, or who push into public conveyances
already filled to over-flowing, and, with brazen impudence, wonder
aloud "if these are _gentlemen_," as they try to look them out of
their seats. There be many ways a woman can "unsex" herself, beside
lecturing in public.
Not that I see, either, how they can get up and do it. Somebody would
have to put me on my defence; or somebody I loved dearly must be
starving, and need the fee I should get, before _I_ could muster the
requisite courage? but none the less do I honor those who can do it.
So many have acquitted themselves honorably in this field of labor,
that this subject needs neither defender nor apologist; but still,
much of the old spirit of opposition occasionally manifests itself,
even now, in spiteful comments from lip and pen, particularly with
regard to the more fortunate.
_They_ can stand it!--with a good house over their independent heads,
secured and paid for by their own honest industry. They can stand
it!--with greenbacks and Treasury notes stowed away against a rainy
day. _They_ can stand it!--with any quantity of "admirers" who, not
having pluck or skill enough to earn their own living, would gladly
share what these enterprising women have accumulated. May a good
Providence multiply female lecturers, female sculptors, female artists
of every sort, female authors, female astronomers, female
book-keepers, female--anything that is honest, save female
_sempstresses_, with their pale faces, hollow eyes and empty pockets,
and a City Hospital or Almshouse in prospective.
* * * * *