Chapter 6

In a small room fronting an interior court we found a man[6] whose face bore the stamp of that "hope long deferred which maketh the heart sick." He is, I am informed, a strictly temperate, honest, and industrious workman. Up to the time of his wife's illness and death, which occurred last summer, the family lived in a reasonably comfortable manner, as the husband found no difficulty in securing work on the sea. When the wife died, however, circumstances changed. She left six little children, one almost an infant. The father could not go to sea, leaving his little flock without a protector, to fall the victims of starvation, and since then he has worked whenever he could get employment loading vessels, or at anything he could find. For the past six weeks he has been practically without work, and the numerous family of little ones have suffered for life's necessities. His rent is two dollars and a quarter a week.

[6] NOTE ON ILLUSTRATION OUT OF WORK. The young man photographed in his dismal lodging is a widower with six small children; he is strictly sober, an American by birth, but parents were Scotch and Irish. Until the illness and death of the wife last summer, everything went reasonably well. The husband and father followed the sea and managed to provide for his family, even saving a little. The wife's sickness and burial expenses ate up all and more than he had saved, while being left with so many little children and no one to look after them, he found it impossible to engage in sea voyages; he was compelled to seek work which would enable him to be home at night. This winter, work has been very slack; for six weeks he has only been able to obtain employment for a few days; meantime his rent, which is two dollars and a quarter a week, has eaten up almost all the man could earn. Through the aid of the Baptist Bethel Mission and The Arena Relief Fund, this family has been provided with food and clothes.

In the attic in another tenement we found a widow[7] weeping and working by the side of a little cradle where lay a sick child, whose large luminous eyes shone with almost phosphorescent brilliancy from great cavernous sockets, as they wandered from one to another, with a wistful, soul-querying gaze. Its forehead was large and prominent, so much so that looking at the upper part of the head one would little imagine how terrible the emaciation of the body, which was little more than skin and bones, speaking more eloquently than words of the ravages of slow starvation and wasting disease. The immediate cause of the poor woman's tears was explained to us in broken English, substantially as follows: She had just returned from the dispensary where she had been unsuccessful in her effort to have a physician visit her child, owing to her inability to pay the quarter of a dollar demanded for the visit. After describing as best she could the condition of the invalid, the doctor had given her two bottles of medicine and a prescription blank on which he had written directions for her to get a truss that would cost her two dollars and a half at the drug store. She had explained to the physician that owing to the illness of her child she had fallen a week and a half in arrears in rent; that the agent for the tenement had notified her that if one week's rent was not paid on Saturday she would be evicted, which meant death to her child, so she could not buy the truss. To which the doctor replied, "You must get the truss and put it on before giving anything from either bottle, or the medicine will kill your child." "If I give the medicine," she repeated showing us the bottles, "before I put the truss on, he says it will kill my child," and the tears ran swiftly down her sad but intelligent face. The child was so emaciated that the support would inevitably have produced terrible sores in a short time. I am satisfied that had the physician seen its condition, he would not have had a heart to order it.

[7] NOTE ON ILLUSTRATION OF PORTUGUESE WIDOW IN ATTIC. In an attic with slanting roof and skylight window lives a poor widow with her little family of four, a full description of which is given elsewhere. The long-continued sickness of the little child has made the struggle for rent and bread very terrible, and had it not been for assistance rendered at intervals, eviction or starvation, or both, must have resulted. This woman and her children are sober, industrious, and intelligent. Cases like this are by no means rare in this city which claims to be practically free from poverty.

I thought as I studied the anxious and sorrowful countenance of that mother, how hard, indeed, is the lot of the very poor. They have to buy coal by the basketful and pay almost double price, likewise food and all life's necessities. They are compelled to live in frightful disease-fostering quarters, and pay exorbitant rents for the accommodations they receive. When sick they are not always free from imposition, even when they receive aid in the name of charity, and sometimes theology under the cloak of religion oppresses them. This last thought had been suggested by seeing in our rounds some half-starved women dropping pennies into the hands of Sisters of Charity, who were even here in the midst of terrible want, exacting from the starving money for a church whose coffers groan with wealth. O religion, ineffably radiant and exalting in thy pure influence, how thou art often debased by thy professed followers! How much injustice is meted out to the very poor, and how many crimes are still committed under thy cloak and in thy holy name! Even this poor widow had bitterly suffered through priests who belong to a great communion, claiming to follow Him who cried, "Come unto me all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest," as will be seen by the following, related to me by Rev. Walter Swaffield, who was personally cognizant of the facts. The husband of this widow was out of work for a time; being too ill to engage in steady work, he found it impossible to pay the required ten cents for seats in the church to which he belonged, and was consequently excluded from his sitting. Shortly after he fell sick, his wife sought the priest, imploring him to administer the sacrament, and later extreme unction, which he positively refused, leaving the poor man to die without the consolation of the Church he had from infancy been taught to love and revere.

It is not strange that many in this world of misery become embittered against society; that they sometimes learn to hate all who live in comfort, and who represent the established order of things, and from the rank of the patient, uncomplaining struggler descend to a lower zone, where the moral nature is eclipsed by degradation and crime, and life takes on a deeper shade of horror. This class of people exist on the brink of a precipice. Socially, they may be likened to the physical condition of Victor Hugo's Claude Frollo after Quasimodo had hurled him from the tower of Notre Dame. You remember the sickening sensation produced by that wonderful piece of descriptive work, depicting the false priest hanging to the eaves, vainly striving to ascend, feeling the leaden gutter to which he was holding slowly giving away. His hands send momentary messages to the brain, warning it that endurance is almost exhausted. Below he sees the sharp formidable spires of Saint-Jean-de-Ronde, and immediately under him, two hundred feet from where he hangs, are the hard pavement, where men appear like pigmies. Above stands the avenging hunchback ready to hurl him back if he succeed in climbing over the eaves. So these poor people have ever below them starvation, eviction, and sickness. Above stands Quasimodo in the form of a three-headed monster: a soulless landlord, the slave master who pays only starvation wages, and disease, the natural complement of the wretched squalor permitted by the one, and the slow starvation necessarily incident to the prices paid by the other. Their lot is even more terrible when it is remembered that their fall carries with it the fate of their loved ones. In addition to the multitude who are condemned to suffer through uninvited poverty, with no hopeful outlook before them, there is another class who are constantly on the brink of real distress, and who are liable at any time, to suffer bitterly because they are proud-spirited and will almost starve to death before they ask for aid. Space prevents me from citing more than one illustration of this character. In an apartment house we found an American woman with a babe two weeks old and a little girl. The place was scrupulously clean, something very rare in this zone of life. The woman, of course, was weak from illness and, as yet, unable to take in any work to speak of. Her husband has been out of employment for a few weeks, but had just shipped on board a sailing vessel for a cruise of several months. The woman did not intimate that they were in great need, as she hoped to soon be enabled to make some money, and the portion of her husband's wages she was allowed to draw, paid the rent. A week ago, however, the little girl came to the Bethel Mission asking for a loaf of bread. "We have had nothing to eat since Monday morning," she said, "and the little baby cries all the time because mamma can give it no milk." It was Wednesday evening when the child visited the Mission. An investigation substantiated the truth of the child's words. The mother, too proud to beg, struggled with fate, hoping and praying to be able to succeed without asking for aid, but seeing her babe starving to death, she yielded. This case finds many counterparts where a little aid bridges over a period of frightful want, after which the unfortunate are able, in a measure, to take care of themselves.

I find it impossible in this paper to touch upon other cases I desired to describe. The above illustrations however, typical of the life and environment of hundreds of families, are sufficient to emphasize a condition which exists in our midst and which is yearly growing, both in extent and in intensity of bitterness; a condition that is little understood by those who are not actually brought in contact with the circumstances as they exist, a condition at once revolting and appalling to every sense of humanity and justice. We cannot afford to remain ignorant of the real status of life in our midst, any more than we can afford to sacrifice truth to optimism. It has become a habit with some to make light of these grim and terrible facts, to minify the suffering experienced, or to try and impute the terrible condition to drink. This may be pleasant but it will never alter conditions or aid the cause of reform. It is our duty to honestly face the deplorable conditions, and courageously set to work to ameliorate the suffering, and bring about radical reformatory measures calculated to invest life with a rich, new significance for this multitude so long exiles from joy, gladness, and comfort.

We now come to the practical question, What is to be done? But before viewing the problem in its larger and more far-reaching aspects, I wish to say a word in regard to the direct measures for immediate relief which it is fashionable among many reformers to dismiss as unworthy of consideration. It is very necessary in a discussion of this character to view the problem in all its bearings, and adjust the mental vision so as to recognize the utility of the various plans advanced by sincere reformers. I have frequently heard it urged that these palliative measures tend to retard the great radical reformative movements, which are now taking hold of the public mind. This view, however comfortable to those who prefer theorizing and agitation to putting their shoulder to the wheel in a practical way, is, nevertheless, erroneous. There is no way in which people can be so thoroughly aroused to the urgent necessity of radical economic changes as by bringing them into such intimate relations with the submerged millions that they hear the throbbing of misery's heart. The lethargy of the moral instincts of the people is unquestionably due to lack of knowledge more than anything else. The people do not begin to realize the true condition of life in the ever-widening field of abject want. When they know and are sufficiently interested to personally investigate the problem and aid the suffering, they will appreciate as never before the absolute necessity for radical economic changes, which contemplate a greater meed of justice and happiness than any measures yet devised. But aside from this we must not forget the fact that we have a duty to perform to the living no less than to the generations yet unborn. The commonwealth of to-day as well as that of to-morrow demands our aid. Millions are in the quicksands: yearly, monthly, daily, hourly they are sinking deeper and deeper. We can save them while the bridges are being built. To withhold the planks upon which life and happiness depend is no less criminal than to refuse to face the question in its broader aspects and labor for fundamental economic changes. A great work of real, practical, and enduring value, however, is being wrought each year by those in charge of local missions work in the slums and by individuals who mingle with and study the actual condition of the very poor. The extent of good accomplished by these few who are giving their lives to uplifting society's exiles is little understood, because it is quiet and unostentatious; yet through the instrumentality of the silent workers, thousands of persons are annually kept from starvation and crime, while for many of them new, broad, and hopeful horizons are constantly coming in view.[8]

[8] The extent and character of this work will be more readily understood by noting the labor accomplished by the Bethel Mission in the North End, which is doing more than any other single organization in that section of the city for the dwellers of the slums. Here under the efficient management of the Rev. Walter Swaffield, assisted by Rev. W. J. English, work is intelligently pushed with untiring zeal, and in a perfectly systematic manner. From a social and humanitarian point of view, their work may be principally summed up in the following classifications: [1.] _Looking after the temporal and immediate wants of those who are really suffering._ Here cases are quietly and sympathetically investigated. Food is often purchased; the rents are sometimes paid; old clothes are distributed where they are most needed, and in many ways the temporal wants are looked after while kind, friendly visitation of between one and two hundred very needy families comprise a portion of each month's work. [2]. _The sailors' boarding house._ A large, clean, homelike building is fitted up for sailors. Every American vessel that comes into port is visited by a member of the Mission, who invites the sailors to remain at this model home for seamen. In this way hundreds yearly escape the dreadful atmosphere of the wretched sailors' boarding houses of this part of the city, or, what is still more important, avoid undreamed-of vice, degradation, and disease by going with companions to vile dens of infamy. [3]. _Securing comfortable homes and good positions for the young who are thus enabled to rise out of the night and oppression of this terrible existence._ This, it is needless to add, is a very difficult task, owing to the fact that society shrinks from its exiles; few persons will give any one a chance who is known to have belonged to the slums. Nevertheless good positions are yearly secured for several of these children of adversity. [4]. _The children's free industrial school in which the young are taught useful trades, occupations, and means of employment._ In this training school the little girls are taught to make themselves garments. The material is furnished them free and when they have completed the garment it is given them. [5]. _Summer vacations in the country for the little ones_ are provided for several hundred children; some for a day, some a week, some two weeks as the exigencies of the case require and the limited funds permit. These little oases in the children's dreary routine life are looked forward to with even greater anticipations of joy than is Christmas in the homes of the rich. I have cited the work of this Mission because I have personally investigated its work, and have seen the immense good that is being done with the very limited funds at the command of the Mission, and also to show by an illustration how much may be accomplished for the immediate relief of the sufferers. A grand palliative work requiring labor and money. It is not enough for those who live in our great cities to contribute to such work, they should visit these quarters and see for themselves. This would change many who to-day are indifferent into active missionaries.

Let us now examine a broader aspect of this problem. So long as the wretched, filthy dens of dirt, vermin, and disease stand as the only shelter for the children of the scum, so long will moral and physical contagion flourish and send forth death-dealing germs; so long will crime and degradation increase, demanding more policemen, more numerous judiciary, and larger prisons. No great permanent or far-reaching reformation can be brought about until the habitations of the people are radically improved. The recognition of this fact has already led to a practical palliative measure for relief that must challenge the admiration of all thoughtful persons interested in the welfare of society's exiles. It is a step in the direction of justice. It is not merely a work of charity; it is, I think, the most feasible immediate measure that can be employed which will change the whole aspect of life for tens of thousands, making existence mean something, and giving a wonderful significance to the now meaningless word home. I refer to the erection of model tenement apartments in our overcrowded sections, such, for example, as the Victoria Square dwelling of Liverpool. Here, on the former site of miserable tenement houses, sheltering more than a thousand people, stands to-day a palatial structure built around a hollow square, the major part of which is utilized as a large shrub-encircled playground for the children. The halls and stairways of the building are broad, light, and airy; the ventilation and sanitary arrangements perfect. The apartments are divided into one, two, and three rooms each. No room is smaller than 13 × 8 feet 6 inches; most of them are 12 × 13 feet 4 inches. All the ceilings are 9 feet high. A superintendent looks after the building. The tenants are expected to be orderly, and to keep their apartments clean. The roomy character of halls and chambers may be inferred from the fact that there are only two hundred and seventy-five apartments in the entire building. The returns on the total expenditure of the building, which was $338,800.00, it is estimated will be at least 4-1/2 per cent, while the rents are as follows: $1.44 per week for the three-room tenement, $1.08 per week for those containing two large rooms, and 54 cents for the one-room quarters. In Boston, the rents for the dreadful one-room cellar are $1.00 a week; for the two-room tenements above the cellars, the rent, so far as I heard, ranged from $1.50 to $2.50; three rooms were, of course, much higher. The rooms also are far smaller here than those in the beautiful, healthful, and inviting Victoria Square apartments. Yet it will be observed that the Shylock landlords receive _more than double_ the rental paid in this building for dens which would be a disgrace to barbarism. A similar experiment, in many respects even more remarkable than that recently inaugurated by the Liverpool co-operation, is exhibited in the Peabody dwellings in London. These apartments have been in successful operation for so many years, while the results attending them have been so marked and salutary, that no discussion of this subject would be complete that failed to give some of the most important facts relating to them. I know of no single act of philanthropy that towers so nobly above the sordid greed of the struggling multitude of millionaires, as does this splendid work of George Peabody, by which to-day twenty thousand people, who but for him would be in the depths of the slums, are fronting a bright future, and with souls full of hope are struggling into a higher civilization. It will be remembered that Mr. Peabody donated at intervals extending over a period of eleven years, or from 1862 to 1873, £500,000 or $2,500,000 to this project of relieving the poor. He specified that his purpose was to ameliorate the condition of the poor and needy of London, and promote their comfort and happiness, making only the following conditions:--

"_First_ and foremost amongst them is the limitation of its uses, absolutely and, exclusively, to such purposes as may be calculated directly to ameliorate the condition and augment the comforts of the poor, who, either by birth or established residence, form a recognized portion of the population of London.

"_Secondly_, it is my intention that now, and for all time, there shall be a rigid exclusion from the management of this fund, of any influences calculated to impart to it a character either sectarian as regards religion, or exclusive in relation to party politics.

"_Thirdly_, it is my wish that the sole qualification for a participation in the benefits of the fund shall be an ascertained and continued condition of life, such as brings the individual within the description (in the ordinary sense of the word) of the poor of London: combined with moral character, and good conduct as a member of society."