The Dangerous Classes of New York, and Twenty Years' Work Among Them

Exposure of Children in Rome--Comments by Latin Authors upon the Practice--Terence--Seneca--Suetonius--Rebukes by Early Christian Preachers--Quintilian--Tertullian--Lactantius--...

Not so Numerous as in London, but more Dangerous--Dens of Crime and Fever-nests--Advantage of Breaking them up--The Unrestrained Vices of this Class--Their Ignorance and Brutali...

Preventible and Non-preventible--Ignorance--Numbers of Illiterates in City Prisons and Reformatories--Orphanage--Statistics--Orphans in Mettrai--Emigration--Effect in Producing...

Reasons why Second Marriage is Productive of Crime among the Poor--Force of Public Opinion in Preserving Marriage-bond--Weakening of it by Emigration--Fruits of Free Love among...

Form of New York--Its Effect on Population--Bad Government Increases Rents--Rate of Population to the Square Mile in the Eleventh Ward--In the Tenth, Seventeenth, and other Ward...

The Power of Alcoholic Stimulus on the Laboring-man--Attraction of the Liquor-shop--Terrible Effects of Drunkenness--Number of Criminals in City Prisons Intemperate--Little Drun...

Necessity of One Organization to Deal with Youthful Criminal Classes--Error made of using too Technical Religious Methods--Error of Following too much European Precedents--Asylu...

Foundation of the CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY--Touching Procession of Homeless Children to the Office--The Feeling at its Foundation--Its Objects--To Found Reading-rooms, Industrial...

Their Relation to the World, like that of the Indians to Civilization--Life of the Street-boy--His Lightheartedness--His Moral Code--His Religion--Few Addicted to Drinking--Thei...

Hard Lot of A Girl-vagrant--Sexual Vice--Dark Questions--Girls' Vices More Degrading than the Boys'--Effect on her Habits and Character--Great Difficulty of Reform--History of P...

Should License be Allowed?--The Views of Physicians--Foolish Arguments on the Other Side--Duties of a Physician Purely Medical--Objections to License under the Moral Aspect--Bit...

Public Schools not Reaching the Poorer Children--Numbers of Vagrant Children Twenty Years Ago--Foundation of the Wilson School--The Rookeries of the Fourth Ward--Dance-saloons--...

Their Quarters on the Eastern Side--Number in the Eleventh Ward--Formation of an Association for their Benefit--Its Moving Spirit--Social Influences in the School--Its Effect on...

The Street-child--Effects of Drunkenness--A Mother Fleeing her Daughter-The Dying Sewing-woman--Severe Labor--Christian Faith--Changes of Fortune--Discouragement--The Iron-worke...

Formation of an Association of Ladies on the West Side--Hudson River Industrial School--Perseverance of Volunteer Teachers--Protestant Poor no Better than Catholic--"Muscular Or...

Generous Proposal of a Benevolent Lady--Her Labors among the Poor--Miss Andrew's Teaching--Pestalozzi's System--Old Systems too Mechanical and too much Memorizing--Effects in Lo...

Italian Quarter in Five Points--Cruelty of the Padroni--Rev. Dr. Hawks--Signor Cerqua--Description of the Five Points' Italian Settlement--Characteristics of Poor Italians--Foun...

Mr. Macy's Efforts--A Free Reading-room--Earnest Nature of the Work--Self-sacrifice of Lady Volunteers--Miss Macy's Treatment of Colored Children during the Riots--Good Effects...

Effects of Overcrowding--No Local Charities a Complete Remedy--Asylums not Sufficient--Best Asylum, the "Farmer's Home"--Advantage in the United States--Unlimited Demand for Lab...

Hostility of Ignorant Roman Catholics--Objections of the Poor--Opposition of the Asylum Interest--Arguments of the Asylum Plan and for the Emigration Method--A Practical Test to...

Our First Party of Little Emigrants--A Description of the Waifs--Hard Journey in Emigrant Cars--Excitement of the Boys in the Country--Reception in the Western Village--Their Sw...

A Description of the Office of the Children's Aid Society--Central Figure--Mr. Macy--Labors with his "Lambs" in Cottage Place--Stormy Meetings--His Influence over the Young Vagr...

Sensation to be Avoided--All Raffles and Pathetic Exhibitions Declined--Our Experience with a Concert--Labors through the Pulpit and the Press--Character of the Trustees who ent...

They Require Peculiar Management to be Successful--The Eleventh-ward Reading-room--Its Failure--A Reformed Pugilist--"Awful Gardner"-His Career--The Death of His Son--His Reform...

The President of the Society--Mr. William A. Booth--His Character and Capacity--His Policy in Regard to the Lodging-houses--His Suggestion about the Street-girls--The Histories...

History of the Formation of the Nineteenth-street Gang--Our Efforts to Reform it--Mr. Slater's Labors--Improvement of Vagabond Boys--Reform of Petty Thieves--Good Fortune of a H...

The Rookeries of the "Hook"--The "Gavroches" and "Topsies" of the Quarter--Great Number of Homeless Children--A School-building turned into a Lodging-house--The Superintendent--...

Passion for Roving Among Children--A Rover Reformed--Sent to the West, and Wanders over the Woods and Mountains--The Habits of Little Street-Vagrants--Unaccountable Preference f...

Experience in the Night-schools--Great Numbers of Young Children Employed in Factories--Their Eagerness to Learn--Experience of England--Statistics of Children Employed in Facto...

Enthusiasm of Humanity--Necessity of Machinery--Danger of Routine--Importance of Interested Motives--Duties of Trustees--Compensation--Charity should not be Too Much of a Busine...

Discussion How Far the State should Aid in Charities--Dangers of State Endowments--Weakness of Individual Charities--Danger of Machinery Taking Place of Work--The Natural Family...

Reply of the missionary in East London--The Evil of Alms-giving--Experience of the English--Everything given but Education--Charity Expenses of London--Good Fortune of this Coun...

The Child, above all, an Individual--Unsuited to be put in a large Institution--Influence of a Number of Criminal Children on One Another--Absence of the Most Powerful Forces of...

The Need of Shelter for Illegitimate Children--Their Numbers in European Cities--Estimated Number in New York--Number of Still-births--Relation of Illegitimacy to Crime--Statist...

The Difficulties of Religious Teaching--Street-children not to be Influenced like Sunday Schools--Rhetoric and Sentiment do not Touch Them--True Oratory and the Dramatic Method...

Instance of the Three Brothers in the Newsboys' Lodging-house--The Damage Inflicted by One on the Community--The Gain brought by the Labor of the Others--Cost of Our Criminals l...

This Charity has always Encouraged Self-help--No Pauperism Stimulated under it--The Laborer in this Field sees the Fruit--Harmony with Natural Laws sought for constantly--Advant...

The central figure in the world's charity is CHRIST. An eloquent rationalistic writer--Mr. Lecky--speaking of the Christian efforts in early ages in behalf of exposed children a...

New York is a much younger city than its European rivals; and with perhaps one-third the population of London, yet it presents varieties of life among the "masses" quite as pict...

The great practical division of causes of crime may be made into preventible and non-preventible. Among the preventible, or those which can be in good part removed, may be place...

It is extraordinary, among the lowest classes, in how large a number of cases a second marriage, or the breaking of marriage, is the immediate cause of crime or vagrancy among t...

The source of juvenile crime and misery in New York, which is the most formidable, and, at the same time, one of the most difficult to remove, is the _overcrowding_ of our popul...

The power of the appetite for alcoholic stimulus is something amazing. A laboring-man feels it especially on account of the drag on his nervous system of steady and monotonous l...

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...

All those who were engaged in these efforts felt their inadequacy and we resolved to meet at different private houses to discuss the formation of some more comprehensive effort....

There seemed to be a very considerable class of lads in New York who bore to the busy, wealthy world about them something of the same relation which Indians bear to the civilize...

A girl street-rover is to my mind the most painful figure in all the unfortunate crowd of a large city. With a boy, "Arab of the streets," one always has the consolation that, d...

The merely philosophical inquirer, or even the physician, regarding humanity "in the broad," comes naturally to the conclusion that this offense is one of the inevitable evils w...

Though our Free Schools are open to all, experience has taught that vast numbers of children are so ill-clothed and destitute that they are ashamed to attend these excellent pla...

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...

"It sometimes seems in our Industrial Schools as if each wretched, blear-eyed, half-starved, filthy little girl was a living monument of the curses of Intemperance. The rags, th...

It is not often that our efforts carry us among Protestant poor, but it happens that on the west side of the city, near Tenth Avenue and Twenty-seventh Street, is a considerable...

A lady of high culture and position, who felt peculiarly the responsibilities of the fortunate toward the unfortunate, conceived the idea of doing something to elevate the condi...

Among the various rounds I was in the habit of making in the poorest quarters, was one through the Italian quarter of the "Five Points." Here, in large tenement-houses, were pac...

Beyond a certain point, the history of these various schools becomes monotonous. It is simply a history of kindness, of patience, of struggles with ignorance, poverty, and intem...

Among the lowest poor of New York, as we stated in a previous chapter, the influence of _overcrowding_ has been incredibly debasing. When we find half a dozen families--as we fr...

This most sound and practical of charities always met with an intense opposition here from a certain class, for bigoted reasons. The poor were early taught, even from the altar,...

"On Wednesday evening, with emigrant [Since this first experience, we have always sent our children by regular trains, in decent style.] tickets to Detroit, we started on the _I...

This has become a kind of eddying-point, where the two streams of the fortunate and the unfortunate classes seem to meet. Such a varying procession of humanity as passes through...

One of the trials of a young Charity is raising money. I was determined to put this on as sound and rational a basis as possible. It seemed to me, that, if the facts were well k...

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...

Mr. William A. Booth had the rare combination of qualities which form a thorough presiding officer, and at the same time he was inspired by a spirit of consecration to what he b...

During the summer of 1865, I was present in London as a delegate to the International Reformatory Convention, and had the opportunity, for the second or third time, to investiga...

If any of my readers should ever be inclined to investigate a very miserable quarter of the city, let them go down to our "Corlear's Hook," so infamous twenty years ago for murd...

There is without doubt in the blood of most children--as an inheritance, perhaps, from some remote barbarian ancestor--a passion for roving. There are few of us who cannot recal...

In our educational movements, we early opened Night-schools for the poor children. During the winter of 1870-71, we had some eleven in operation, reaching a most interesting cla...

The power of every charity and effort at moral reform is in the spirit of the man directing or founding it. If he enter it mechanically, as he would take a trade or profession,...

An important question often comes up in regard to our charitable associations: "How shall they best be supported?"--by endowment from the State or by private and annual assistan...

"Give!" he said, "we never give now; we take!" He explained that the remedy of alms, for the terrible evils of that portion of London, had been tried _ad nauseam_, and that they...

A child, whether good or bad, is, above all things, an individual requiring individual treatment and care. Let any of our readers, having a little fellow given to mischief, who...

Some of our citizens are now seeking to open in New York a Foundling Asylum to be conducted under Protestant influences. A Roman Catholic Hospital for Foundlings was recently es...

The subject of applying Religion as a lever to raise up the class of neglected children whom we have been describing, is a difficult one, but vital to the Science of Reform. The...

Very few people have any just appreciation of the comparative cost of punishment and prevention in the treatment of crime. The writer recalls one out of many thousand instances...

In reviewing these long-continued efforts for the prevention of crime and the elevation of the neglected youth of this metropolis, it may aid others engaged in similar enterpris...