Volume 16 — The Homeless Poor Of New York City.

In this class, the homeless poor, we embrace all those who have no fixed habitation—who have no idea in the morning where they will obtain shelter for their weary bodies during the coming night. We find here every age represented—from the infant in the mother's arms, through the rapid stages of development (as it is well known that pain and hunger have a wonderful effect in maturing infant humanity), to the aged, tottering towards the grave, only waiting for their summons to cross over the river of time; looking with yearning eyes towards the Home prepared for them on the shore of eternity.

It is impossible to estimate the number of this class, as we have no statistics to guide us, but it is supposed that there are about forty thousand vagrant children alone in this metropolis. From this frightful number of infant waifs we may judge of the amount of misery and destitution in our midst—hidden from view behind our imposing marble warehouses and stately brownstone mansions.

We have been informed by a reliable police official that there are a large number of poor widows, whose husbands died in the service of our country during the late war, in a most destitute condition in this city, and that they frequently bring their children with them and apply for shelter at the station-houses. They attempt to eke out a miserable livelihood by sewing, and when this fails them they are obliged to go (in this Christian city) to the abodes of crime, to avoid the inclemency of the winter nights. Few persons can form an idea of the struggles, the privations, and the daily sufferings of lone women who earn their daily bread by the use of the needle. If the fine ladies who adorn themselves in costly robes could go behind the scenes after they have left their orders at the elegant shops of the dressmakers; could they see their delicate fabrics taken home by the poor sewing-women; see the weary forms bent over their work in the cheerless tenement-houses, each stitch accompanied by a painful throb of heart and brain as the night wears on and the solitary candle burns low; the famishing child as he tosses and turns on his bundle of rags, murmuring, “Bread, mother, bread!”—ay! if the beaming eyes of the votaries of fashion could by some magic power see on their rustling silks, their costly linen, their beautiful lace, the imprint of the gaunt, lean fingers of the poor sewing-women; could the tears that trickled down the worn cheeks crystallize where they have fallen; could the sighs which welled up from the overburdened heart strike with their low wailing sound on the ears of these worldlings—they would be filled with a larger sense of duty to their fellow-creatures, a greater desire to follow the golden motto, “Do unto others as ye would that others should do unto you.”

There is an official apathy to the condition of the extreme poor which, with the ballot placed in the hands of every man, has already produced [pg 207] baneful results to the well-being of the Republic, and must eventually, if not remedied, act detrimentally to its safety. If an unfortunate wretch, clad in tattered garments, pass through our streets or loiter near our homes, he is at once eyed suspiciously—to wear the habiliments of poverty is evidence sufficient that the black heart of a criminal is enclosed within. It is true that promiscuous charity may do great harm, but it is surely the correct policy for a government, while it judiciously supplies the immediate wants of its poor classes with one hand, to open the avenues to employment with the other; thus teaching them the lesson impressed upon our first parents as they were banished from the Garden of Eden—that man must earn his daily bread by the sweat of his brow.

We have already said that it is computed by well-informed persons that we have in our midst some forty thousand vagrant children. Let us glance for a moment at their condition, and what is being done for them. It is difficult for any one to conceive the deplorable condition of these homeless children without personal observation. They tread the paths leading to moral destruction with such rapidity that hundreds of them are confirmed thieves and drunkards before they reach the age of twelve years. The day is passed in pilfering, and at night they sleep in some out-of-the-way place—under door-steps, in wagons, or wherever they can store their diminutive forms. Some time since, a regularly organized band of boys were discovered to have constructed a shelter under one of the piers; and here they congregated at night, each bringing in his booty stolen during the day. A few days since, during a visit to one of the mission-houses of this city, the lady in charge pointed out to us a little girl, not more than nine years old, telling us that she never came to the house without being more or less under the influence of liquor, and a glance at the bloated features and nervous, trembling hands showed conclusively that it was her habitual condition. We understand that there are fiends in the shape of men and women in this city who will sell such children a penny's worth of rum. Some persons have argued that these children are from bad parents, and under any circumstances, no matter how favorable, would be corrupt. Such an opinion is a libel on God and human nature. A certain proclivity to vice may be transmitted in the blood, but free-will remains in the most degenerate, and is sufficient, with the aid of a good education and the grace of God, to overcome this obstacle to virtue. We know well the plastic nature of childhood, and, if educated from the first to honesty, morality, and sobriety, it will indeed be found a rare exception in which the developed man will not possess these virtues, and prove an honor to himself and society. But if the first lisp of the infant repeats an oath which is used more frequently than any other word by the debased mother, or if, as is the case with many, as soon as the babe can walk alone it is taught the art of begging and stealing, what can we look for in the same child simply developed to manhood? Are you surprised that he makes a thief? He has never been taught anything else, and he naturally looks upon the law as something that interferes with the right to take anything he desires, if he can only do so without being detected. Would you look for pure water from a stream whose bed is [pg 208] covered with filthy slime, and whose banks are the receptacle of disgusting, decomposed offal? Surely you would not drink of such, no matter how pure you knew the gurgling springs to be high up on the mountain-side from whence it received its supply. Look at a babe as it is blessed with the first gleam of reason—its ability to notice things about it. Is there anything in the bright black eye to indicate the future cunning of the burglar? Do the rosy lips, wreathed in angel smiles, look as if they were fashioned to utter foul oaths and blasphemies? And the little chubby hands clasped in baby glee around the mother's neck, could they, by a natural instinct, ever be turned in brutal wrath against that self-same mother? Reason answers No to all these questions; and we argue that such vices are developed principally by education and example. Take this for granted, and, if we do nothing to save the child from such education, what right have we to imprison the developed man for acting upon the only doctrine he has ever been taught? Or a better view of the subject is: Would it not be the dictate of a sound political economy to take these children from the streets, and teach them some useful trade or pursuit, giving them, at the same time, the fundamental principles of Christianity, without which society is a tottering fabric, minus its very foundation? Do this, and we make producers out of the very men and women who will otherwise become consumers upon the state in the common prisons.

In several parishes of this city benevolent efforts are being made to rescue these children, but, so far as we can learn, the only institutions established where they are regularly taken care of and kept permanently are the following: “The Five Points House of Industry,” “The Five Points Mission-House,” “The Howard Mission”; and last, but we hope soon to be first in its wide-spread influence over these little creatures, is the one established some two years ago, and now located in East Thirteenth Street. This is managed by certain charitable Catholic ladies, and called “An Association for Befriending Children.” As most of the poor children on the Island are, or should be, Catholics, it is but just that the last-mentioned should receive support and countenance from every Catholic in the city able to assist it, and thus enable the lady managers in a short time to erect branch homes in every parish on the Island.

But come with us, dear reader, and let us look for ourselves at the condition of those who take advantage of the hospitality of the station-houses. Think for a moment that in 1862 there were seventy thousand nine hundred and thirty-eight lodgers, while 1871 presents the fearfully increased number of one hundred and forty-one thousand seven hundred and eighty who sought this shelter. Oh! that this number (equal nearly to one-sixth of the population of this vast metropolis), with its fearful weight of destitution and misery, suffering and despair, could be placed in burning letters upon the minds of those able, even without discommoding themselves, to relieve it!

Let us go back to midwinter. A blinding snow-storm is wrapping the earth in a white mantle, and it is after midnight, but these are only better reasons for our undertaking, as they secure us increased opportunity to see the phase of suffering we seek; for surely in a night like this the shelter of any roof is a luxury compared to the exposure of the street.

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Let us stop first at the Fifteenth Precinct: we ask the sergeant at the desk for the presiding officer, and we are at once shown to the captain's room. He reads the note from headquarters giving us the entrée, and informs us that he will give us any information we desire. We request him to show us the quarters of the night lodgers. He leads us through a rear door into the yard, and here we find a second building, two stories high, built of brick and stone. The lower story is cut up into cells, with iron cross-barred doors, for prisoners; and the upper is divided into two rooms—one devoted to the female, and the other to male, lodgers. The heavy granite stone forming a roof to the cells is also the floor of the upper rooms. As we make an inspection of the prison, we ask the captain what he thinks of this connection of homeless vagrants with prisoners? He promptly replies that it is most unfortunate, and should not be allowed, and with great kindness of heart says he would be willing to take care of a house in his precinct for any number of lodgers, if allowed to do so. He tells us that he does everything to alleviate the condition of these paupers he can; that, if a particularly distressing case presents itself, he allows the doorman to give the party a cell in the prison, that this is far more comfortable than the rooms above.

Think of this, you who at night rest your heads on pillows of down and wrap your bodies in fine rose blankets; think of beings so unfortunate that a prisoner's cell, with the clanking iron-barred door, is looked upon as a special favor! But let us ascend to the upper story. The door to the male apartment is opened, and the picture is before us. The ceiling is lofty, and a large ventilator opens to the roof from its centre, but where is the stone floor? It cannot be seen, so densely is it packed with outcast humanity. We can think of no other comparison but the way we have seen sardines packed in little tin boxes. Glance at this first row: here is an old German, next what looks to be a countryman, then three negroes, so black that they might have just arrived from the burning climate of Africa, then three Arabs, and in the distant corner more white men. The other rows are but copies of this, differing only in color or nationality, and such a heterogeneous mass of humanity, made common bed-fellows by want, it would be impossible to find. Around the wall are placed iron frames, about one foot high, and in these fit plain boards, painted black; but here, again, none of this can be seen, the human flooring covers all. Think of this apartment, with seventy-four men, of every description, from the octogenarian leaning over the brink of the grave, to the young boy seventeen or eighteen years old. Every clime has a representative; and in the vast group every variety of shade and color possessed by the human family can be seen. Opening the door to the female apartment, we find it occupied by a much smaller number; and we can see better the arrangement of the floor. The iron frames with their board covering extend from each wall towards the centre about six feet, leaving a space in the middle of the room as a passway. The same variety in color, age, and nationality is visible. Look at the different expressions of countenance—how replete with sadness, misfortune, degradation, and misery! These lodgers are divided into three classes: the first are officially known as bummers; they are generally inebriates and worthless idlers, the drones of the hive, who make the station-houses [pg 210] their permanent lodging-places, going night after night to different ones, thus distributing their patronage to a large number; but in spite of this the wary eye of the policeman soon recognizes them as belonging to this class. The second are those who by misfortune are obliged to seek this temporary shelter. Here are poor women, with their young children, forced out of their homes at night by drunken husbands; single persons, temporarily unable to obtain employment; here also you find those whose lives have been failures, whose every effort to succeed has proved abortive, who have been held down to the world's hard grindstone by the iron grasp of poverty. The third class embraces those who have homes in the rural districts, and other poor strangers, who are by accident left in the city for the night.

Having completed our survey here, let us look in for a few moments at the Eighth Precinct. We find the captain obliging in his politeness, and we ask at once to be permitted to see the night lodgers. About the centre of the building a door opens, leading by a common stairway to the basement below. A fearful and sickening odor greets us as we pass down, and this, the captain informs us, permeates every part of the building, to the great detriment of his officers. He also tells us that his accommodations for wayfarers are very poor; that he is obliged to put them in two small rooms in the basement, which are close and unhealthy. We find this statement correct, the floor upon which the lodgers rest being about four feet below the street level; the ceiling is also very low, and the ventilation extremely imperfect. The only light in the apartment is from a small oil-lamp, and its sickly flame seems to add intensity to the aspect of the miserable surroundings. Look at that old man with long white beard and tattered garments, the first in the row near the entrance. There lingers still a look of dignity about his fine face, but his whole appearance denotes the victim of intemperance. See that young boy with his chest exposed, the third from the old man. He has never known his parents. Picked up in the streets when a babe by an old crone, he has been tossed about ever since with the vilest scum of metropolitan society. He is sixteen, but can count for you the number of dinners he has had in all those years, the number of times he has slept in a comfortable bed, ay, even the number of kind words that have been spoken to him! What can be expected from the future of such children, cradled in a den for the punishment of crime while yet the snowy innocence of babyhood is untarnished, the only lullaby the coarse jest, rude repartee, and foul oaths of the outcasts who surround them? The curses and impotent railings against a fate for which generally each is individually to blame, and the bitter invective against their more fortunate fellow-beings, form a sad school in which to nurture pliable minds. But enough; the foul air of this basement oppresses us, and we gladly make our way to the outer world.

In the large cities of Europe, there are refuges established for this class on the following simple plan: An airy, comfortable, and well-ventilated room is procured, and fitted up with plain bedsteads and bedding, the latter of such materials as are easily washed. The next thing of importance is to provide means for bathing, and to require every person admitted to make use of these means before retiring to rest. It is also the [pg 211] custom to give the lodgers when they come in, and again in the morning when they leave, a large basin of gruel and a half-pound of bread. The cost of such hospitality here would not exceed fifteen cents per night, and not as much as this if these houses were under the care of a religious community, saving by this the salaries of matrons and other employees, and at the same time ensuring the order always produced by the presence of disciplined authority. There should be separate houses for males and females, and each could be cared for by persons of their own sex; but all such institutions would require supervision by the police, as some unruly characters must be expected in a promiscuous crowd of vagrants. The night refuges of London for women and children, established by Catholics, are under the care of the Sisters of Mercy, and are most admirably conducted. The order and docility of the lodgers is said to be remarkable under the gentle sway of these ladies. Those in Montreal and Quebec are in charge of the Gray Nuns. It would not require a large number of these lodging-houses for the relief of our city, but they should be located with regard to the density of population in given districts. Four or five for each sex, with proper accommodations, would be amply sufficient, as the total number of lodgers in the most inclement nights would hardly reach one thousand.

It is difficult to estimate the advantage to society as well as to the poor these homes would prove. In erecting them we should strike at the very foundation of the great social evil, and save hundreds of young women—strangers and unfortunates out of employment—from the snares set for their ruin in their lonely wanderings at night in search of shelter.

“There is near another river flowing,

Black with guilt, and deep as hell and sin;

On its brink even sinners stand and shudder,

Cold and hunger goad the homeless in.”

—Procter.

As the station lodgings now are, they form an incentive to the class known as bummers to avoid work. These people know there are thirty station-houses, and by frequent changes they manage to pass the year through without drawing marked attention at any one place. This class is composed of low thieves, drunkards, and beggars. If but few lodging-places existed, they would soon become well known, and could then be committed to the workhouse. A sojourn for them on the “island of penance” in the East River would result in a marked decrease in the thieving constantly carried on about our wharves and private dwellings.

In erecting these night homes, either by charity or legislative enactments, we should save our city from a burning disgrace, and give hopes of respectability to many a weary soul beaten down to the dust by the undeserved humiliations which link misfortune with crime.

As a charitable investment, these homes would prove a wise economy, as they would permit the truly unfortunate to be properly cared for, which is impossible at present. They would throw a safeguard around the morals of homeless young women by giving them shelter with persons of their own sex, who could protect, sympathize with, and advise them. They would assist in detecting those who live by swindling their hardworking neighbors. Lastly and most important, they would separate the children of poverty from the abodes of crime.

[Note.—The foregoing article is the substance of a lecture delivered by Dr. Raborg before the Catholic Institute connected with the parish of S. Paul the Apostle in this city. Its suggestions [pg 212]are so apropos to the present season that we have deemed them worthy of reproduction in this permanent form. We desire also to state that the lecture had the effect of inducing several philanthropic ladies and gentlemen to visit the station-houses and make a personal examination themselves, the result of which was a rather extended article in Frank Leslie's Newspaper of March 2, 1872, embracing some passages from the lecture, and accompanied by a clever illustration.

The sectarian institutions for vagrant children having been alluded to, and certain former allusions to the same in this magazine having been misunderstood, we think it necessary to make a remark here in explanation. We must admit and praise the philanthropic motive which sustains these institutions. At the same time, we regard them as really nuisances of the worst kind, so far as Catholic children are concerned, on account of their proselytizing character. Moreover, in their actual working they violate the rights both of parents and children, and we have evidence that these poor children are actually sold at the West, both by private sale and by auction. The horrible abuses existing in some state institutions are partly known to the public, and we have the means of disclosing even worse things than those which have recently been exposed in the daily papers. We trust, therefore, that the eloquent appeal of the author of the article will produce its effect upon all our Catholic readers, and stimulate them to greater efforts in behalf of these poor children.—Ed. C. W.]