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

On another occasion, he had held forth with peculiar "liberty" on the sin of thieving, and, when he sat down almost exhausted, discovered, to his dismay, that his hat had been stolen! But, knowing that mischief was at the bottom, and that a crowd of young "roughs" were outside waiting to see him go home bareheaded, he said nothing of his loss, but procured a cap and quietly walked away.

I think the contest of wits among them – they for mischief and disturbance, and he to establish order and get control over them – gave a peculiar zest to his religious labors, which he would not have had in calmer scenes and more regular services. If they put pepper on the stove, he endured it much longer than they could, and kept them until they were half suffocated; and when they barricaded the door outside, he protracted the devotional exercises or varied them with a "magic lantern," to give time for forcing the door, and an orderly exit. [Mr. Macy, on one occasion, on a bitter winter day, found the lock of the room picked and the boys within. He accused some of the larger boys. They denied, "No sir – no: it couldn't be us; because we was in the liquor-shop on the corner; we ain't got nowhere else to go to!"]

The girls, however, were his great torment, especially when they stoned their spiritual guides; these, however, he eventually forwarded into the Cottage place Industrial School, which sprang from the Meeting, and there they were gradually civilized.

For real suffering and honest effort at self-help, he had a boundless sympathy; but the paupers and professional beggars were the terror of his life. He dreaded nothing so much as a boy or girl falling into habits of dependence. Where he was compelled to give assistance in money, he has been known to set one boy to throw wood down and the other to pile it up, before he would aid.

His more stormy philanthropic labors have been succeeded by calmer efforts among a delightful congregation of poor German children in Second Street, who love and revere him. When he needs, however, a little refreshment and intoning, he goes over to his Cottage-place Reading-room, and sits with or instructs his "lambs!"

His main work, however, is in the "office" of the Children's Aid Society, which I have described above. Though a plain half-Quaker himself, he has all the tact of a diplomat, and manages the complicated affairs of poverty and crime that come before him with a wonderful skin, getting on as well with the lady as the street-vagrant, and seldom ever making a blunder in the thousand delicate matters which pass through his hands. When it is remembered that some seventeen thousand street-children have passed through that office to homes in the country, and that but one lawsuit has ever occurred about them (and that through no mistake of the Society), while numbers of bitter enemies watch every movement of this charity, it will be seen with what consummate judgment these delicate matters have been managed. Besides all this, he is the guide, philosopher, and friend of hundreds of these young wayfarers in every part of the country, sustaining with them an enormous correspondence; but, as sympathy, and advice, and religious instruction on such a gigantic scale would soon weary out even his vitality, he stereotypes his letters, and, by a sort of pious fraud, says to each what is written for all. It is very interesting to come across the quaint, affectionate words and characteristic expressions of this devoted philanthropist addressed to "his boys," but put up in packages of a thousand copies, and to think to how many little rovers over the land they bring sympathy and encouragement.

CHAPTER XXIII

RAISING MONEY FOR A CHARITY

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 known in regard to the great suffering and poverty among the children in New York, and the principles of our operations were well understood, we could more safely depend on this enlightened public opinion and sympathy than on any sudden "sensation" or gush of feeling.

Our Board fully concurred in these views, and we resolutely eschewed all "raffles" and pathetic exhibitions of abandoned children, and "pedestrian" or other exhibitions offered as for the benefit of humanity, and never even enjoyed the perfectly legitimate benefit of a "fair." Once, in a moment of enthusiasm I was led into arranging a concert, for the benefit of a School; but that experience was enough. Our effort at musical benevolence became a series of most inharmonious squabbles. The leading soprano singer had a quarrel with the bass; the instrumental split with the vocal performers; our best solo went off in a huff, and, at last, by superhuman exertions, we reconciled the discordant elements and got our concert fairly before the public, and retired with a few hundred dollars.

Whatever gave the public a sensation, always had a reaction. The solid ground for us was evidently the most rational one. I accordingly made the most incessant exertions to enlighten and stir up the public. In this labor the most disagreeable part was presenting our "cause" to individuals. I seldom solicited money directly, but sought rather to lay the wants and methods before them. Yet, even here, some received it as if it were some new move of charlatanry, or some new device for extracting money from full purses. Evidently, to many minds, the fact of a man of education devoting himself to such pursuits was in itself an enigma or an eccentricity. Fortunately, I was able early to make use of the pulpits of the city and country, and sometimes was accustomed to spend every night in the week and the Sunday in delivering sermons and addresses throughout the Eastern States. As a general thing, I did not urge a collection, though occasionally having one, but chose rather to convince the understanding, and leave the matter before the people for consideration. No public duties of mine were ever more agreeable than these; and the results proved afterwards most happy, in securing a large rural "constituency," who steadily supported our movements in good times and bad; so quietly devoted, and in earnest, that death did not diminish their interest – some of our best bequests having come from the country.

The next great implement was that profession which has done more for this Charity than any other instrumentality. Having, fortunately, an early connection with the press, I made it a point, from the beginning, to keep our movements, and the evils we sought to cure, continually before the public in the columns of the daily journals. Articles describing the habits and trials of the poor; editorials urging the community to work in these directions; essays discussing the science of charity and reform; continual paragraphs about special charities, were poured forth incessantly for years through the daily and weekly press of New York, until the public became thoroughly, imbued with our ideas and a sense of the evils which we sought to reform. To accomplish this, I had to keep up a constant connection with the press, and was, in fact, often daily editor, in addition to my other avocations.

As a result of this incessant publicity, and of the work already done, a very superior class of young men consented to serve in our Board of Trustees; men who, in their high principles of duty, and in the obligations which they feel are imposed by wealth and position, bid fair hereafter to make the name of New York merchants respected as it never was before throughout the country. With these as backers and supervisors, we were enabled to approach the Legislature for aid, on the ground that we were doing a humane work which lightened the taxes and burdens of the whole community and was in the interest of all. Year after year our application was rejected, but finally we succeeded, and laid a solid and permanent basis thus for our future work.

SOURCES OF INCOME

Our first important acquisition of property was a bequest from a much-esteemed pupil of mine, J. B. Barnard, of New Haven, Conn., of $15,000, in 1856. We determined to use this at once in the work. For many years, finding the needs of the city so enormous, and believing that our best capital was in the results of our efforts, and not in funds, we spent every dollar we could obtain at once upon our labors of charity.

At length, in 1863, a very fortunate event occurred for us: a gentleman had died in New York, named John Rose, who left a large property which he willed should be appropriated to forming some charitable institution for neglected children, and, under certain conditions, to the Colonization Society. The will was so vaguely worded, that the brother, Mr. Chauncey Rose, felt it necessary to attempt to break it. This, after long litigation, he succeeded in doing, and the property – now swollen to the amount of nearly a million dollars – reverted mainly to him. With a rare conscience and generosity, he felt it his duty not to use any of this large estate for himself, but to distribute it among various charities in New York, relating to poor children, according to what appeared to be the intention of his brother. To our Society he gave, at different times, something like $200,000. Of this, we made $150,000 an invested fund; and henceforth we sought gradually to increase our permanent and assured income, so that the Association might continue its benevolent work after the present managers had departed.

And yet we were glad that a good proportion of our necessary expenses should be met by current contributions, so that the Society might have the vitality arising from constant contact with the public, as well as the permanency from invested property.

If we take a single year, 1870, as showing the sources of our income, we shall find that out of nearly $200,000 received that year, including $32,000 for the purchase of two Lodging-houses, and $7,000 raised by the local committees of the Schools, $60,000 came by tax from the county, $20,000 from the "Excise Fund" (now abolished), nearly $20,000 from the Board of Education, being a pro rata allotment on the average number of pupils, and about $9,000 from the Comptroller of the State; making about $109,000, or a little over one-half of our income, received from the public authorities. Of the ninety-odd thousand received from private sources, about eleven thousand came from our investments, leaving some $80,000 as individual contributions during one year – a remarkable fact, both as showing the generosity of the public and their confidence in the work.

This liberal outlay, both by the city and private individuals, has been and is being constantly repaid, in the lessening of the expenses and loss from crime and pauperism, and the increasing of the number of honest and industrious producers.

CHAPTER XXIV

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.