The Children of the Poor Part 7

All that has not been changed in the seventeen years that have pa.s.sed; to remodel depraved human nature has been beyond the power of the Society; but step by step under its prompting the law has been changed and strengthened; step by step life has been breathed into its dead letter, until now it is as able and willing to protect the child against violence or absolute cruelty as the Society is to enforce its protection. There is work enough for it to do yet. I have outlined some in the preceding chapters. In the past year (1891) it investigated 7,695 complaints and rescued 3,683 children from pernicious surroundings, some of them from a worse fate than death. "But let it not be supposed from this," writes the Superintendent, "that crimes of and against children are on the increase.

As a matter of fact wrongs to children have been materially lessened in New York by the Society's action and influence during the past seventeen years. Some have entirely disappeared, having been eradicated root and branch from New York life, and an influence for good has been felt by the children themselves, as shown by the great diminution in juvenile delinquency from 1875, when the Society was first organized, to 1891, the figures indicating a decrease of fully fifty per cent."[18]

Other charitable efforts, working along the same line, contributed their share, perhaps the greater, to the latter result, but the Society's influence upon the environment that shapes the childish mind and character, as well as upon the child itself, is undoubted. It is seen in the hot haste with which a general cleaning up and setting to rights is begun in a block of tenement barracks the moment the "cruelty man" heaves in sight; in the "holy horror" the child-beater has of him and his mission, and in the altered att.i.tude of his victim, who not rarely nowadays confronts his tormentor with the threat, "if you do that I will go to the Children's Society," always effective except when drink blinds the wretch to consequences.

The Society had hardly been in existence four years when it came into collision with the padrone and his abominable system of child slavery.

These traders in human misery, adventurers of the worst type, made a practice of hiring the children of the poorest peasants in the Neapolitan mountain districts, to serve them begging, singing, and playing in the streets of American cities. The contract was for a term of years at the end of which they were to return the child and pay a fixed sum, a miserable pittance, to the parents for its use, but, practically, the bargain amounted to a sale, except that the money was never paid. The children left their homes never to return. They were s.h.i.+pped from Naples to Ma.r.s.eilles, and made to walk all the way through France, singing, playing, and dancing in the towns and villages through which they pa.s.sed, to a seaport where they embarked for America. Upon their arrival here they were brought to a rendezvous in some out-of-the-way slum and taken in hand by the padrone, the partner of the one who had hired them abroad. He sent them out to play in the streets by day, singing and dancing in tune to their alleged music, and by night made them perform in the lowest dens in the city. All the money they made the padrone took from them, beating and starving them if they did not bring home enough. None of it ever reached their parents. Under this treatment the boys grew up thieves--the girls worse. The life soon wore them out, and the Potter's Field claimed them before their term of slavery was at an end, according to the contract. In far-off Italy the simple peasants waited anxiously for the return of little Tomaso or Antonia with the coveted American gold. No word ever came of them.

The vile traffic had been broken up in England only to be transferred to America. The Italian government had protested. Congress had pa.s.sed an act making it a felony for anyone knowingly to bring into the United States any person inveigled or forcibly kidnapped in any other country, with the intent to hold him here in involuntary service. But these children were not only unable to either speak or understand English, they were compelled, under horrible threats, to tell anyone who asked that the padrone was their father, brother, or other near relative. To get the evidence upon which to proceed against the padrone was a task of exceeding difficulty, but it was finally accomplished by co-operation of the Italian government with the Society's agents in the case of the padrone Ancarola, who, in November, 1879, brought over from Italy seven boy slaves, between nine and thirteen years old, with their outfit of harps and violins. They were seized, and the padrone, who escaped from the steamer, was arrested in a Crosby Street groggery five days later. Before a jury in the United States Court the whole vile scheme was laid bare. One of the boys testified that Ancarola had paid his mother 20 lire (about four dollars) and his uncle 60 lire. For this sum he was to serve the padrone four years. Ancarola was convicted and sent to the penitentiary. The children were returned to their homes.

The news travelled slowly on the other side. For years the padrone's victims kept coming at intervals, but the society's agents were on the watch, and when the last of the kidnappers was sent to prison in 1885 there was an end of the business. The excitement attending the trial and the vigor with which the society had pushed its pursuit of the rascally padrone drew increased attention to its work. At the end of the following year twenty-four societies had been organized in other States upon its plan, and half the governments of Europe were enacting laws patterned after those of New York State. To-day there are a hundred societies for the prevention of cruelty to children in this country, independent of each other but owning the New York Society as their common parent, and nearly twice as many abroad, in England, France, Italy, Spain, the West Indies, South America, Canada, Australia, etc. The old link that bound the dumb brute with the helpless child in a common bond of humane sympathy has never been broken. Many of them include both in their efforts, and all the American societies, whether their care be children or animals, are united in an a.s.sociation for annual conference and co-operation, called the American Humane a.s.sociation.

In seventeen years the Society has investigated 61,749 complaints of cruelly to children, involving 185,247 children, prosecuted 21,282 offenders, and obtained 20,697 convictions. The children it has saved and released numbered at the end of the year 1891 no less than 32,633.

Whenever it has been charged with erring it has been on the side of mercy for the helpless child. It follows its charges into the police courts, seeing to it that, if possible, no record of crime is made against the offending child and that it is placed at once where better environment may help bring out the better side of its nature. It follows them into the inst.i.tutions to which they are committed through its care, and fights their battles there, if need be, or the battles of their guardians under the law, against the greed of parents that would sacrifice the child's prospects in life for the sake of the few pennies it could earn at home.

And it generally wins the fight.

The Society has never received any financial support from the city, but has depended entirely upon private benevolence. Ample means have always been at its disposal. Last year it sheltered, fed, and clothed 1,697 children in its rooms. Most of them were the victims of drunken parents.

With the Society they found safe shelter. "Sometimes," Superintendent Jenkins says, "the children cry when they are brought here. They always cry when they go away."

"Lastly," so ran the old Quaker merchant's address in his first annual report, "this Society, so far from interfering with the numerous societies and inst.i.tutions already existing, is intended to aid them in their n.o.ble work. It proposes to labor in the interest of no one religious denomination, and to keep entirely free from political influences of every kind. Its duties toward the children whom it may rescue will be discharged when the future custody of them is decided by the courts of justice."

Before the faithful adherence to that plan all factious or sectarian opposition that impedes and obstructs so many other charities has fallen away entirely. Humanity is the religion of the Children's Society. In its Board of Directors are men of all nationalities and of every creed. Its fundamental doctrine is that every rescued child must be given finally into the keeping of those of its own faith who will carry on the work begun in its rescue. Beyond that point the Society does not go. It has once refused the gift of a sea-side home lest it become a rival in a field where it would render only friendly counsel and aid.

In the case of the little John Does a doubt arises which the Society settles by pa.s.sing them on to the best inst.i.tution available for each particular child, quite irrespective of sect. There are thirteen of them by this time, waifs found in the street by the Society's agents or friends and never claimed by anybody. Though pa.s.sed on, in the plan of the Society from which it never deviates, to be cared for by others, they are never lost sight of but always considered its special charges, for whom it bears a peculiar responsibility.

Poor little Carmen, of whom I spoke in the chapter about Italian children, was one of the Society's wards. Its footprints may be found all through these pages. To its printed reports, with their array of revolting cruelty and neglect, the reader is referred who would fully understand what a gap in a Christian community it bridges over.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CLUB WITH WHICH A FOUR-YEAR-OLD CHILD WAS BRUTALLY BEATEN.]

CHAPTER X.

THE STORY OF THE FRESH AIR FUND

The last echoes of the storm raised by the story of little Mary Ellen had not died in the Pennsylvania hills when a young clergyman in the obscure village of Sherman preached to his congregation one Sunday morning from the text, "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren, even these least, ye did it unto me," a sermon which in its far-reaching effects was to become one of the strongest links in the chain of remorseful human sympathy then being forged in the fires of public indignation. Willard Parsons was a man with a practical mind as well as an open heart. He had lived in the city and had witnessed the suffering of the poor children in the stony streets on the hot summer days. Out there in the country he saw the wild strawberry redden the fields in June only to be trampled down by the cattle, saw, as the summer wore on, the blackberry-vines by the wayside groaning under their burden of sweet fruit, unconsidered and going to waste, with this starved host scarce a day's journey away. Starved in body, in mind, and in soul! Not for them was the robin's song _they_ scarcely heard; not for them the summer fields or the cool forest shade, the sweet smell of briar and fern. Theirs was poverty and want, and heat and suffering and death--death as the entrance to a life for which the slum had been their only preparation. And such a preparation!

All this the young preacher put in his sermon, and as he saw the love that went out from his own full heart kindling in the eager faces of his listeners, he told them what had been in his mind on many a lonely walk through those fields: that while the flowers and the brook and the trees might not be taken to the great prison-pen where the children were, these might be brought out to enjoy them there. There was no reason why it should not be done, even though it had not been before. If they were poor and friendless and starved, yet there had been One even poorer, more friendless than they. They at least had their slum. He had not where to lay his head. Well they might, in receiving the children into their homes, be entertaining angels unawares. "Inasmuch as ye did it unto even the least of these, ye did it unto Me."

The last hymn had been sung and the congregation had gone home, eagerly discussing their pastor's new scheme; but a little company of men and women remained behind in the church to talk it over with the minister.

They were plain people. The sermon had shown them a plain duty to be done, and they knew only one way: to do it. The dinner-hour found them there yet, planning and talking it over. It was with a light heart that, as a result of their talk, the minister set out for New York the day after with an invitation to the children of the slums to come out in the woods and see how beautiful G.o.d had made his world. They were to be the guests of the people of Sherman for a fortnight, and a warm welcome awaited them there. A right royal one they received when, in a few days, the pastor returned, bringing with him nine little waifs, the poorest and the neediest he had found in the tenements to which he went with his offer.

They were not such children as the farm-folk thereabouts saw every day, but they took them into their homes, and their hearts warmed to them day by day as they saw how much they needed their kindness, how under its influence they grew into bright and happy children like their own; and when, at the end of the two weeks, nine brown-faced laughing boys and girls went back to tell of the wondrous things they had heard and seen, it was only to make room for another little band. Nor has ever a summer pa.s.sed since that first, which witnessed sixty city urchins made happy at Sherman, that has not seen the hospitable houses of the Pennsylvania village opened to receive holiday parties like those from the slums of the far city.

Thus modestly began the Fresh Air movement that has brought health and happiness to more than a hundred thousand of New York's poor children since, and has spread far and near, not only through our own but to foreign lands, wherever there is poverty to relieve and suffering to soothe. It has literally grown up around the enthusiasm and practical purpose of the one man whose personality pervades it to this day. Willard Parsons preaches now to a larger flock than any church could contain, but the burden of his sermon is ever the same. From the _Tribune_ office he issues his appeals each spring, and money comes in abundance to carry on the work in which city and country vie with each other to lend a hand.

After that first season at Sherman, a New York newspaper, the _Evening Post_, took the work under its wing and raised the necessary funds until in 1882 it pa.s.sed into the keeping of its neighbor, the _Tribune_. Ever since it has been known as the _Tribune_ Fresh Air Fund, and year by year has grown in extent and importance until at the end of the year 1891 more than 94,000 children were shown to have been given a two weeks' vacation in the country in the fifteen summers that had pa.s.sed. The original 60 of 1877 had grown to an army of holiday-makers numbering 13,568 in 1891. By this time the hundred thousand mark has long been pa.s.sed. The total amount of money expended in sending the children out was $250,633.88, and so well had the great fund been managed that the average cost per child had fallen from $3.12 in the first year to $2.07 in the last. Generals.h.i.+p, indeed, of the highest order was needed at the headquarters of this army. In that summer there was not a day except Sunday when less than seven companies were sent out from the city. The little knot of children that hung timidly to the skirts of the good minister's coat on that memorable first trip to Pennsylvania had been swelled until special trains, once of as many as eighteen cars, were in demand to carry those who came after.

The plan of the Fresh Air Fund is practically unchanged from the day it was first conceived. The neediest and poorest are made welcome. Be they Protestants, Catholics, Jews, or heathen, it matters not if an invitation is waiting. The supply is governed entirely by the demands that come from the country. Sometimes it is a Catholic community that asks for children of that faith, sometimes prosperous Jews, who would bring sunlight and hope even to Ludlow Street; rarely yet Italians seeking their own. The cry of the missionary, from the slums in the hot July days: "How shall we give those babies the breath of air that means life?--no one asks for Italian children," has not yet been answered. Prejudice dies slowly. When an end has been made of this at last, the Fresh Air Fund will receive a new boom.

To my mind there are no more tractable children than the little Italians, none more grateful for kindness; certainly none more in need of it.

Against colored children there is no prejudice. Sometimes an invitation comes from Ma.s.sachusetts or some other New England State for them, and then the missions and schools of Thompson Street give up their pickaninnies for a gleeful vacation spell. With the first spring days of April a canva.s.s of the country within a radius of five hundred miles of New York has been begun. By the time the local committees send in their returns--so many children wanted in each town or district--the workers from the missions, the King's Daughters' circles, the hospitals, dispensaries, industrial schools, nurseries, kindergartens, and the other gates through which the children's host pours from the tenements, are at work, and the task of getting the little excursionists in shape for their holiday begins.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SUMMER BOARDERS FROM MOTT STREET.]

That is the hardest task of all. Places are found for them readily enough; the money to pay their way is to be had for the asking; but to satisfy the reasonable demand of the country hosts that their little guests shall come clean from their tenement homes costs an effort, how great the workers who go among those homes "with a Bible in one hand and a pair of scissors and a cake of soap in the other" know best. A physician presides over these necessary preliminaries. In the months of July and August he is kept running from church to hospital, from chapel to nursery, inspecting the brigades gathered there and parting the sheep from the goats. With a list of the houses in which the health officers report contagious diseases, he goes through the ranks. Any hailing from such houses--the list is brought up to date every morning--are rejected first. The rest as they pa.s.s in review are numbered 1 and 2 on the register. The No. 1's are ready to go at once if under the age limit of twelve years. They are the sheep, and, alas! few in number. Amid wailing and gnas.h.i.+ng of teeth the cleansing of the goats is then begun. Heads are clipped and faces "planed off."

Sometimes a second and a third inspection still fails to give the child a clean bill of entry. Just what it means is best shown by the following extract from a mission worker's report to Mr. Parsons, last summer, of the condition of her squad of 110, held under marching orders in an up-town chapel:

"All the No. 2's have now been thoroughly oiled, larkspur'd, washed in hot suds, and finally had an application of exterminator. This has all been done in the church to be as sure as possible that they are safe to send away. Ninety have been thus treated." Her experience was typical. Twenty No. 1's in a hundred was the average given by one of the oldest workers in the Fresh Air Service whose field is in the East Side tenements.

But all this is of the past, as are the long braids of many a little girl, sacrificed with tears upon the altar of the coveted holiday, when the procession finally starts for the depot, each happy child carrying a lunch-bag, for often the journey is long, though never wearisome to the little ones. Their chaperon--some student, missionary, teacher, or kind man or woman who, for sweet charity's sake, has taken upon him this arduous duty--awaits them and keeps the account of his charges as squad after squad is dropped at the station to which it is consigned. Sometimes the whole party goes in a lump to a common destination, more frequently the joyous freight is delivered, as the journey progresses, in this valley or that village, where wagons are waiting to receive it and carry it home.

Once there, what wondrous things those little eyes behold, whose horizon was limited till that day, likely enough, by the gloom of the filthy court, or the stony street upon which it gave, with the gutter the boundary line between! The daisies by the roadside, with no sign to warn them "off the gra.s.s," the birds, the pig in its sty, the cow with its bell--each new marvel is hailed with screams of delight. "Sure, heaven can't be no nicer place than this," said a little child from one of the missions who for the first time saw a whole field of daisies; and her fellow-traveller, after watching intently a herd of cows chew the cud asked her host, "Say, mister, do you have to buy gum for all them cows to chew?"

The children sent out by the Fresh Air Fund go as guests always. No penny of it is spent in paying for board. It goes toward paying their way only.

Most of the railroad companies charge only one-fourth of the regular fare for the little picnickers up to the maximum of $3.50; beyond that they carry them without increase within the five hundred mile limit. Last year Mr. Parsons' wards were scattered over the country from the White Mountains in the East to Western Pennsylvania, from the lakes to West Virginia. New Hamps.h.i.+re, Ma.s.sachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia were hosts, and Canada entertained one large party. Ohio and North Carolina were on the list of entertainers, but the way was too long for the children. The largest party that went out comprised eleven hundred little summer boarders.

Does any good result to the children? The physical effect may be summed up in Dr. Daniel's terse statement, after many years of practical interest in the work: "I believe the Fresh Air Fund is the best plaster we have for the unjust social condition of the people." She spoke as a doctor, familiar with the appearance of the children when they went out and when they came back. There are not wanting professional opinions showing most remarkable cures to have resulted from even this brief respite from the slum. The explanation is simple: it was the slum that was the real complaint; with it the cause was removed and improvement came with a bound. As to the moral and educational effect, Mr. Parsons thus answers a clergyman who objected that "it will only make the child discontented with the surroundings where G.o.d placed him:"

"I contend that a great gain has been made if you can only succeed in making the tenement-house child thoroughly discontented with his lot.

There is some hope then of his getting out of it and rising to a higher plane. The new life he sees in the country, the contact with good people, not at arm's length, but in their homes; not at the dinner, feast, or entertainment given to him while the giver stands by and looks _down_ to see how he enjoys it, and remarks on his forlorn appearance; but brought into the family and given a seat at the table, where, as one boy wrote home, 'I can have two pieces of pie if I want, and n.o.body says nothing if I take three pieces of cake;' or, as a little girl reported, where 'We have lots to eat, and so much to eat that we could not tell you how much we get to eat.'

"This is quite a different kind of service, and has resulted in the complete transformation of many a child. It has gone back to its wretchedness, to be sure, but in hundreds of instances about which I have personally known, it has returned with head and heart full of new ways, new ideas of decent living, and has successfully taught the s.h.i.+ftless parents the better way."

The host's side of it is presented by a pastor in Northern New York, whose people had entertained a hundred children: "They have left a rich blessing behind them," he wrote, "and they actually gave more than they received.

They have touched the hearts of the people and opened the fountains of love, sympathy, and charity. The people have read about the importance of benevolence, and have heard many sermons on the beauty of charity; but these have been quickly forgotten. The children have been an object-lesson that will long live in their hearts and minds."

Not least among the blessings of the Fresh Air work has been the drawing closer in a common interest and sympathy of the cla.s.ses that are drifting farther and farther apart so fast, as wealth and poverty both increase with the growth of our great cities. Each year the invitations to the children have come in greater numbers. Each year the fund has grown larger, and as yet no collector has ever been needed or employed. "I can recall no community," says Mr. Parsons, "where hospitality has been given once, but that some children have been invited back the following years."

In at least one instance of which he tells, the farmer's family that nursed a poor consumptive girl back to health and strength did entertain an angel unawares. They were poor themselves in their way, straining every nerve to save enough to pay interest on a mortgage and thus avert the sale of their farm. A wealthy and philanthropic lady, who became interested in the girl after her return from her six weeks' vacation, heard the story of their struggle and saved the farm in the eleventh hour.

What sort of a gap the Fund sometimes bridges over the following instance from its report for 1891 gives a feeble idea of: "Something less than a year ago a boy from this family fell out of an upper-story window and was killed. Later on, a daughter in the same family likewise fell out of a window, sustaining severe injuries, but she is still alive. About this same time a baby came and the father had to quit work and stay at home to see that all was well with the mother. By the time she was well, the father was stricken down with a fever. On his recovery he went to hunt another job. On the first day at work a brick fell off a scaffold and fractured his skull. That night the _Tribune_ Fresh Air Fund came to the rescue and relieved the almost distracted mother by sending four of her children to the country for two weeks. The little ones made so many good friends that the family is now well provided for."

From Mr. Parsons' record of "cases" that have multiplied in fifteen years until they would fill more than one stout volume, this one is taken as a specimen brick:

In the earlier days of the work a bright boy of ten was one of a company invited to Schoharie County, N. Y. He endeared himself so thoroughly to his entertainers, who "live in a white house with green blinds and Christmas-trees all around it," that they asked and received permission to keep the lad permanently. The following is an exact copy of a part of the letter he wrote home after he had been for a few months in his new home:

DEAR MOTHER: i am still to Mrs. D---- and i was so Busy that i Could not Write Sooner i drive the horses and put up the Cows and clean out the Cow Stable i am all well i pick stones and i have an apple tree 6 Feet High and i have got a pair of new pants and a new Coat and a pair of Suspenders and Mr. D---- is getting a pair of New Boots made for me We killed one pig and one Cow i am going to plow a little piece of land and plant Some Corn. When Mr. D---- killed the Cow i helped and Mr. D----had to take the Cow skin to be taned to make leather and Mr. D---- gave the man Cow skin for leather to make me Boots i am going to school to-morrow and I want to tell lizzie--pauline--Charlie--Christie--maggie--george and you to all write to me and if they all do when Christmas Comes i will send all of you something nice if my uncle frank comes to see yous you must tell him to write to me i Close my letter

From your oldest son A----.

A year after that time the mother died. Some time afterward an uncle began writing for the lad to come back to the city--he coveted his small earnings. But the little fellow had sense enough to see that he was better off where he was. Finally the uncle went after the boy, and told him his brother was dying in the hospital, and was calling constantly for him.

Under such circ.u.mstances his foster parents readily gave him permission to return with the uncle for a visit. Before they reached the city the uncle told him he should never go back. He sent him to work at Eleventh Avenue and Twenty-ninth Street, in a workroom situated in the cellar, and his bedroom, like those in most tenement houses, had no outside window. The third day he was sent up-stairs on an errand, and as soon as he saw the open door he bolted. He remembered that a car that pa.s.sed Fourth Street and Avenue C would take him to the People's Line for Albany. He ran with all his might to Fourth Street, and then followed the car-tracks till he saw on the large flag "People's Line." He told part of his story to the clerk, and finally added, "I am one of Mr. Parsons' Fresh-Air boys and I have got to go to Albany." That settled the matter, and the clerk readily gave him a pa.s.s. A gentleman standing by gave him a quarter for his supper. He held on to his appet.i.te as well as his quarter, and in the morning laid his twenty-five cents before the ticket agent at Albany, and called for a ticket to R----, a small place fifty miles distant. He got the ticket. After a few miles' walk from R---- he reached his new home safely, and there he proposed to stay. He said he would take to the woods if his uncle came after him again. This happened ten years ago.

About a year ago a letter came from the young fellow. He is now an active Christian, married, and worth property, and expects in a few years to have his farm all paid for.

A hundred benevolent enterprises have cl.u.s.tered about the Fresh Air Fund as the years have pa.s.sed, patterning after it and accepting help from it to carry out their own plans. Churches provide excursions for their poor children and the Fund pays the way. Vacations for working girls, otherwise out of reach, are made attainable by its intervention. An independent feature is the _Tribune_ Day Excursion that last summer gave nearly thirty thousand poor persons, young and old, a holiday at a beautiful grove on the Hudson, with music and milk to their hearts' desire. The expense was borne by a wealthy citizen of this city, who gave boats, groves, and entertainment free of charge, stipulating only that his name should not be disclosed.

Other cities have followed the example of New York. Boston and Philadelphia have their "Country Week," fas.h.i.+oned after the Fresh Air Fund idea. Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and other cities clear to San Francisco have sent committees to examine its workings, and deputations have come from Canada, from London and Manchester, where the holiday work is doing untold good and is counted among the most useful of philanthropic efforts. German, Austrian, and Italian cities have fallen into line, and the movement has spread even to the Sandwich Islands. Yet this great work, as far as New York, where it had its origin, is concerned, has never had organization or staff of officers of any sort. Three well-known citizens audit Mr. Parsons' accounts once a year. The rest he manages and always has managed himself. "The const.i.tution and by-laws," he says, drily, "are made and amended from day to day as required, and have yet to be written."

The Fresh Air Fund rests firmly upon a stronger foundation than any human law or enactment. Its charter was written in the last commandment that is the sum of all the rest: "That ye love one another."