White Slaves; or, the Oppression of the Worthy Poor

by Louis Albert Banks

XI.

COMMENT ON "OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS, THE BOSTON PAUPERS".

"There is no caste in blood,
Which runneth of one hue, nor caste in tears,
Which trickled salt with all."

Mrs. Alice N. Lincoln, who has given a large amount of time and painstaking interest to the treatment of the paupers, and who deserves more credit than any one else for the present hopeful campaign in their behalf, writes as follows in the Boston Transcript of August 28:—

"Those of your readers who were kind enough to follow in your columns, last winter, the articles for which you courteously made space there concerning the poor of Boston, will, I think, be interested to know what has since been done for the islands, and why so much controversy is aroused by the sermon of Dr. Banks on the paupers.

"Early in the spring two new commissioners were appointed. It was hoped that this change in the board would bring about good results, but, in point of fact, matters remained much the same. The appropriation for a new hospital, though made months ago, was not acted upon until this week, when bids for the building were opened."

[Illustration: WOMEN'S HOSPITAL WARD AT LONG ISLAND.] [Footnote: This is the best hospital ward on the two islands. Screen shown on the right, behind which is a dying woman.]

"On August 5, I had the honor to lay before the commissioners eight requests on behalf of the inmates of the island, as follows:—

1. More occupation for the able-bodied.

2. More comfortable chairs for the aged women, who are obliged to rise at 5:30 A.M., and are not allowed to lie down without permission.

3. More benches out of doors for the benefit of the inmates.

4. A separate room for the dying (it having been urged by both the physician and superintendent that the cries of dying patients often disturbed a whole ward for several nights).

5. More privacy for women in bathing (and it will, perhaps, shock your readers, as it did the writer, that one of the commissioners affirmed and repeated that he did not consider this necessary).

6. Another nurse at Long Island, where Miss O'Brian has charge of fifty-two sick women and where there is no bath-room.

7. Another nurse at the Main Institution Building on Rainsford Island, where the laundry-matron has charge of forty-two sick women in addition to her other duties, and with no assistance except what is given her by inmates.

8. A new matron for the hospital. My reason for making this last request is that I believe the present matron to be inefficient. She has had no previous hospital training to fit her for her duties, and certainly the hospital and its patients, when I last saw them, bore evidences of neglect. The beds were not clean, and the patients showed a lack of personal cleanliness and care. When I first visited the hospital the floors were dirty and the closets were unwashed, but there has been an improvement in those respects. I was present when dinner was served to thirty patients in one ward—or, indeed, to seventy inmates of the hospital—and the matron took no charge of the food, which was put before the patients in a most uninviting manner—a great contrast to the neat wooden trays which are in use at Tewksbury. Moreover, I discerned a want of interest in the patients, to which the matron herself bore testimony when she said that she never washed a wound, and was engaged as a matron—not as a nurse.

"These, then, were the grounds upon which I asked for the appointment of another nurse or matron, and fortunately one has applied for the position entirely without my knowledge or solicitation. One of the commissioners doubted whether a trained hospital emergency nurse could be found to go to the islands; but this offer seems to set that question at rest, and it is to be hoped her application may be considered favorably.

"I also had the honor to lay before the commissioners the report of one of my former tenants, who was an inmate of Rainsford Island a little more than a year ago.

"She was a young woman who went down there because of a lump in her breast, taking her baby with her. But for the baby she would have been admitted to the City Hospital: but she did not like to leave her child, and her husband, who was absent, was unable to care for it. Consequently, she became for the time an inmate of the Rainsford Island Hospital.

"She complained first of the indignity of having to strip in the presence of others, no screen or curtain being provided as a shelter to the necessary bath, which is the first step on entrance to an institution.

"During her stay of three weeks she had no towel given to her, and only one clean sheet was furnished.

"She was expected to cook all the food for her baby, and to make and clean her own bed, although she was partly incapacitated by the lump in her breast, which affected one arm.

"The food was very poor and unsatisfactory; and when she complained that the porridge was sour, the matron told her if she did not like it she could leave it.

"Worse than all, her baby fell ill on a Wednesday; she could obtain no medicine for it until Sunday (though she asked for it repeatedly), and on Monday the baby died.

"The mother left the institution the next day. She speaks in the highest terms of the physician in charge and of the assistant, Miss McDonald, at Rainsford Island; but she says the matron never did anything for her and was not with her when the baby died; also, that the milk and other food ordered for the patients is often not received by them. And in this respect her statement is corroborated by the remarks of another woman, also my tenant, who was an inmate of Long Island when it was first opened for women several years ago. This woman told me, with bated breath, that the food was miserable—it was killing her; and, indeed, she died soon after, though I think grief hastened her end."

[Illustration: GETTING A BREATH OF FRESH AIR.]

"It is because I have seen these people in their own homes that I feel such sympathy for them as paupers. They have known the comfort and independence of their own surroundings, and if by reason of old age or sickness—through no fault of their own—they become paupers, they should at least be treated with clue consideration and nursed with all tenderness. I am entering no plea for the lazy and idle and intemperate class who seek the refuge of an almshouse, and for whom, as Dr. Banks says, the work-house is the proper place; but I do say that old or sick people, even if paupers, are entitled to the very best care. We do not begrudge it to them in our City Hospital or our State almshouse; therefore, why is it too much to require it of the city of Boston's pauper hospitals?

"No wonder that an attack such as has been made by Dr. Banks meets with violent opposition and denial. He is attacking institutions whose officials depend for their bread and butter on the positions which they fill. But Dr. Banks and I have no 'axe to grind,' and he is only stating the truth when he says that the pauper institutions at Rainsford Island are overcrowded (so overcrowded that nearly fifty old women sleep in a close and stifling attic, under the roof), and that the fare, especially for the old and sick, is not what it should be."

The Boston Herald of August 30 begins an exhaustive article, more than five columns long, by saying:—

"For some time there has been an earnest and vigorous agitation going on regarding the management and condition of Boston's pauper institutions at Long and Rainsford Islands. Heretofore this agitation has been out of the sight of the general public, with the exception of a few letters which have appeared from time to time in the papers; consequently, the sermon of Rev. Louis Albert Banks last Sunday on the subject came like a revelation to many.

"The Herald had been making a thorough investigation of the charges brought, previous to Mr. Banks' utterances, and this has been continued up to the present time, in order that the people of Boston may know accurately and to the fullest the precise condition of its pauper institutions and their inmates. As a result of that investigation, it may be boldly said that the criticisms which have been made public do not give an adequate idea of the disgraceful condition in which the institutions are at present, nor the treatment which the paupers receive and under which they exist rather than live.

"This statement is a strong one, but it can be borne out by facts which are indisputable."

In the course of this long article, which fully sustains all statements set forth in my discourse, the Herald reporter, commenting on the crowded condition of the buildings on Rainsford Island, says:—

"It is in the main building at Rainsford that the greatest lack of even decent surroundings prevails, and where the condition of the inmates is the worst. Here the fault seems to lie not only with the commissioners, but with the matrons in charge, for there is no system discernible in the housekeeping arrangements whatever. The infirmary is occupied by those women who are not able to get about; and the rooms composing that part of the building are pleasant and airy of themselves, but they are spoiled by their keeping. There is no classification of inmates, and old and young are all together, as well as the vicious and the unfortunate.

"Another classification which might be made was suggested by the presence of two women who were so unfortunate as to be afflicted in such a manner that the whole air of the room was contaminated on their account. This was through no fault of their own, and they should not be made to suffer for it; but it seems hardly fair that all the other women should be compelled to breathe the air made foul by their presence. Add to this detriment to health and decent living the bad sanitary arrangements, and the result is, indeed, open to criticism.

"This building is so old and antiquated that it originally had no place provided inside for water-closets and bath-rooms. In putting these in they were built directly in the corners of the rooms; and these corners were then partitioned off, but for some unknown reason the partitions were not continued up to the ceilings, the result being that the closets were practically left in the room and a screen put around. Owing to the fact that there is no water on the island, it all being brought in tanks by steamer, there is not that abundance used in flushing out the bowls which otherwise might be the case, and which would go so far toward removing the horrible odor which is so prevalent in every part of the building. Aside from the discomfort in being obliged to smell this odor continually, the danger to the health of the inmates is a serious thing.

"Throughout the wards in this building there is considerable overcrowding, although not to the extent that is to be seen in another part. The beds are all cared for by the women themselves, and conversation with the matron showed that there was a regular time for changing the bed linen, although that time was not the same in any two rooms, and the writer, after continued questioning and asking for explanation, failed to discover that there was any regularity whatever about it.

"A few beds were taken at random and stripped to see their condition. Invariably the sheets were dirty, very dirty; but this was explained by one of the inmates who was in charge of this ward by the statement that it was time they were changed, according to their usual practice, but for some reason, not given, it had not been done this week. On nearly all the sheets were plainly seen the marks of dead bed-bugs and other vermin, some of it dried on and looking as though it had been there for a long time."

[Illustration: ATTIC AT RAINSFORD ISLAND.]

[Footnote: Cut shows one wing. Another crosses it at right angles and is partly occupied. Thirty women occupy this room, allowing about 320 cubic feet of air-space per person. The only ventilation is through windows jutting out on the roof, each one being 2 feet 10 inches by 4 feet 8 inches in size.]

"It is in the attic of the main building, however, that one should go to realize some of Dickens' pictures of pauper life, for there is a picture here that needs no exaggeration to make it appear on a par with those in fiction. In this attic live the older women, and they pass their sleeping hours and many of their waking ones under the eaves of this old house.

"Throughout this attic the peak is so low that it can be touched by the hand of a man of ordinary height while standing, and the roof pitches until it comes to within two feet of the floor. Under the caves here are placed the beds of these old women, their heads close under the roof, and extending in a line down the length of the building.

"The width of this attic is eighteen feet, and its length is that of the building; but it is divided up into several apartments. In one of these apartments were thirty beds, all occupied at night. The total air-space of this room allowed about three hundred and twenty cubic feet to each person, where a thousand are considered necessary with good ventilation, according to Mr. Commissioner Newell. The only light and ventilation that this attic gets is through a few small windows let into the roof, not large enough to furnish ventilation for rooms which are not overcrowded, and certainly not large enough to purify rooms where the air is made foul by being breathed by at least three times too many persons.

"Moreover, these old women are required to rise every morning at 5:00 o'clock, and are compelled to remain up until 8 o'clock in the evening. They are not allowed to lie down during the day without a special permit from the doctor, as, they say, it would cause disorder. This permit lie says he is always willing to grant, but they seldom come for it. This seems perfectly natural, as one hardly can expect that the old women would take pains to hunt up the doctor every time they wanted to take a short nap.

"Not only are they not allowed to lie down for a nap without this special permit, but comfortable chairs are not furnished them. By each bed is a single ordinary wooden chair of the cheapest kind, and this is allotted to the one occupying the bed. Now and then a rocking-chair may be seen, but they are few and far between."

[Illustration: MARINERS' HOME.]

"Some time ago a benevolent and kind-hearted lady visiting the island was struck with this lack of comfort, and sent to the institution a number of rocking-chairs for use in the old women's ward. They arrived on July 16, but an active search for them failed to disclose their whereabouts. It was plain that the women for whom they were intended were not getting the benefit of them, and inquiry was made. Nobody seemed to know where they were. Several believed that something of the kind had been sent down, but knew nothing more. Finally, after an energetic search by Dr. Harkins, the chairs were discovered in a store-house, or paint-shop, where they had been put when they lauded on the wharf so long ago. Two days later these chairs had been taken out and placed in the wards, and there were two hundred women eager for the six comfortable rockers.

"Another criticism which might be made is that the paupers are provided with no regular religious service. At Deer Island there is a paid chaplain, and although his duties do not call him to the almshouse, he sometimes goes over. There is a large room called the chapel, and here religious services are held when there is any one to lead them. A Catholic priest goes down twice a week to minister to the wants of the Catholics, who are in the majority; something like ninety-five per cent being of that persuasion. The fact remains, however, that the city of Boston does not give its paupers the benefit of any religious service or guidance. As was said by one lady on hearing the facts: 'In the eyes of the city it is a greater crime to be a pauper than a criminal.'"

Rev. Dr. Frederick B. Allen, of the Episcopal City Mission of Boston, writing in the Herald of August 31, says:—

"In the management of human beings, especially the aged, the infirm, the insane, and the sick, there is needed a wise and tender consideration which sheer business management is apt to miss.

"The sociological problems of pauperism and crime, the study of successful methods in other cities and other lands, the deep sense of the sacredness of our humanity, even in its weakest and most unfortunate members,—these make their demand for the aid of men and women to whom these questions of human life and death are at least as controlling as the reduction of the city tax rate.

"Were there any such board of advisers to do in our city institutions what the State Charities Aid Society has done for New York State, we should not have been confronted, as we now are, with poorly planned, inadequate, and badly managed buildings, lack of discrimination in those permitted to occupy them, insufficient and untrained nurses for the sick, lack of proper ventilation and food, and everywhere the absence of devoted personal, human, moral oversight and control.

"I second most positively Dr. Banks' assertion that 'an advisory board of leading citizens, on which are three or four level-headed and humane women, would work the revolution that is needed in the treatment of" our brothers and sisters, the Boston paupers."'"