We once visited the Children’s Hospital connected with the Alms-house of New York, and the spectacles we there witnessed were even more touching than those connected with the Old Brewery. The entire building (which is on Blackwell’s Island) contained over one hundred children, about one-half of whom were so ill as to be confined to their beds, and it is the room where these were harbored to which we now allude. The beds were arranged along the walls, about three feet apart, and each end of every bed or cot was occupied by a sick child. The majority of them were motherless and fatherless, and entirely dependent upon strangers for those kind and delicate attentions which commonly smooth the pathway to the grave. Some of them were the offspring of intemperate parents, now confined in the State Prison; while many of them had not even inherited a name. Not one of the whole number but presented a feeble and haggard appearance, and the pains of many were intense, for their mingled moans actually fills the room with a heart-sickening chorus. One poor little thing, about three years of age, was sitting in its bed, eating a dry crust of bread, to satisfy a morbid appetite, and the disease which preyed upon the vitals of this child was consumption in its most ghastly form. Hollow and wrinkled were its cheeks, eyes large and deeply sunken, and, while looked upon, hot tears trickled upon its pillow. In the same bed was another of these unhappy children, dying from the terrible malady of scrofula. It had been a cripple from its birth, and could hardly be recognized as a human being. We caught a glimpse of the creature’s countenance as it slumbered, and was positively startled by its surpassing beauty. It was as bright and spiritual as the light of a star. It was certain, however, that death had marked it for the grave, and we remembered the poet’s words:—
“The good die first,
And they, whose hearts are dry as summer dust,
Burn to the socket.”
Wordsworth.
This deformed but yet lovely fragment of humanity had been picked up as a foundling, and was without a name. Another child which attracted my attention, though only about twelve years of age, had the appearance of being thirty. She had been brought from an emigrant ship, suffering with fever associated with bronchitis. She had a finely developed head, a beautiful and highly intellectual face, but it was deeply marked with the lines of suffering, and her cheeks were flushed with the hue of approaching death. She was also troubled with a hollow cough, and her body was a mere skeleton. The attending physician patted her upon the head and asked her how she felt to-day; when she looked up with a smile, “made of all sweet accord,” and answered: “I am going to die, doctor. Tell them to have my coffin ready; and, dear doctor, will they not bury me by the side of my mother and little sister, in that place you call Potter’s Field?” Who now can ask the question: “And wherefore do the poor complain?”
Four Irishmen, all afflicted with the ship fever, had landed from an emigrant ship in the city of New York. The party consisted of a father and three sons. They were friendless and without money. In the company of three hundred beings, as miserable as themselves, had they landed in the city, and, in the confusion attendant upon the discharge of the ship, it so happened that they were separated, and the father knew not the fate of the sons, nor the sons the fate of the father.
A number of weeks elapsed, when the elder brother of this family called upon the commissioner of the almshouse, praying for assistance that he might find his relatives, if yet in the land of the living. The story that he told of his own sufferings since his arrival was most melancholy; for he had been living the life of a sick vagrant, in and about the Tombs. The commissioner took pity upon him and gave him all the assistance he desired, and the pauper, with a guide, started upon the hunting expedition. The first place they visited was the New York Hospital, where it was ascertained the second brother had died of the loathsome ship fever, and whence his remains had been taken to Potter’s Field. They next went to the Bellevue Hospital, and heard precisely the same story with regard to the third brother. They also visited the Lunatic Asylum, where it was ascertained that the father had been confined as a raving maniac, but had paid the debt of nature, and was now a resider in the city of the dead. As to the feelings of the forlorn man, who had thus been stripped of every tie which bound him to the earth, I cannot attempt to describe them. His only prayer was that one little spot of earth might be granted to him, where he might rebury his dead relatives, provided their bodies could be recognized, and where his own ashes might be deposited after his race was run. The commissioner promised to do all in his power to bring out this result, and in less than one week the pauper’s prayer was answered!
It was an emigrant ship, and when boarded by a New York pilot he was informed that she had left England with two hundred poverty-stricken passengers, some twenty-five of whom had died on the passage, and been buried in the deep. Among the departed were a father and mother, who had left behind them a little girl nine years old. Desolate indeed was her lot before she became an orphan; but when the “silver cord” which bound her to her parents was broken, her condition became more deplorable than ever; and, as the ship glided into the noble bay of New York, the child was also numbered with the dead—none knowing whence she came, none knowing even her baptismal name.
In due time the ship was safely moored, and, while the usual discharging bustle was going on, an almshouse coffin was sent for, into which the pauper child was placed (with her ragged clothes carefully tucked round her body), and then given into the charge of the alms-house sextons. Not one tear was shed as they mounted the hearse, and not one word of regret or sorrow was uttered by the multitude around as the sextons started for Potter’s Field.