There is a family of four boys, all orphans, whom their friends could do nothing with, and turned into the streets. They lived by petty stealing, and slept in hay-lofts in winter, and on stoops or in coal-boxes in summer. Since they came to the meeting they have all gone to work; they attend Public School, and come regularly to evening meeting. They used to be in rags and filth, but now are clean and well dressed. Their uncle came to me and said the meeting had done them more good than all their friends together."—(Mr. Slater's Report.)
"Yesterday, Mr. Slater brought a thin, sad boy to us—had found him in the streets and heard his story, and then gave him a breakfast, and led him up to our office. The lad seemed like one weary almost of living. 'Where are your father and mother, my boy?' 'Both dead, sir.' 'Where are your other relatives or friends?' 'Hain't got no friends, sir; I've lived by myself on the street.' 'Where did you stay?' 'I slept in the privy sometime, sir; and then in the stables in Sixteenth Street.' 'Poor fellow,' said some one, 'how did you get your living?' 'Begged it—and then, them stable-men, they give me bread sometimes.' 'Have you ever been to school, or Sunday School?' 'No, sir.' So the sad story went on. Within two blocks of our richest houses, a desolate boy grows up, not merely out of Christianity and out of education, but out of a common human shelter, and of means of livelihood.
"The vermin were creeping over him as he spoke. A few days before this, Mr. S. had brought up three thorough-going street-boys—active, bold, impudent, smart fellows—a great deal more wicked and much less miserable than this poor fellow. Those three were sent to Ohio together, and this last boy, after a thorough washing and cleansing, was to be dispatched to Illinois. A later note adds: 'The lad was taken by an old gentleman of property, who, being childless, has since adopted the boy as his own, and will make him heir to a property.'"
Several other lads were helped to an honest livelihood. A Visitor was then appointed, who lived and worked in the quarter. But our moral treatment for this nest of crime had only commenced.
We appealed to the public for aid to establish the reforming agencies which alone can cure these evils, and whose foundation depends mainly on the liberality, in money, of our citizens. We warned them that these children, if not instructed, would inevitably grow up as ruffians. We said often that they would not be like the stupid foreign criminal class, but that their crimes, when they came to maturity, would show the recklessness, daring, and intensity of the American character. In our very first report (for 1854) we said:—
"It should be remembered that there are no dangers to the value of property, or to the permanency of our institutions, so great as those from the existence of such a class of vagabond, ignorant, ungoverned children. This 'dangerous class' has not begun to show itself, as it will in eight or ten years, when these boys and girls are matured. Those who were too negligent, or too selfish to notice them as children, will be fully aware of them as men. They will vote—they will have the same rights as we ourselves, though they have grown up ignorant of moral principle, as any savage or Indian. They will poison society. They will perhaps be embittered at the wealth and the luxuries they never share. Then let society beware, when the outcast, vicious, reckless multitude of New York boys, swarming now in every foul alley and low street, come to know their power and use it!
Again, in 1857, we said:—
"Why should the 'street-rat,' as the police call him—the boy whose home in sweet childhood was a box or a deserted cellar; whose food was crumbs begged or bread stolen; whose influences of education were kicks and cuffs, curses, neglect, destitution and cold; who never had a friend, who never heard of duty either to society or God—why should he feel himself under any of the restraints of civilization or of Christianity? Why should he be anything but a garroter and thief?"
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"Is not this crop of thieves and burglars, of shoulder-hitters and short-boys, of prostitutes and vagrants, of garroters and murderers, the very fruit to be expected from this seed, so long being sown? What else was to be looked for? Society hurried on selfishly for its wealth, and left this vast class in its misery and temptation. Now these children arise and wrest back, with bloody and criminal hands, what the world were too careless or too selfish to give. The worldliness of the rich, the indifference of all classes to the poor, will always be avenged. Society must act on the highest principles, or its punishment incessantly comes within itself. The neglect of the poor, and tempted, and criminal, is fearfully repaid." (Pp. 5, 6.)