The effects of these Meetings were exemplified by many striking changes of character, and instances of resistance to temptation among the lads, which greatly encouraged us.
The building seemed so admirably adapted to our work, that, emboldened by our success with the Eighteenth-street House, we determined to try to purchase it. Two of our Trustees took the matter in hand. One had already, in the most generous manner, given one-third of the amount required for the purchase of that building; but now he offered what was still more—his personal efforts towards raising the amount needed here, $18,000.
No such disagreeable and self-denying work is ever done, as begging money. The feeling that you are boring others, and getting from their personal regard, what ought to be given solely for public motives, and the certainty that others will apply to you as you apply to them, and expect a subscription as a personal return, are all great "crosses." The cold rebuff, too; the suspicious negative, as if you were engaged in rather doubtful business, are other unpleasant accompaniments of this business. And yet it ought to be regarded simply and solely as an unpleasant public duty. Money must be given, or refused, merely from public considerations. The giving to one charity should never leave an obligation that your petitioner must give to another. These few gentlemen in the city, of means and position, who do this unpleasant work, deserve the gratitude of the community.
No other city in the world, we believe, makes such liberal gifts from its means, as does New York towards all kinds of charitable and religious objects. There is a certain band of wealthy men who give in a proportion almost never known in the history of benefactions. We know one gentleman of large income who habitually, as we understand from good authority, bestows, in every kind of charitable and religious donations, $300,000 a year! As a general rule, however, the very rich in New York give very little. Our own charity has been mainly supported by the gifts of the middle and poorer classes.
In this particular case, the trustee of whom we have spoken threw that enormous energy which has already made him, though a young man, one of the foremost business men of the city, into this labor. With him was associated a refined gentleman, who could reach many with invested wealth. Under this combination we soon raised the required sum, and all had the profound satisfaction of seeing a temporary "Home for Homeless Boys" placed in one of the worst quarters of the city, to scatter its benefactions for future years, when we are all gone.
During the past year, a still more beautiful feature has been added to this Lodging-house. We had occasion to put up in the rear a little building for bathrooms. It occurred to some gentlemen who are always devising pleasant things for these poor children, that a green-house upon this, opening into the school-room, would be a very agreeable feature, and that our superintendent's love for flowers could thus be used in the most practical way for giving pleasure to great numbers of poor children. A pretty conservatory, accordingly, was erected on the top of the bath-room, opening into the audience-room, so that the little street-waifs, as they looked up from their desks, had a vista of flowers before them. Hither, also, were invited the mothers of the children in the Day-school to occasional parties or exhibitions; and here the plants were shown which had been intrusted to them.
The room is one of the most attractive schoolrooms in the city, and I have no doubt its beautiful flowers are one cause of the great numbers of poor children which flock to it, while the influence of its earnest teachers, and of the whole instrumentality, has been to improve the character of the neighboring quarter.
FOUR YEARS' WORK AT THE RIVINGTON-STREET LODGING-HOUSE.
(1868, 1869, 1870, 1871)
Number of different boys provided for……. 2,659
Number of lodgings furnished……………. 80,344
Number of meals furnished………………. 78,756
Number of boys sent West……………….. 161
Number of boys provided with employment….. 105
Number of boys restored to friends………. 126
Number of boys patronizing the savings-bank. 310
Amount saved by the boys………………..$ 2,873.00
Total expenses………………………… 26,018.10
Amount paid by the boys………………… 8,614.63