"We give our evidence below, consisting of letters from prominent gentlemen, clergymen, bankers, farmers, judges, and lawyers, through the West, where the main body of these poor children have been placed. We think these letters, coming from some hundred different towns, and the evidence on our books from the boys themselves, establish the remarkable success of the work. Some of the writers speak of the children as thriving 'as well as any other children;' and, in some cases, those who have become disobedient and troublesome are said to have been so principally through the fault of their employers; few instances, comparatively, from this four or five thousand, are known to have committed criminal offenses—in some States not more than four per cent. This is true of Michigan; and in Ohio, we do not think, from all the returns we can gather, that the proportion is even so large as that. The agent of the American and Foreign Christian Union for Indiana, a gentleman of the highest respectability, constantly traveling through the State—a State where we have placed five hundred and fifty-seven children—testifies that 'very few have gone back to New York,' and that 'he has heard of no one who has committed criminal offenses.'
"The superintendent of the Chicago Reform School, one of the most successful and experienced men in this country in juvenile reform, states that his institution had never had but three of our children committed by the Illinois State Courts, though we have sent to the State two hundred and sixty-five, and such an institution is, of course, the place where criminal children of this class would at once be committed.
"A prominent gentleman residing in Battle Creek, Michigan, in the neighborhood of which we have put out about one hundred and twenty, writes: 'I think it is susceptible of proof that no equal number of children raised here are superior to those you have placed out.' Two prominent gentlemen from Pennsylvania, one of them a leading judge in the State, write that they have not known an instance of one of our children being imprisoned for a criminal offense, though we have sent four hundred and sixty-nine to this State."
These important results were obtained in 1859, with but four or five thousand children settled in the West. We have now in various portions of our country between twenty and twenty-four thousand who have been placed in homes or provided with work.
The general results are similar. The boys and girls who were sent out when under fourteen are often heard from, and succeed remarkably well. In hundreds of instances, they cannot be distinguished from the young men and women natives in the villages. Large numbers have farms of their own, and are prospering reasonably well in the world. Some are in the professions, some are mechanics or shopkeepers; the girls are generally well married. Quite a number have sent donations to the Society, and some have again in their turn brought up poor children. It was estimated that more than a thousand were in the national army in the civil war. With them the experiment of "Emigration" has been an unmingled blessing. With the larger boys, as we stated before, exact results are more difficult to attain, as they leave their places frequently. Some few seem to drift into the Western cities, and take up street-trades again. Very few, indeed, get back to New York. The great mass become honest producers on the Western soil instead of burdens or pests here, and are absorbed into that active, busy population; not probably becoming saints-on-earth, but not certainly preying on the community, or living idlers on the alms of the public. Many we know who have also led out their whole family from the house of poverty here, and have made the last years of an old father or mother easier and more comfortable.
[Illustration: THE STREET BOY ON A FARM. (A year later.) NO. 2.]
The immense, practically unlimited demand by Western communities for the services of these children shows that the first-comers have at least done moderately well, especially as every case of crime is bruited over a wide country-side, and stamps the whole company sent with disgrace. These cases we always hear of. The lives of poor children in these homes seem like the annals of great States in this, that, when they make no report and pass in silence, then we may be sure happiness and virtue are the rule. When they make a noise, crime and misery prevail. Twenty years' virtuous life in a street-boy makes no impression on the public. A single offense is heard for hundreds of miles. A theft of one lad is imputed to scores of others about him.
The children are not indentured, but are free to leave, if ill-treated or dissatisfied; and the farmers can dismiss them, if they find them useless or otherwise unsuitable.
This apparently loose arrangement has worked well, and put both sides on their good behavior. We have seldom had any cases brought to our attention of ill-treatment. The main complaint is, that the older lads change places often. This is an unavoidable result of a prosperous condition of the laboring classes. The employers, however, are ingenious, and succeed often, by little presents of a calf, or pony, or lamb, or a small piece of land, in giving the child a permanent interest in the family and the farm.
On the whole, if the warm discussion between the "Asylum-interest" and the "Emigration-party" were ever renewed, probably both would agree (if they were candid) that their opponents' plan had virtues which they did not then see. There are some children so perverse, and inheriting such bad tendencies, and so stamped with the traits of a vagabond life, that a Reformatory is the best place for them. On the other hand, the majority of orphan, deserted, and neglected boys and girls are far better in a country home. The Asylum has its great dangers, and is very expensive. The Emigration-plan must be conducted with careful judgment, and applied, so far as is practicable, to children under, say, the age of fourteen years. Both plans have defects, but, of the two, the latter seems to us still to do the most good at the least cost.