A great obstacle in our own particular experience was, as was stated before, the superstitious opposition of the poor. This is undoubtedly cultivated by the priests, who seem seldom gifted with the broad spirit of humanity of their brethren in Europe. They apparently desire to keep the miserable masses here under their personal influence.
Our action, however, in regard to these waifs, has always been fair and open. We know no sect or race. Both Catholic and Protestant homes were offered freely to the children. No child's creed was interfered with. On the committees themselves in the Western villages have frequently been Roman Catholics. Notwithstanding this, the cry of "proselytizing" is still kept up among the guides of the poor against this most humane scheme, and continually checks our influence for good with the younger children, and ultimately will probably diminish to a great degree the useful results we might accomplish in this direction.
The experience we have thus had for twenty years in transferring such masses of poor children to rural districts is very instructive on the general subject of "Emigration as a cure for Pauperism."
CHAPTER XXI.
RESULTS AND FACTS OF EMIGRATION TO THE WEST.
OUR FIRST EMIGRANT PARTY. (FROM OUR JOURNAL.)
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BY A VISITOR.
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"On Wednesday evening, with emigrant [Since this first experience, we have always sent our children by regular trains, in decent style.] tickets to Detroit, we started on the Isaac Newton for Albany. Nine of our company, who missed the boat, were sent up by the morning cars, and joined us in Albany, making forty-six boys and girls from New York, bound westward, and, to them, homeward. They were between the ages of seven and fifteen—most of them from ten to twelve. The majority of them orphans, dressed in uniform—as bright, sharp, bold, racy a crowd of little fellows as can be grown nowhere out of the streets of New York. The other ten were from New York at large—no number or street in particular. Two of these had slept in nearly all the station-houses in the city. One, a keen-eyed American boy, was born in Chicago—an orphan now, and abandoned in New York by an intemperate brother. Another, a little German Jew, who had been entirely friendless for four years, and had finally found his way into the Newsboys' Lodging-house. Dick and Jack were brothers of Sarah, whom we sent to Connecticut. Their father is intemperate; mother died at Bellevue Hospital three weeks since; and an older brother has just been sentenced to Sing Sing Prison. Their father, a very sensible man when sober, begged me to take the boys along, 'for I am sure, sir, if left in New York, they will come to the same bad end as their brother.' We took them to a shoe-shop. Little Jack made awkward work in trying on a pair. 'He don't know them, sir; there's not been a cover to his feet for three winters.'
"Another of the ten, whom the boys call 'Liverpool,' defies description. Mr. Gerry found him in the Fourth Ward, a few hours before we left. Really only twelve years old, but in dress a seedy loafer of forty. His boots, and coat, and pants would have held two such boys easily—filthy and ragged to the last thread. Under Mr. Tracy's hands, at the Lodging-house, 'Liverpool' was soon remodeled into a boy again; and when he came on board the boat with his new suit, I did not know him. His story interested us all, and was told with a quiet, sad reserve, that made us believe him truthful. A friendless orphan in the streets of Liverpool, he heard of America, and determined to come, and after long search found a captain who shipped him as cabin-boy. Landed in New York, 'Liverpool' found his street condition somewhat bettered. Here he got occasional odd jobs about the docks, found a pretty tight box to sleep in, and now and then the sailors gave him a cast-off garment, which he wrapped and tied about him, till he looked like a walking rag-bundle when Mr. G. found him.
"As we steamed off from the wharf, the boys gave three cheers for New York, and three more for 'Michigan.' All seemed as careless at leaving home forever, as if they were on a target excursion to Hoboken.