The southern portion is occupied by the “House of Refuge,” which is under the control of the “Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents.” The buildings are of brick, and are constructed in the Italian style. They have a frontage of nearly 1000 feet, and were constructed at a cost of about $500,000. They constitute one of the handsomest public institutions in the city. The main buildings contain 886 dormitories, several spacious and fully furnished school rooms, a handsome chapel, which will seat 1000 persons, the kitchens, hospital, and officers’ quarters. The average number of inmates is about 700 boys and 150 girls. Every child is compelled to labor from six to eight hours every day in the week, and to attend school from four to five hours. The inmates consist of such juvenile offenders against the law as the courts commit to the Refuge in preference to sending them to prison. Some of them are young people, whose parents, unable to manage them, and wishing to save them from lives of sin and crime, have placed them in the hands of the Society for reformation. The discipline is mainly reformatory, though the inmates are subjected to the restraints, but not the degradation of a prison.
“The boys’ building is divided into two compartments; the first division, in the one, is thus entirely separated from the second division in the other compartment. The second division is composed of those whose characters are decidedly bad, or whose offence was great. A boy may, by good conduct, however, get promoted from the second into the first division. As a rule, the second division is much older than the first. Each division is divided into four grades. Every boy on entering the Reformatory is placed in the third grade; if he behaves well, he is placed in the second in a week, and a month after in the first grade; if he continues in a satisfactory course for three months, he is placed in the grade of honor, and wears a badge on his breast. Every boy in the first division must remain six months, in the second division twelve months in the first grade, before he can be indentured to any trade. These two divisions
are under the charge of twenty-five teachers and twenty-five guards. At half-past six o’clock the cells are all unlocked, every one reports himself to the overseer, and then goes to the lavatories; at seven, after parading, they are marched to the school rooms to join in the religious exercises for half an hour; at half-past seven, they have breakfast, and at eight are told off to the workshops, where they remain till twelve, when they again parade, previous to going to dinner. For dinner they have a large plate of soup, a small portion of meat, a small loaf of bread, and a mug of water. At one o’clock, they return to their work. When they have completed their allotted task, they are allowed to play till four, when they have supper. At half-past four they go to school, where they remain till eight o’clock, the time for going to bed. Each boy has a separate cell, which is locked and barred at night. The cells are in long, lofty, well ventilated corridors, each corridor containing one hundred cells. The doors of the cells are all grated, in order that the boys may have light and air, and also be under the direct supervision of the officers, who, though very strict, apparently know well how to temper strictness with kindness. Before going to bed, half an hour is again devoted to religious exercises, singing hymns, reading the Bible, etc.
“One of the most interesting, and at the same time, one of the most important features of the Refuge, is the workshop. On entering the shop, the visitor is amused by finding a lot of little urchins occupied in making ladies’ hoopskirts of the latest fashionable design; nearly 100 are engaged in the crinoline department. In the same long room, about fifty are weaving wire for sifting cotton, making wire sieves, rat-traps, gridirons, flower baskets, cattle noses, etc. The principal work, however, is carried on in the boot and shoe department. The labor of the boys is let out to contractors, who supply their own foremen to teach the boys and superintend the work, but the society have their own men to keep order and correct the boys when necessary, the contractors’ men not being allowed to interfere with them in any way whatever. There are 590 boys in this department. They manage on an average to turn out about
2500 pairs of boots and shoes daily, which are mostly shipped to the Southern States. Each one has a certain amount of work allotted to him in the morning, which he is bound to complete before four o’clock in the afternoon. Some are quicker and more industrious than others, and will get their work done by two o’clock; this gives two hours’ play to those in the first division, the second division have to go to school when they have finished, till three o’clock, they only being allowed one hour for recreation. The authorities are very anxious to make arrangements to have a Government vessel stationed off the island, to be used as a training-ship for the most adventurous spirits. If this design is carried out it will be a very valuable adjunct to the working of the institution, and will enable the Directors to take in many more boys, without incurring the expense of extending the present buildings. The girls are also employed in making hoopskirts, in making clothes for themselves and the boys, in all sorts of repairing, in washing linen, and in general housework. The girls are generally less tractable than the boys; perhaps this is accounted for by their being older, some of them being as much as five or six and twenty. The boys average about thirteen or fourteen, the girls seventeen or eighteen years of age. Nearly two-thirds of the boys have been bootblacks, the remainder mostly ‘wharf rats.’
“The Directors of the House of Refuge, while having a due regard for the well-being of its inmates, very properly take care that they are not so comfortable or so well-fed as to lead them to remain longer in the reformatory than necessary. As soon as the boys appear to be really reformed, they are indentured out to farmers and different trades. In the year 1867, no less than 633 boys and 146 girls were started in life in this way. Any person wishing to have a child indentured to him, has to make a formal application to the Committee to that effect, at the same time giving references as to character, etc. Inquiries are made, and if satisfactorily answered, the child is handed over to his custody, the applicant engaging to feed, clothe, and educate his young apprentice. The boy’s new master has to forward a written report to the officer, as to his health and general
behaviour from time to time. If the boy does not do well, he is sent back to the Refuge, and remains there till he is twenty-one years of age. Most of the children, however, get on, and many of them have made for themselves respectable positions in society. The annals of the Society in this respect are very gratifying and interesting. Many young men never lose sight of a Refuge which rescued them in time from a criminal life, and to which they owe almost their very existence. Instead of alternating between the purlieus of Water street and Sing Sing, they are many of them in a fair way to make a fortune. One young man who was brought up there, and is now thriving, lately called at the office to make arrangements for placing his two younger brothers in the House, they having got into bad company since their father’s death. A very remarkable occurrence took place at the institution not long ago. A gentleman and his wife, apparently occupying a good position in society, called at the Refuge and asked to be allowed to go over it. Having inspected the various departments, just before leaving, the gentleman said to his wife, ‘Now I will tell you a great secret. I was brought up in this place.’ The lady seemed much surprised, and astounded all by quietly observing, ‘And so was I.’ So strange are the coincidences of human life.”
The institutions on this island controlled by the Department of Public Charities and Corrections, are the “Nurseries,” the “Infant Hospital,” and the “Idiot Asylum.”
The Nurseries consist of six large Brick buildings, each three stories in height, arranged without reference to any special plan, and separated from each other by a distance of several hundred feet. Each is in charge of an assistant matron, the whole being under the supervision of a Warden and matron. These nurseries are devoted to the care of children over four years old, abandoned by their parents, and found in the streets by the police, and children whose parents are unable to care for them. Wherever the parent is known the Commissioners afford only temporary shelter to the children, requiring the parents to resume their care of them at the earliest possible moment. Three months is the limit for gratuitous shelter in such cases. Where
the parent is unknown, the child is cared for until it is of an age to be apprenticed, or until some respectable persons take it for adoption. Only healthy children are received into the nurseries, and none may remain in them after reaching the age of sixteen years. The average number of inmates is about 2400 per annum.