“At that time,” some four or five years ago, “I was on a trip to Tiffin. Delayed for a short time at Clyde, I asked some questions of the baggage-master. Three little girls were near him, and I asked him: ‘Are these your daughters?’ A. ‘No, I bought them?’ ‘Bought them! how? from whom?’ A. ‘Oh! from the ministers. They bring car-loads of these little ones every few weeks, and sell them to any one who wants them. I gave $10 for this one, $12 for the next, and $15 for the oldest. I had not the money, but I borrowed it from the tavern-keeper, and paid for the girls. Lately there was another load of them. There was a very fine girl. I wanted her. But the minister said, ‘No; I have promised her to a rich man in Forrest, who will pay more than you.’ After some further conversation of a similar character, the train came in sight, and I left. The next day I was speaking of the circumstance at table. Rev. Mr.—— remarked that he knew the baggage-master well, and that what he said was true. He added, ‘Within the last month there was a sale of some thirty of these children in our Court House. One of my parishioners, Mr.——, came along as the sale was about over. A little boy was standing before the Court House crying; the German asked him, ‘What is the matter?’ He said, ‘That man wants to sell me, and no one will buy me.’ The boy was bought by the German for $10. I had heard such transactions described in one of his lectures by F. Haskins. But I scarcely realized how fearful such conduct is until I heard a description of these sales from persons who had seen them.”
Such, indeed, is the “crowning” work of some of the charitable institutions of New York! Is this the fulfilment of the Gospel of charity, or of the Sermon on the Mount, or of the broad principles of Christianity? Perhaps, rather, it is the Rev. Mr. Pierce’s elastic system of religion.[10] Compare these humiliating facts with the self-congratulatory reports on “Emigration” of the Children’s Aid Society, which in 1871 sent three hundred and seven of these little wards of the city to the same state of Ohio.[11] At page 10 we read:
“Every year we expect that the opposition of a very bigoted and ignorant class will materially lessen this the most effective of our charitable efforts. We have surpassed, however, owing to the energy of our Western agents, the results of every previous equal period, in the labors of the past year.
“Crowds of poor boys have thronged the office or have come to the lodging-houses for a ‘chance to go West’; great numbers of very destitute but honest families have appealed to us for this aid, and our agents have frequently conveyed parties of a hundred and more. The West has received these children liberally as before; and there has been less complaint the past year than usual of bad habits and perverse tempers. The larger boys are still restless as ever, and inclined to change their places where higher inducements are offered. But this characteristic they have in common with our whole laboring class.”
Again:
“Emigration.—This department has worked most successfully the past year. A larger number has been removed from the city than ever before.”
It would seem, however, that the experience of the New York Juvenile Asylum, though still persevering in this traffic as a good work, has not been as satisfactory as that of the Children’s Aid Society. We will give an extract from the Twentieth Annual Report, showing even from the mouths of those who practise it as a good work what a crying evil this is, and confirming the extracts we have given in reference to the sales of children in Ohio:
“Removing and replacing children is one of the important functions of the agency. Our children are first placed on trial, and in nearly every company some have to be replaced over and over again before they are permanently settled. But even after indentures have been executed, new developments often compel removals. Such are the weaknesses of human nature, and such the instability of human affairs, that, without provision to meet the exigencies consequent upon them, cases of extreme hardship and inhumanity would be frequent. They who have not had experience in this kind of work are not apt to realize, and it is often difficult to persuade them of, the imperative need of such provision. Children will not unfrequently get into improper hands in spite of every precaution, and in many cases success is more or less problematical. Death of employers also, and change of circumstances, are often the occasion of removals. Not a month goes by that does not furnish cases where, but for timely attention, suffering, mischief, and irreparable evil would result. A little familiarity with the field work of this agency would convince its most obdurate opponent that to leave children without recourse among strangers in a strange land is an unjustifiable procedure.”
Apart from the inhumanity of this procedure, from its unchristian character, from its proselytizing effects, we protest against it in the name of law, of right, and of human liberty. The common law of England is our heritage, and by that common law “no power on earth, except the authority of parliament, can send any subject of England out of the land against his will; no, not even a criminal. The great charter declares that no freeman shall be banished unless by the judgment of his peers or by the law of the land; and by the habeas corpus act it is enacted that no subject of this realm who is an inhabitant of England, Wales, or Berwick shall be sent into Scotland, Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey, or other places beyond the seas.”[12] Chancellor Kent, in his Commentaries on American Law (ii. 34), claims the same proud privilege as one of the absolute rights of American citizens, and, while declaring that “no citizen can be sent abroad,” states that the constitutions of several of the states of our confederacy contain express provisions forbidding transportation beyond the state.
We come now to the last and not the least painful task, which the Christian Union insists upon our undertaking; it relates to “the horrible abuses existing in some of our state institutions.” And here, as in the preceding remarks, we must confine ourselves to a portion only of the mass of materials before us, and, in fact, confine ourselves to a single institution; for, if such things exist in a single case, this is enough to prove not only the possibility, but also the probability of the same thing in others, and to dispel the fatal blindness which can see nothing defective either in their constitution or management. We must pass over the charges recently preferred against the New York House of Refuge, relating to improper food, of excessive labor, of cruel punishments, employment of unfit and incompetent agents in the management of the institution, and of religious intolerance. While we think that the evidence produced on the trial of the boy, Justus Dunn, for killing one of the officers of the Refuge, goes far to substantiate most of the charges preferred, we have, in common with the community, but little respect for the whitewashing certificate given by the grand-jury, who made a flying visit to the institution, by invitation, on an appointed day. Of course the officers put their house in order, and failed not to put their best foot foremost, on this preconcerted occasion. The managers placed no reliance on this acquittal, for they courted another soon afterwards. The second investigation by the State Commissioners of Charity was very little better; it was ex parte on all the charges except that of religious intolerance, and the Refuge was acquitted on all the charges except this last.