The Catholic World, Vol. 17, April, 1873 to September, 1873: A Monthly Magazine of General Literature and ScienceVarious
Religion
The Catholic World, Vol. 17, April, 1873 to September, 1873: A Monthly Magazine of General Literature and Science
Various
Catholic Church -- Periodicals
Exile and transportation of children is also practised by the Five
Points House of Industry. They have obtained extraordinary powers for
this purpose from the Legislature. For while the Commissioners of
Public Charities and Correction, a purely governmental institution,
possess the power of indenturing children to citizens of the state of
New York and adjoining states only, the Five Points House of Industry
has received the power to send them anywhere and everywhere. But the
Commissioners of Public Charities and Correction send the poor children
they get into their power to the most remote states in violation of the
express law of the case. For instead of confining their indentures to
citizens of New York and the adjoining states, as the law directs, they
send them indiscriminately to every state, even the most distant. We
ask those public servants by what fiction of law they make California
and Texas _adjoin_ New York?
The New York Juvenile Asylum has also a “regular agency at Chicago, by
which the work of indenturing children at the West is conducted.”[9]
The total number of children sent West during fifteen years, from 1857
to 1871 inclusive, is 2,206, and the annual average, 147-1/15 (p. 47).
The extent to which this _crowning_ cruelty of our non-sectarian
institutions is carried, is appalling. We have only cited the
cases of the three whose reports happened to be before us. But we
have been informed, unofficially, and we think the statement can
be made good, that there are in the city of New York no less than
twenty-eight _charitable_ institutions engaged in this cruel practice
of transporting our New York children to the West and other remote
parts, and the average number of these little exiles per week is about
two hundred, making about ten thousand every year. What untold abuses
and hardships must result from this barbarous practice! However noble,
generous, and philanthropic may be the motives of the citizen-managers
of these institutions, they cannot attend in person to the details or
even the general management of their work. Not only are their houses in
the city confided to the management of hired and salaried agents and
servants, but the work of transporting children to the West is confided
generally to the same class of agents, and we intend to show how this
_charitable_ function is discharged. They are actuated by no higher
motives than usually actuate their class. The love of God, and of man
for God’s sake, is not the spirit that inspires their labors and guides
their steps. Corruption and infidelity to duty have stalked brazenly
into the public service everywhere; what reason have we for claiming
an exemption in favor of those who find profitable employment in the
administration of public charities?
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