The Dangerous Classes of New York, and Twenty Years' Work Among ThemBrace, Charles Loring
History
The Dangerous Classes of New York, and Twenty Years' Work Among Them
Brace, Charles Loring
Child welfare -- New York (State) -- New York; New York (N.Y.) -- Social conditions; Poor -- New York (State) -- New York
I think the contest of wits among them--they for mischief and
disturbance, and he to establish order and get control over them--gave a
peculiar zest to his religious labors, which he would not have had in
calmer scenes and more regular services. If they put pepper on the
stove, he endured it much longer than they could, and kept them until
they were half suffocated; and when they barricaded the door outside, he
protracted the devotional exercises or varied them with a "magic
lantern," to give time for forcing the door, and an orderly exit. [Mr.
Macy, on one occasion, on a bitter winter day, found the lock of the
room picked and the boys within. He accused some of the larger boys.
They denied, "No sir--no: it couldn't be us; because we was in the
liquor-shop on the corner; _we ain't got nowhere else to go to!"_]
The girls, however, were his great torment, especially when they stoned
their spiritual guides; these, however, he eventually forwarded into the
Cottage place Industrial School, which sprang from the Meeting, and
there they were gradually civilized.
For real suffering and honest effort at self-help, he had a boundless
sympathy; but the paupers and professional beggars were the terror of
his life. He dreaded nothing so much as a boy or girl falling into
habits of dependence. Where he was compelled to give assistance in
money, he has been known to set one boy to throw wood down and the other
to pile it up, before he would aid.
His more stormy philanthropic labors have been succeeded by calmer
efforts among a delightful congregation of poor German children in
Second Street, who love and revere him. When he needs, however, a little
refreshment and intoning, he goes over to his Cottage-place
Reading-room, and sits with or instructs his "lambs!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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