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
One most self-sacrificing and heroic man, a physician, Dr. Robert Ray,
devoted his education and something of his fortune to these benevolent
efforts, and died while in the harness. Singularly enough, I never knew,
in twenty years' experience, an instance of one of these volunteer
teachers contracting any contagious disease in these labors, though
repeatedly they have entered tenement rooms where virulent typhoid or
small-pox cases were being tended. They made it a rule generally to
bathe and change their clothing after their work.
For a more exact account of the results of the Fourth-Ward labors, it is
difficult to obtain precise statistics. But when we know from the Prison
Reports that soon after the opening of this school there were imprisoned
3,449 female vagrants of all ages, and that last year (1870), when the
little girls who then attended such schools would have matured, there
were only 671; or when we observe that the Prison in that neighborhood
inclosed 3,172 female vagrants in 1861 and only 339 in 1871, we may be
assured that the sacrifices made in that Ward have not been without
their natural fruit.
Extracts from our Journal:
A VISIT IN THE FOURTH WARD.
"We Started out a wintry afternoon to see some of our scholars in the
Industrial School of the Fourth Ward. A number of ragged little girls,
disdaining to enter, were clustered about the door of the School. As
they caught a glimpse of some one coming out, the cry of 'Lie low! lie
low!' passed among them, and they were off, capering about in the
snow-storm like so many little witches.
"We passed up Oak Street and Cherry. Here is the entrance, a narrow
doorway on the side. Wind through this dark passage and you are at the
door of a little back room; it is the home of a German rag-picker who
has a child in the school. A filthy, close room, with a dark bedroom;
there is one window, and a small stove, and two or three chairs. The
girl is neat and healthy-looking. 'I pick rags, sir,' says the mother,
'and I can't send her to Public School. I am away all day, and she would
have to be in the streets, and it's very hard to live this winter. It's
been a great help to send her to that school.' I told her we wanted none
who could go to Public School, but if it was so with her she might
continue to send. A miserable hole for a home, and yet the child looked
neatly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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