The Pennsylvania Journal of Prison Discipline and Philanthropy (Vol. VIII, No. II, April 1853)Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons
Religion
The Pennsylvania Journal of Prison Discipline and Philanthropy (Vol. VIII, No. II, April 1853)
Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons
Charities -- Periodicals; Prisons -- Periodicals
A large multitude of children live in the city who cannot be
placed in asylums, and yet who are uncared for and ignorant and
vagrant. We propose to give to these work, and to bring them under
religious influences. A central office has been taken, and an
agent, (Charles L. Brace,) has been engaged to give his whole time
to efforts for relieving the wants of this class. As means shall
come in, it is designed to district the city, so that hereafter
every Ward may have its agent, who shall be a friend to the
vagrant child. "Boys' Sunday Meetings" have already been formed,
which we hope to see extended until every quarter has its place
of preaching to boys. With these we intend to connect "Industrial
Schools," where the great temptations to this class, arising from
want of work, may be removed, and where they can learn an honest
trade. Arrangements have been made with manufacturers, by which,
if we have the requisite funds to begin, _five hundred boys_, in
different localities, can be supplied with paying work. We hope
too, especially to be the means of draining the city of these
children, by communicating with farmers, manufacturers or families
in the country, who may have need of such for employment. When
homeless boys are found by our agents, we mean to get them homes in
the families of respectable, needy persons in the city, and to put
them into the way of an honest living.
It has been stated, in the public prints, that of 16,000 commitments
for crime to the prisons of New York during the year, at least
one-fourth were minors, and it is estimated that not less than 10,000
children in the city are daily suffering all the evils of vagrancy.
STREET BEGGING IN NEW YORK.--We have had occasion more than once to
refer, in terms of high commendation, to the New York City organization
for the relief of the poor, corresponding in its main features to
our Union Benevolent Association. We regret to notice very loud and
frequent complaints of the continuance and increase of street-begging,
notwithstanding the laudable exertions of the Society. A leading city
newspaper has said within a week or two, that upwards of a _half
million_ of dollars is annually spent by the authorities and various
societies, in the way of charity, "yet our streets are thronged with
beggars of all descriptions, and particularly the avenues and streets
up town, in almost any of which, upon an average you can see from
thirty to fifty going from house to house, to the excessive annoyance
of families, who are often abused and insulted by them, because you do
not meet their demands. In fact it has become a nuisance of the worst
magnitude."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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