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Children in Five Points

The Five Points

A stranger, taking his position in Broadway, near the City Hospital, would find himself at one of the central points of the wealth, the fashion, and the commerce of the largest and most influential city of the Union. The Hospital, of massive stone, surrounded by fine trees and spacious grassplots, which present a beautiful oasis amid the desert of brick and sand that encompasses its outer railing, tells loudly that active benevolence has here its sphere, and Christian charity its appropriate work. Elegant stores, crowded with merchandise of the most costl description; carts bending beneath the pressure of valuable loads; handsome carriages, containing fair occupants, whose rich attire bespeaks an utter disregard of the value of money; well-dressed hundreds, crowding the innumerable omnibusses, or passing with rapid steps through this great thoroughfare of fashion and business; everything betokens progress, wealth and happiness.

"But here is just behind a drearier scene;
The people haunts another aspect wear;
Midst wealth and splendor, wasted forms are seen,
Victims of ceaseless toil, and want, and care;
And there the sterner nature that will dare
To live, though life be bought with infamy;
There guilt's bold emissaries spread their snare,
Who law, or human or divine, defy,
And live but to perpetuate crime and misery."

One minute's walk from that Broadway-point of wealth, commerce, and enjoyment, will place him in another world of vision, thought, and feeling. Passing down Anthony-street but two squares, a scene will be represented forming so entire a contrast to that he has just left, that imagination would never have pictured, nor can language in its utmost strength successfully portray it. Standing at the lower end of Anthony-street, a large area, covering about an acre, will open before him. Into this, five streets, viz., Little-Water, Cross, Anthony, Orange, and Mulberry, enter, as rivers emptying themselves into a bay. In the center of this area is a small triangular space, known as "Paradise-square," surrounded by a wooden paling generally disfigured by old garments hung upon it to dry. Opposite this little park stands, or rather stood, the "Old Brewery," so famed in song and story. Miserable-looking buildings, liquor-stores innumerable, neglected children by scores, playing in rags and dirt, squalid-looking women, brutal men with black eyes and disfigured faces, proclaiming drunken brawls and fearful violence, complete the general picture.

Gaze on it mentally, fair reader, and realize, if you can, while sauntering down Broadway, rejoicing in all the refinements and luxuries of life, that one minute's walk would place you in a scene like this. Gaze on it, men of thought, when treading the steps of the City Hall or the Hall of Justice, where laws are framed, and our city's interests discussed and cared for- one minute's walk would place you in this central point of misery and sin. Gaze on it, ye men of business and of wealth, and calculate anew the amount of taxation for police restraints and support, made necessary by the existence of a place like this. And gaze on it Christian men, with tearful eyes-tears of regret and shame-that long ere now the Christian Church has not combined its moral influences, and tested their utmost strength to purge a place so foul; for this, reader, is the "Five Points!"-a name known throughout the Union, in England, and on the continent of Europe. The "Five Points!"-a name which has hitherto been banished from the vocabulary of the refined and sensitive, or whispered with a a blush, because of its painful and degrading associations. The "Five Points!" What does the name import? It is the synonym for ignorance the most entire, for misery the most abject, for crime of the darkest dye, for degradation so deep that human nature cannot sink below it. We hear it, and visions of sorrow-of irremediable misery-flit before our mental vision. Infancy and childhood, without a mother's care or a father's protection: born in sin, nurtured in crime; the young mind sullied in its first bloom, the young heart crushed before its tiny call for affection has met one answering response.

Girlhood is there; not ingenuous, blushing, confiding youth, but reckless, hardened, shameless effrontery from which the spectator turns away to weep. Woman is there; but she has forgotten how to blush, and she creates oblivion of her innocent childhood's home, and of the home of riper years, with its associations of fond parental love and paternal sympathies, by the incessant use of ardent spirits. Men are there-whose only occupation is thieving, and sensuality in every form, of every grade, and who know of no restraint, except the fear of the stron police, who hover continually about these precincts. And boys are there by scores, so fearfully mature in all that is vicious and degrading, that soon, O how soon, they will be fit only for the prison and the gallows.

This fear spot-this concentration of moral evil-this heathendom without the full excuse of ignorance so entire as creates a hope for foreign lands-why do we portray it? Why dwell for a moment upon scenes at which even a casual glance causes the warm blook to mantle to the cheek, and sends it rushing through the heart, until it quivers and aches with intensist sorrow? Why? Because we believe the time for action, the most wise, the most earnest, the most vigorously sustained, is fully come. The voice of benevolence has sounded there, and has been echoed, not faintly, not equivocally, but by a cry deep, agonized, impassioned. The wail of infancy, the moan of neglected childhood, the groan of mature years sick of sin, yet almost despairing of rescue, have united, and the cry has reached the ear of Christian kindess, and Christian hearts have responded to that call, and are now united to prove, as far as they may be enabled, the utmost power of redeeming grace to raise the fallen and to save the lost....

I.M.

The Children of the "Five Points."

"Alas! to think upon a child
That has no childish days,
No happy home, no counsel mild;
No words of prayer and praise!
"Man from the cradle-'tis too soon
To earn their daily bread,
And heap the heat and toil of noon
Upon an infant's head.
"To labor ere their strength be come,
Or starve-such is the doom
That makes, of many a hapless home,
One long and living tomb."

When the ladies commenced their mission in this miserable locality, the hope of rescuing the children from the almost certain result of corrupt parental example was perhaps the strongest feeling that influenced them.

The children! hundreds of them with drunken fathers and drunken mothers, who made no provision for their comfort, and scarce any for their physical existence, beyond the miserable dens they called their homes, and in which, after a day of begging and perhaps want, and after a day's exposure to every evil influence, they crept to sleep-greeted with oaths and curses, and oft-times with stripes and heavy blows! Children! precocious in self-reliance, in deceit, in every evil passion, while the better nature within them slumbered or had been destroyed because no suitable means had ever been used to vivify or awaken it!

"For here the order was reversed,
And infancy, like age
Knew of existence but its worst,
One dull and darkened page,
Written with tears and stamped with toil,
Crushed from the earliest hour,
Weeds darkening on the bitter soil
That never knew a flower."

The ladies, with woman's instinct and woman's tact, recognized them not only as depraved little human beings, but as children; their young hearts beating with childish hopes and fears, with childish yearnings and desires; awake to every tone of kindness, and yet so unaccustomed to any government but that of hasty blows and brutal caprice, that it seemed almost impossible to subdue and retain them by those laws of love and gentleness which yet were the only means deemed expedient or useful. There are, however, bright exceptions. We gaze on a few sweet young faces, and smooth the silken hair of some whose appearance declares maternal care, and in the visits made we find now and then a cleaner home, and hear all a tender mother's anxiety and thankfulness for her children expressed, and listen to tales of privation and sufferings which words could scarcely exaggerate. We also have occasionally touching illustrations of the finer shades of character, which awaken peculiar sympathy and hope. On one of the regular days for the distribution of clothing a lady was attracted by the countenance of a pale, weary-looking child about nine years of age. She carried with difficulty a large baby, more than a year old, and, although the children all around her were full of life and hilarity, she sat listless and unamused, no smile betraying childish interest or joy. On inquiry, Mrs. Luckey [the Rev. and Mrs. Luckey were hired to run the Society's mission] remarked, "That child has a drunken father who abuses her mother dreadfully, and she lives in a constant state of terror and dread." The lady resolved to watch over that little girl, and throw some sunshine over the darkened path of the drunkard's child. Closer acquaintance revealed a maturity of thought and a strength of sympathy with her suffering mother touching in the extreme. She came regularly to Sunday-school, but always, during the session, would whisper, "Mrs. Luckey, please let me run home and see how mother does-I am afraid father will come home and hurt her," &c. Her little heart seemed at rest, and her face had an abiding look of weary despondency. After some acts of exceeding violence, the mother was obliged to complain against her husband. Maggie loved her father; for, when sober, he was kind, and she pleaded, "O mother! do not let them take him away, for what shall I do without a father?" He was committed to the Tombs, and the next morning early, Maggie took her litle brother, four years of age, by the hand, went to the prison, and sat hour after hour by the window, talking to, and trying to amuse her father until his time of liberation came. Of later her countenance has brightened, and she greets the lady (who in heart adopted her) with somewhat of childish glee.

One little news-boy was found who regularly paid his drunken mother's rent out of his scanty earnings, and had remained comparatively untainted by the scenes of vice that met his every step.

The children give evidence also of bright intellect and quick perception. One afternoon a number of them had collected around the door of the "Old Brewery," waiting for the appearance of Mr. Luckey. The rain poured in torrents, and they stood without a shelter of any kind. Mr. Luckey opened his office door, and kindly urged them to run home; that Mrs. L. was detained by the rain, and might not arrive for some time. Turning from them, he closed the door; but, quick as the lightning's flash, his ear was greeted by the full chorus of one of their hymns,

"We'll stand the storm, it won't be long,
We'll anchor by and bye,"

and the stood it until Mrs. Luckey appeared, and anchored them by a good fire, and applied the hymn they had so sweetly sung.

I.M.

The Children that Sweep the Crossings.

Children with short ragged garments-old shawls tied around their waists-bare feet bespattered with the mud with which they are waging warfare-tangled locks straying from beneath their dark hoods-faces prematurely old and care-worn! Can we look for good in such as these? Do they remember kindesses, or have they any to remember? Do these forlorn ones take note of aught but the pennies that fall upon their path, as they ply their brooms amid the rush of omnibusses and rail-cars, of carts and carriages, while the stream of hurrying action rolls on its resistless tide? Can they discern among that restless multitude a face associated with memories of kindess-one face that will give the little street-sweepers a smile of recognition? Many of them have been gathered in at the Mission school; and though at times, they resume their old occupation, and with it their street-sweeper's garb; yet on other days they may be seen tidily dressed, and with clean faces, learning to read and to write, to cypher and to sew in the pleasant school-room at the Mission House. That love's labor is not lost there, the following incidents will show:

One day a minister of one of the city churches, who had the Sunday before preached in the big tent in "Paradise Square" at the Five Points, was crossing the well-swept walk, which enable one to walk dry-shod over Broadway. He handed some pennies to one of the children, who promptly declined the gift, saying- "Oh, no sir; we heard you preach in the Big Tent on Sunday, and we don't want to take any pennies from you." He had given them something better than pennies, and they were glad to make a clean path for the feet of him who had "published peace" to them and theirs.

As a lady, who constantly visits the Mission school drew near the crossing, the little girl exclaimed, "Here comes Mrs. D-, sweep the walk clean for her." And when she handed one child a three cent piece, her companion put back the little outstretched palm, saing, "Ain't you ashamed to take money from our teacher? No, Ma'am, we don't want you to pay us." And the little silver bit was resolutely declined, till the lady dropt it on the pavement and walked on.

Here was a lively feeling of gratitude shining forth in these children that sweep the crossings-children already old in the bitter experience of life trained up amid evil and wrong-proving that some of the seed freely scattered, had taken root in the poor neglected soil of their young hearts.

J.M.O.

The Old Brewery, and the New Mission House at the Five Points.

Source: By Ladies of the Mission. New York: Stringer and Townsend, 1854, 31-36; 152-156; 167-169.

FEBRUARY 5, 1816

TO THE HONORABLE THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED. THE PETITION OF THE WIDOWS AND ORPHANS AND FAMILYS OF THE TOWN OF NEW MANCHESTER, COUNTY BERGEN HUMBLY SHEWETH

That your Petitioners from the demand for labor of Persons in the various branches of the Cotton Manufactures were led to settle with their families in this Town, and previously to the peace were enabled by the strictest Economy to support, some of them their infirm Parents and some of them their fatherless Infants; with some degree of decency and Comfort, your Petitioners have found themselves at a subsequent period altho plunged into Difficulties, still enabled to obtain some of the necessaries of Life yet struggling with embarrassments too numerous to trouble your honorable body with the recital of….
They struggled however, cheered by hope and with resignation waited for better times; fallacious has been our expectations, and the latter Crisis has brought us of that Hope the only remaining Comfort of the wretched. Dispair now stares up on us with horrid Aspect and we view no other prospect but that of absolute Nakedness. The severity of the present Season adds to our other distress, our helpless Infants cry ing for bread to those to whom support is withheld crying with piteous Accents, with the pains of frozen limbs and Disease incident to poverty of our Situation, some of those indeed for whom they toiled now snatched to that world where they shall hunger no more and no more be witness to the miseries of their helpless families altho it might relive the accumulated purpose of their wants, adds ten fold misery to the finer feelings of their Souls, your Petitioners approach your honorable body emboldened yet respectfully by the urgency of their situation to pray your honorable body to view with commiseration their distress and extend aid to them by granting such encouragement to the Cotton Manufacturing Establishments which you may deem conducive to the general Interests of our Country and for which your petitioners with tens of thousands of distressed females as in duty bound will ever pray.

New Manchester Bergen Co. New Jersey 18 January 1816

Report of the Library Committee of the Pennsylvania Society for the Promotion of Public Economy (Philadelphia: Merritt, 1817)

Query 1. What description of persons are most improvident?

The people of colour; the lower classes of Irish emigrants; the intemperate and day labourers are generally considered as the most improvident.

Query 2. What do the poor allege as the cause of their poverty?

In most instances want of employment is the alleged.cause, especially in the winter season, but, although this may temporarily operate, idleness, intemperance, and sickness are most frequently the real causes; to which are added at present, the high prices of provisions and fuel, especially the latter, as it is generally purchased by the poor in small quantities, from the grocery and liquor stores, at a very exorbitant advance upon the prime cost.'

"This excuse (want of work) although sometimes feigned, is generally true. The great disproportion which exists between the prices of labour of men .and women, is a matter of serious regret; and to restore the equilibrium, by withdrawing men from the occupations and pursuits which women are capable of performing, seems to be worth the attention of the political economist."

Query 3. What proportion of the indigent are widows and single women?

Upon this subject, those reports, which are merely conjectural, disagree very materially, some stating 1/10th others 1/3d 1/4d and 3/4ths.

From the returns of the guardians of the poor it appears that of 1239 paupers, 673 were widows and single women; the latter in very small proportion.

The "society for supplying the poor with soup" state that of 611 adults, 235 were widows, or women whose husbands (if they had any) were absent; there were also 45 women without families, but whether widows or single women, they were not able to determine ....

Query 4. Are, or are not, many women abandoned by their husbands and left with families to support; and what are the reasons assigned for such desertion?

Few persons, we presume, are prepared to anticipate the result of this inquiry; the evil is lamentably extensive, and calls loudly for some effectual remedy. In almost every report some instances are noticed. The guardians of the poor, alone, enumerate 133 cases of desertion, of which 67 were caused by the intemperance, generally of the husband, but sometimes of the wife. The next most frequent reason for desertion appears to be enlistment in the army during the late war. Other causes are mentioned, such as the want of employment and the expectation of finding it elsewhere; improper connexions formed without reflection or attachment and without the means of supporting a family. Desertions are said to be "particularly frequent amongst the negroes. Among the majority of them the marriage contract appears to be considered a mere civil contract, hardly that. Marriages are frequently made before magistrates, these should be discountenanced. The contract in this case wants a sanction."

Query 5. What proportion of the poor are sick, and what appears or is said to be the cause of the indisposition?

It does not appear, from the information before the committee, that the proportion of sick is very great. The answers to this question generally do not specify numbers. The guardians of the poor enumerate 144 [of 1,239]. The prevailing diseases are rheumatism, consumption and colds, arising chiefly from exposure to inclement weather, in consequence of being miserably accommodated in their dwellings, without a sufficiency of fuel, or of clothing suitable for the season: Several cases are mentioned as proceeding from improper food and from intemperance ....
"The mortality of the children of the poor is greatest generally in the summer; it is hardly possible to conceive the impurity of the air at that season in and around the residence of such as live in alleys and obscure places. Many children are doubtless hurried to the grave from this cause alone."

Query 11. What proportion of the children of the poor go to school, and how are those employed who do not?

It seems to be the general opinion as far as it can be ascertained from the answers to this question, which are very indefinite, that a very small proportion go to school; the greatest that is mentioned is one third, which however is not confirmed by the following data.
One report states that of 40 children 8 go to school and 10 are bound out at trades and in families.
Another, that of 111 children 17 go to school, 5 are hired out, and the remainder are too young or not mentioned. "Those who do not go to school are engaged in practices injurious to their morals, and laying the foundation of lasting wretchedness by the habits which they acquire."

Query 16. Are, or are not, indigent parents unwilling to bind their children to tradesmen and for service in families? and what mode of employment do they prefer for their children?

"The poor are mostly unwilling to bind their children to services in families; they prefer placing them in situations, where they can themselves reap some emolument from their labour. We are of opinion that poor parents would not feel such reluctance in binding out their children, were masters and mistresses to adopt the kind conduct recommended by a humane author of `treating their servants as unfortunate friends,' but how painfully reversed is their conduct in many instances." "They appear willing to bind their children to tradesmen when they arrive at the age of 10 or 12 years, and this mode they prefer to sending them to [domestic] service, as in the former case they obtain education and a trade; in the latter they cannot expect these."
"Indigent parents are unwilling to bind their children at all,, but we believe a preference would be given to trades over family service. Many parents are prevented by pride from consenting to put out their children, and in many instances the larger ones are necessary in assisting the mother; others endeavour to keep children at home until they are old enough to be hired, and thus by their wages add to the general stock for the support of the whole . . . .
"It is customary with the poor to hire their children out at a small sum per week; a practice frequently attended with bad consequences as relates to the habits and future conduct of their offspring; many send them begging or collecting fuel."

Query 18. How many children can an industrious husband and wife support by daily labour?

The reports differ very widely upon this subject; some believing that only three can be supported; others 6, and others even 12 or more; according to the occupation, prudence, economy, health, and industry of the parents.

The New York Society for the Prevention of Pauperism. Report of a Committee on the Subject of Pauperism (New York: Samuel Wood and Sons, 1818)

. . . How often have I wished that I could bring those who have a strong general interest in the well?being of society, and whose opinions exert a most important influence where I have no power, into the families of poor and intemperate parents. There let them see in what wretched rooms these unhappy beings are sometimes lodged; rooms as cold as wide chinks and broken windows can make them; the poor, broken, and scanty furniture; and the bed not unfrequently lying upon the floor, and without a bedstead, and, it may be, consisting only of straw or of shavings. There let them see to what deep degradation our nature may be brought through abandonment to the sin in which these parents are living. Will it be said that parents in this condition are beyond the reach even of hope? I think otherwise; for no one is to be considered or treated as beyond hope while God shall spare him. But I am not now pleading for these parents. I would direct attention to their children. Here are boys and girls with bodies which are seldom washed, and which are covered at best with filthy and tattered garments. These children probably go to no school; and they learn nothing but from the example of those with whom they associate. They are unaccustomed to any regularity in their meals, and they look for their food perhaps almost as much from home as at home. They are now, it may be, caressed with the extravagance of intoxicated affection, and now beaten with the extravagance of intoxicated anger. They are every day deceived by their parents, and they every day in turn deceive them. At one hour they are kept at work to procure fuel, or perform some other service; and in the next, are allowed to go where they will, and to do what they will. They hear profaneness every day, and see intemperance, and witness parental contests; and are daily the companions of those who live amidst the same scenes, and are forming under the same influences. They are allowed, also, not only to drain the cup which an intemperate father or mother has not quite emptied, but their portion of it is sometimes given to them. 1f they are advised or encouraged by these guardians of their morals, it is to be more wary, more cunning, more artful. Not unfrequently, also, do these children fall into the service of the lowest of the profligate. They are ready for any guilty service within their power, by which they may earn any thing; and they have not an association with wrong, but the fear of detection and of punishment. What, then, is to be expected from these children? Is it surprising that very early they become greatly depraved? I have spoken, indeed, of the most degraded parents and of the most exposed children. But there are more of these parents and children, even in our greatly favored city, than would be suspected by those who know those among whom they live only as they pass them in the street And there are children of other poor parents, especially of poor widows, who, though they have in this respect no evil example at home, are yet under but a feeble parental restraint, and are associates and learners of the language, and sharers of the occupations and the pleasures, of those whose very homes are schools of the grossest depravity. I pray, then, that it may be known and thought worthy of remembrance, that we have children of this class in our city, who, if neglected as they now are, as certainly as they live will become paupers and criminals. And on whom will fall the heaviest responsibility for their guilt and misery, but on those to whom God has given all the means of saving them, and who fail to use these means for the purposes for which he gave them? . . .

April 21, 1811

The most pitiable object, whom I have seen of late, is an Irish woman, who is dangerously sick of a fever in the Almshouse. She was a good mother, and wife, before her husband deserted her; and she is a good mother still. From every one, who has known her, I lean a favourable account of her moral conduct. To-day she would have melted any heart. Four little children surrounded her bed, who were all of them like herself, and all so much like one another, that nothing but stature seemed to distinguish one from the other. All of them were crying for their poor mother. The whole family came lately from Ireland, but the husband has left her with her babes to languish, and perhaps to die, without a friend. Alas! That drunkenness should, in this country, transform a generous and wildly enthusiastic son of Erin into something worse than a brute! In Hibernia, it is probably that this same fellow would have divided his last potato with his superannuated grandmother; or would have shed his blood in defence of his wife and children; but here, where ardent spirits are sold for six shillings by the gallon, wife, children, relatives, and friends, may all go to the Almshouse, or even to "potter's field," for a glass of grog.

August 29, 1811

. . . Mrs. M--- S?--, who is bloated with the dropsy, discovered so much concern for her youngest son, that a young man went in search of him, to procure him a lodging in the Almshouse. The lad was found with a family, which resides in a cellar, and is supported by selling vegetables and making coarse shoes. The shoemaker had protected the child for some weeks, and fed him gratis; but said that he could not keep him long, because he was too small to set upon the bench of his profession. "Well then, my little fellow," said the young gentleman, taking the boy by the hand, "I will get you a birth in the Almshouse, for I am too poor to keep you."

The cobbler and his wife came to the door with sad countenances. The frugal pair had potatoes to sell, and could make shift to live by the sweat of the brow. "I would gladly keep him," said the man, "but I have a large family, and he cannot earn any thing yet."

He was about to be led away to a sad place. "Tis a pity," said the good woman, "that such a likely child should go to the poor-house: let him stay here."

It was concluded that the boy should remain where he was, until his mother was dead, or until a more eligible situation could be found.

The poor are frequently more beneficent than the rich: and the person, who of his penury gives all that he has, when duty demands it, shall be more honourable than those who give but a pittance from their luxuries, but two mites from their abundance. "It is more blessed to give than to receive."

Examination of Subjects Who Are in the House of Refuge in the City of New-York (Albany: Croswell and Van Benthuysen, 1825); Documents Relative to the House of Refuge, Instituted by the Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents in the City of New-York in 1824 (New York: Mahlon Day, 1832).

January 1st, 1825-MARGARET SMITH,, from the police, aged 13 years born in New-York. Her father has been dead seven years. Her mother has since married a Mr. Smith, who left her mother last spring. She, by her mother's request, called herself Smith. Her father's name was Aaron McDoe. Her mother now lives in Banker Street; has lived there nearly two years; takes in washing, and goes out to work. Margaret has lived with Caleb Coggeshall five years; left there more than a year since, because they were not able to keep two persons, and she was too small to do all their work. She then lived seven months with Capt. Morgan, when they gave up house-keeping, and she then returned to her mother. She used to pick chips,' and play in the streets; was taken up at the theatre, with others. She has been at school to Mrs. Coggeshall. Enters 5th class.

January 1st, 1825--JOHN BEEKMAN, aged 15 years July, 1824, born in New-York. His father, John, lives in Pike?street; is ship?rigger. His mother died nine years since. Father married twice since. He was put to live with Mr. Bull at Newburgh, where he stayed two weeks; then on board the sloop Sportsman two months; then through part of Pennsylvania; to Baltimore, to Harrisburgh, to Carlisle, to Philadelphia, Trenton, New Brunswick, to New York; all of which places he worked some time. He had no particular home; strayed about the streets; was taken up for stealing a pistol, and sent here. He has been in the almshouse; was bound from there, but did not stay over four months; has been to school; enters the 3d class.

January 1st, 1825--CATHARINE ANN ARMENTA, from the police, aged 15 years lst May 1824?born in Pike street. Her father has been dead eight years. Her mother lives in Pike?street; is a segar maker; she made segars with her mother; has lived at service with Mr. Bostwick, a boat?builder, six months; used to pick chips for her mother, and play in the street. She was taken up at the theatre in company of others, for stealing a watch; but she does not know any thing about it. Catharine has, it is believed, been acquainted with men. She has been 3 months to No. 2 school; to none other, except Sunday school. She enters the 2d class.

January 11th, 1825--WILLIAM LABAYTEAUX RIKEMAN, from the police, aged 16 years?born in New York. His father died five months since; he was a wood inspector. His mother lives on the corner of Pike and Lombardy streets. She is almost blind; has two sisters that support his mother; has four brothers, two younger than himself, now with his mother. His father put him to Mr. Youle's furnace at Egg?harbor, where he stayed five months; he then returned, and stayed at home six months; did but little; played about the streets. He then went to live with Mr. George Hopper, a cooper, on trial; he stayed six months, and returned home, and worked some times in stave yards;' has often been sent to school, but used to play truant. To No. 2 school he thinks he was 18 months, but played truant more than half the time; has been to other schools but played truant ....

January 11th, 1825--JOHN MULLIGAN, from the police, aged 14 years 17th March, 1824?born in Philadelphia. Father has been dead four years. His mother since married to Moses Isaacs, who has gone to London. His mother lives in North Fourth?street, Philadelphia. She takes in sewing for a living. Not long after his mother married to Mr. Isaacs, he moved to Weehawken, where he was employed with his patent horse0boats He lived there about one year, and then returned to Philadelphia. Soon after the return, his mother put him to live with Peter Snyder, a tailor, where he lived from six to eight months, and then returned home. A few weeks after, he went to live with Mr. Duncan, an iron?monger, where he lived about six weeks, when he ran away and came to New?York about two months since; has been in prison in Philadelphia twice, for, as they say, stealing shoes, which he says he did not take. His motive in coming to New-York was to get a situation to go to sea. On his arrival, he took lodgings wherever they might be found. The first money that he got in New?York was at the theatre, when he picked a gentleman's pockets of $27. He says that was the only theft he committed in New?York. He continued to walk about the streets, boarded at any tavern, had no particular one; was taken up by Mr. Hays without any cause, and sent to Bridewell, where he was three or four days before he was sent here. He enters 5th class.

January 12th, 1825--MARY ANN CORBITT, from the police, aged 15 years 17th December, 1824, born in New-York. Father has been dead 14 years; mother has been dead five years. After the death of her mother, she went to Westchester, and lived with her grandmother, Mary Ann Bowers, where she lived four months; then returned and lived with Mr. Quick in the Bowery; then with Mr. Weyon, a baker, in Henry?street, 2% years; then her grandmother carne to town to live, and she went to stay with her, where she stayed about three months; then to Mrs. Fowler's in Lombardy?street; then to her aunt, Elizabeth Bowers, No. 100 Banker?street, which she has made her home since her mother's death. She has lived with Ezra Weeks, in Hudson?street, 3'/2 months; has lived with Mrs. Fowler three or four times, and with some others for a short time, sometimes one week and sometimes two weeks in a place; has played in the streets some; has seen considerable bad company; never ran about the streets night; she has been with her aunt, who lives in Banker?street, off and on for one year; she (her aunt) had no particular way of living; was sometimes drunk. She does not know what she was taken up for, unless it was to please her aunt. She does not think that it was her aunt's intention that she should come to this place. She enters the fifth class.

September, 1827--M.K., from the Commissioners, aged 12 years the first of April; born in Ireland. Her father and mother are both dead. Between three and four years since, her father, E.K. put her to live with Mr. J.P, a distiller, in this city, where she continued until within a few days since, when Mr. P informs me that one of his hired men made free with her twice, the last time it was discovered by the servant woman: and as the child was young and had no friends, Mr. P was fearful she would go to destruction, if she was not secured more closely than lay in his power; consequently obtained legal permission to send her here.
The girl simply states, that some weeks since, S., one of Mr. P's men, threw her on the floor, &c., and that a few days since, he found her in the still house, and threw her on the hogshead,' but the servant woman came so soon that he did not effect his purpose. She appears perfectly honest in her confession, says she never stole any thing; and I think if placed in a small careful family, will yet make a good girl to work.

January 9th, 1828?S.H.L., from the Police, aged fourteen years the 25th of December; born in New-York. Her father is infirm and does no work, drinks hard?had a handsome property left him by his father, but has spent it. He was the cause of introducing his children to sell soap and the like .... This little girl commenced her career about two years since, selling soap, needles, pencils, almanacs, &c. She first commenced to steal soap from Mr. H., then needles from Mr. P in Maiden lane; she has taken four hundred at a time; and would receive from her companions a part of their stolen property, and in turn would give them part of hers. I judge her not to be much past twelve years of age. She however learnt the trick of getting money from men, with the promise that she would go with them, and afterwards run away: her suitors would sometimes chase her; if she found herself too closely pursued, she would run into a grocery store, and tell them that a man was chasing her. She would pick up her sweethearts at the Battery, Steam Boat Wharves, Theatres, &c. She and her associates would occasionally attend the theatres and circuses. If they took five dollars each, per day, home to their mother, she was satisfied, and they could spend the rest. Sometimes they could clear eight dollars per day, honest sales, then again 12 per day, when they were successful in stealing needles and soap ....

1829--A.T, had been employed in selling sweet potatoes, clams, &c. about the streets, (the most fatal business a boy can pursue) and contracted the inveterate habit of drinking ardent spirits, which led to the commission of other errors. He was sent to the House as a vagrant. After 18 months of detention his conduct became so satisfactory, that he was indentured to learn a carpenter's trade. Poor fellow! his unhappy propensity returned upon him, and the slave of rum again became an inmate of the House of Refuge. Eighteen months training in temperate, industrious, and moral habits, had not been sufficient to cure that dreadful malady, and his master with sorrow gave him back to our care. After a suitable time had elapsed, he was bound out to a Nantucket Merchant, and departed on a three years whaling voyage. His letter dated "Coast of Japan, Lat. 32, Long."?is too long for insertion, but from its clear appearance and fair hand, we should judge that he was kept from the use of ardent spirits.

1830--FG.H., from the Commissioners of the Alms House, aged 13 years the 10th of September last, born in New-York of American parents. Her father was a ship carpenter by trade; died about three years ago. Not long after, her mother commenced keeping a bad house in R. street, but removed to L. street, where after this course for nearly three years, she died, leaving three orphan daughters. This and the next youngest, about 11 years of age were taken charge of by the girls of ill fame, where the Commissioners found them about a week after her mother's death. The youngest, about seven years of age, was taken possession of by her mother's washer-woman. When she first came here, she was very wild, exhibiting that kind of deportment, which was natural for her to acquire from the examples of lewd girls.

September 17th, 1830--A.B., from the Police, aged 14 years the 22d of December last; born in New-York, of Irish parents. His father is an old porter; he occasionally drinks too much; then, the boy says his father will swear off for a year at a time, but when the time is past will pay for all in excess of drinking.

He has two sisters and one brother. A. and one of his sisters lived about two years in Paterson, where he was a good boy; but his father took him home to go to school, when he soon commenced playing truant and going round the markets (Washington and Fulton) stealing fruit.

He commenced, in junction with two others, stealing eggs from barrels standing by grocery stores, in which they were very successful, and one would pass and take a handful, and another would receive them at a convenient place, and sell them to a woman who kept a victualing stand, by the name of , who gave them one shilling for eighteen eggs. This woman would give them three shillings per piece for smoked beef, and from four to eight shillings for hams by the lump; these articles, this boy and his companions were very successful in stealing. He stole hats occasionally, sometimes they stole cocoa?nuts from stands and vessels, lead frequently, and sometimes old rope; but his associates told him that was too low, that he could make more at more honorable stealing. He once stole an umbrella in Maiden?lane, once he stole from the pocket of a drunken man three shillings, and at another time one shilling and eleven?pence from a money drawer in Hudson street.

He was very successful in selling stolen handkerchiefs about the markets: they frequently stole clothes when they would be out to dry. A. was in the act of stealing a pair of pantaloons from a yard near the white fort, North River, when he was detected, taken and sent here. He would be frequently away from home, first one night, then a week and three weeks at a time, sleeping in shavings in new buildings, lumber yards, &c.

He and his companions had curious names for different articles that they stole, so as not to be understood by honest men: for instance: smoked beef or hams were smokers, hats cadies, shoes and boots crabs, handkerchiefs wipers, vests garvises, trowsers kickers, watches thimbles, shirts and other articles taken from yards were gooseberries; when they proposed to get articles of this kind, they would say we will go a gooseberrying; crockery and glass from crates would be tapping crates, a trunk they called Peter. They often deposited their goods in lumber yards and slept in them. He often went to the Theatre.

By the above, we see that this unfortunate, interesting boy, had learned many lessons in one year, and was in the broad road to destruction. On re-examination, the boy thinks it likely that he stole many other things; that he cannot remember all. Enters 6th class; could not read in the New Testament.

Second Annual Report of the Association for the Benefit of Colored Orphans (New York: Mahlon Day, 1838); Third Annual Report of the Association for the Benefit of Colored Orphans (New York: Mahlon Day, 1839); "Association for the Benefit of Colored Orphans Admissions Records, 1837?1840," MSS, New York Historical Society.

ELIZABETH JACKSON, aged 7, born in Patterson NJ in 1829. Her mother who was named Mary Jackson was originally a slave, but was freed by the laws of the state of New Jersey. She died two or three years before Elizabeth's admission to the asylum. Her father's name is unknown. She was living at the time of her admission with her grandparents. An orphan girl, was met by one of the Managers last winter in Madison street, having been sent for liquor by her grandmother. The wretchedness of the place from which she was taken can hardly be surpassed. When called for at mid?day, she was found in bed with scarcely a vestige of clothing. With the assistance of a few articles hastily procured, she was dressed and carried to the Asylum. She proved to be a child of untractable [sic] temper, and feeble intellect, the result probably of a diseased brain. Evident improvement was however observed in her character and deportment, and when the managers witnessed her death a few months after her admission, it was not without the hope, that her spirit, renewed and sanctified by divine grace, had passed from ignorance and degradation to a world of purity and happiness.

JOHN TOMATA, [aged 8 or 9) an orphan boy, born in slavery in the West Indies. He was brought by his mistress from Havana to this city, and here voluntarily emancipated. When admitted, he was suffering from disease of the spine and to those who saw him for the first time, his sadly expressive countenance and the distressing infirmity under which he labored, made a most touching appeal. It was hoped that the spinal affliction might be arrested, but the approach of cold weather developed consumptive symptoms, which proved ultimately fatal. His disposition was grateful and uncomplaining, and always readily responsive to the slightest expression of interest or sympathy. During the last few painful hours which preceded his death he was frequently heard to exclaim in mournful tones, "no father, no mother." He had learned nothing of the English language except a few broken sentences ....

JOHN ROSAL, admitted June 1837, born November 1829. His father whose name was John Rosa] died in New York, Jan. 16th, 1837. His mother Diana Rosal died

November 25th, 1836. The character of his parents is said to have been of the most vicious and degraded kind. After the death of John Rosal's mother, his father who had taken no care of his wife or child for a long time abandoned him entirely. A coloured woman named [illegible] of very respectable character, who lived in the upper part of the house where his mother died, took charge of him. This woman brought him to the Asylum. John Rosa] is said to have a grandmother residing in Hackensack (NJ) who is a respectable woman with some property...

CINDERELLA JACKSON, admitted November 1837, was born in New York, December 25th, 1828. Her mother, Maria Jackson died of consumption, September 15th, 1837. Her father John Jackson also died of consumption in the latter part of March 1835. Cinderella was brought to the Asylum by her step father, Isaac Wright. He has been a labourer in the employ of Addison, Willmarth, and Co .... He is in bad health and speaks of some articles of clothing and furniture, and perhaps a little money to which she will be entitled on his death ....

JACOB BECKET LEE was admitted October 10th, 1837, born at the South probably in 1829. His mother Maria Lee died of cholera in New York in 1833. His father?Lee was a fugitive slave from Virginia and was apprehended by his master in New York and carried back to slavery. He was brought to the Asylum by a friend of his mother named Comfort Becket living in Walnut Street. Jacob B. Lee was apprenticed to Thomas H. Thomas of New York, as a house?servant on the 19th of April, 1839. His term of apprenticeship will expire on the 19th of April 1850.1

JEREMIAH RAWLE, born (probably) in 1829, and Adeline Kawle, born (probably) 1831, admitted November 20th, 1837. Jeremiah and Adeline Rawle are the children of Minerva Rawle, a slave in the state of Virginia, who was liberated under the will of her master. Rawle, together with about forty others, who removed to New York in the autumn of 1837. They were all in destitute circumstances at the time of their arrival, and these children, appearing to be proper subjects for the Asylum, were with the consent of their mother brought there, not long after their arrival. Their mother was a vicious and ignorant woman, and from her ungovernable temper became exceedingly troublesome to the inmates of the Asylum. She died in the summer of 1839. Their father is believed to be still living in slavery in Virginia.2

HARRISON NICHOIS, born in 1835, and Charles Nichols, born in 1833, admitted November 1838. The mother of Charles and Harrison Nichols died of scarlet fever about fourteen months before they were brought to the Asylum. Her name was Susan. Their father, a worthy man, went to sea soon after the death of his wife and has since not been heard of. They were taken care of until brought to the Asylum by a relative named Lucinda Dunham, who being unable to maintain them any longer, carried them to the Police office, whence they were sent to the Asylum. She lives at No 48 Third Str in the rear and appears to be a worthy woman.