New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1851-06-07

reached the rough old building IN filthy power
ty.stricken quarter which has been udely hIied
nm for the Ragged School-one of the first, be-
lieve. that was attempted | should say there
were about four hundred pupils on Its benches
with about forty teachers; the pupils were al
least two-thirds males from FIVE to twenty years
Old with dozen or more adults. The girls
were hundred or so, mainly from three to ten
wears of age but in separate and upper apart
ment ascending out OF the main room, there
were some forty adult women, with teachers e1-
clusivey of their own sex. The teachers were
of various grades of capacity; but as all teach
without pay and under circumstances which for
bid the idea of any other than phllanthroPlc or re-
heious attractyeness IN the duty, they are all
deserving of praise. The teaching Is confined,
believe to rudimental instruction in reading and
spelling, and to historic, theologic and moral les
sons from the Bible. As the doors are open and
every one who sees fit comes in, stays so long as
he pleases, and then goes out, there is much
confusion and hustle at times, but on the whole a
satisfactory degree of order is preserved, and con-
siderable, though very unequal, progress made
by the pupils.
But such faces such garments such daguer-
reotypes of the superative of human wretched-
ness and degradation These pupils were gath
cred from among the outcasts of LondOn-those
who have no family ties, no homes, no education,
10 religious training, but were born to wander
about the docks, picking up chance Job now
and then, but acquiring no skill, 10 settled voca
ton, often compelled to steal or starve, and
finally trained to regard the sheltered well fed
and respected majority as their natural Cypress
ors and their natural prey. OF this large class
of Migrants, amounting in this city to thousands,
Theft and 0or the females) HarlotTy, whenever
the cost of q loaf of bread or q nights lodging
could be procured by either, were as matterot-
course resorts for a livelihood as pryateenng,
campaigning, distillng or (ill recently slave
trading was to many respected and welltodo
champions OF Order and Conservatism through
out Christendom And the OutcaStS have ten
times the excuse for their moral blindness and
their misdeeds that their well-ted competitors IN
nquity ever had. They have simply regarded
the world as their oyster and tried to open It's
hard shells as they best could, not indicating
thereby special love of oysters but ravenous
appetite for food Of some kind 1t was oyster
or nothing with them. And in the course OF life
thus forced upon them, the males who survived
the period of infancy may have averaged twenty
FIVE wears of wretched, debased, brutal existence,
while the females, of more delicate frame and
subjected to additional evils, have usually died
much Younger But the gallows, the charity hospl
tails the prisons, the warehouses (refuges denied
to the healthy and the uncOnvicted,) with the UNI
fenced kennels and hiding places Of the destitute
during Indictment weather, generally saw the
earthly end of them all by the time that men IN
better circumstances have usually attained
their prime. And all this has been going on I'M
resisted and almost unnotced for countless gen.
erations, in the very shadows of hundreds OF
church steeples and in a city which pays mil
! ions of dollars annually for the support of Cos
| pei mnstrations.
The chief impression made on me by the spec
tacle here presented was one of intense sadness
and selt-reproach deeply realized that | had
hitherto said too little, done too little dared too
little, sacrificed too little, to awaken attention to
the internal wrongs and abuses which are inner
ent IN the very structure and constitution, the
nature and essence, Of civilized Society as 1t now
exists throughout Christendom. OF what avail
are aims giving, and individual benevoence, and
even the offices Of Religion, IN the presence OF
evils so gigantic and SO inwoyen with the very
framework of Society There have been here in
all recent times charitable men, good men enough
TO have saved Sodom, but not enough to save So
ciety from the condemnation of driving this out
cast race before 1t like sheep to the slaughter as
It's members pressed on In pursuit of their seye-
raj schemes of pleasure, riches or ambition, look
ing up to God for His appreciation on their bene-
Violence as they tossed penny to some miserable
beggar after they had stolen the earth from under
his feet How long shall this endure
The School was dismissed, and every one re-
Quested to leave who did not choose to attend
the prayermeetng No effort was made to IN
duce any to stay-the contrary rather | was
surprised to see that three fourths q think staId
though this was partly explained afterward by
the fact that they had hopes of nights lodging
here and none elsewhere. That prayer-meetlng
was the most Impressive and salutary religious
service have attended for many years -Four or
five prayers were made by different teachers in
succession--all chaste, appropriate, excellent
iervent, affecting. A Hymn was sung before and
after each by the cOngregation-and well sung
Brief and cogent addresses were made by the
Superintendent and q believe) an American VS.
Itor Then the School was dismissed, and the
pupils who had tickets permitting them to sleep
IN the dormitory below filed of in regular order
10 their several berths. The residue left the
premises We visitors were next permitted to
go down and see those who staid--of course only
the ladies being allowed to look into the apart
ment for women. o the sadness of that sight
There in the mems room were perhaps hun
dred men and bows sitting up in their rags IN