New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1852-06-21
The Outcast Children.

The Outcasf Children.
"The astounding facts that more than
oreorh of the entire plumber committed to this prison.
and that nearly onsd of those charged with petty Of
lenses sgsns person and property had attained the
age of twenty years call loudly for the sdopoa OF
some measure that may stay the progress OF these cadets
Of crime" q.
Report from ewsrdsn Of the City PrsonJan l. 1852
"Of the higher grades Of elony four6ths Of the COM
plants examined have been sasinst minors, and full
twobrds of all the complaints for crime acted during
the term have been against persons between the ages OF
GPresentnent Of the Grand JuIy-New-York, 1854
Out of 900 criminals committed to the Tombs
this last year, over 1000 were under twenty-onc
years Of age And Of these about 500 were be-
tween the ages Of nine and fifteen
OF the 2,4O0 thieves confined there, 100 were
under twenty-one, and some 600 under fifteen.
But hear Mr.. Matsell on This subject, in his Re-
port oflS5O:
Reports have been made m from tue Captains
Ql) Patrol Districts, from which II appears that the
enormous number Of 2955 children engaged In these
Wards alone as above described, r. e In pilferins
prostitution begging and immoraes Of the most loah.
descripon And Of these, ,Dothirds avs females
barren ei9h and sixteen years Of ase This estimate,
believe to be far short of the number engaged
Mr.. Matsell then reckons up the various classes
of vagrant children in this City, making the whole
number about ten thousand. Mr.. VI. thinks the
ABOVE would be low estimate the present Yar.
One more text, and not without its pathos, too.
"The bodies of two boys were found yesterday
ing, Ia the ruins Of the are In Hammerslyst The
of the deceased unknown and IL Is probable
thar they will not be identified they thought to be
lads who had home, but wandered about the City In
the daytime and at night slept In stables, carts or else
where" Tribune, June l2
Is our most Christian community aware Of all
this A mighty multitude growing up among us,
of child. thieves and Of prostitutes, who are
scarce OUT of their leading strings. Children,
numbering by the thousands, who have no home,
and sleep in stables, or carts or elsewhere"
who are without friends, except an occasional
employer, selling them body and soul, for gain
who were never in school whs do not know how
to read who never heard of the Bible, and whose
life is stepped in disgusting crime and pollution
The writer of this has been engaged of late in visit
ing city prisons, and in giving his aid to those
gentlemen who are lsbofing among this class of
vagrant children-and he had no conception before
of the fearful extent of this evil. These young
outcasts and vagabonds crowd every filthy lane and
alley Of the city they iufest the piers, TILL though
thousands OF dollars lost by petty pferng,
neither police nor owners do anything against
them; they fill the lowest cellars with their preco
cious debauchery and drunkenness; the jails, sta
ton houses and prisons packed with them, till
the Warden of the City Prison very sensibly says
in the report above quoted, GAS it is now, the
moral welfare of the deinquents and the interests
Of society would be better served by dismssgn
the charges against them than by placing them
here under the instruction of able and experienced
profe ssors ofiniquity" We have seen girls, scarce
fourteen years of age fostering with disease in the
wards of the syphilitic Hospital of BlackwePs
Island; and each day boys and girls are brought
on criminal charges before our Police Courts,
who in other grades Of society would be still in
the nursery.
Dir. MatseI informs us that one of the most
common of the vile ofsnses OF the city, and one
which the Police regulations can seldom reach, is
the employment, by old villains of little girls, to
go forth in numbers. and bring in a rich harvest
of wages, by submitting to tho most debasing
pollution.
All this in our most Christian City of New
York
During the last two years the writer Of this has
had some considerable opportunity Of observing
the degradation Of Europe, ard to him it is sadly
ominous of evil that our future society rests on
such basis Of guilt and wretchednsss. There is
nothing in Europe worse than the black side of
New. FORK. The lanes Of Liverpool, Westmin-
ster and St. Giles; the faubourgs of the Seine
and the suburbs of Vienna, do not any Of them
present an aspect Of such unmngled poverty and
unchecked vice as our lowest Wards.
And be it remembered with this fearful addition,
-osr proetairiat, our outcasts and Migrants are
our voters, our future citizens legisla-
tors.
But the saddest aspect to this, Is, that it should
begin so with children.
Did any Of your readers ever enter one Of the
vagrant schools now being started in the City
You would be surprised. There are no keener
and shrewder faces often than those Of the vaga-
bond boys of large city. But they are so old.
The burrows Of passion, the stamps of disease and
want, where there should be the smooth bloom of
childhood. The eye, which should be frightened
with boyish meuiment, cunning, CLASSY, heavy.
Such endless capabilities looking out from all the
young faces,-and yet you are sure such black
history of crime and shame and want before each.
Lool at this, Christian men Little girls like
your girls, boys like your sons,-growIng up in
pollution and wretchedness such as the mind sick
ems to contemplate We talk Of labor among
Hesthen,n and give generously for it, but there
are no Heather like the boys Of the Five Points.
Boys with the sharpness, the untiring energy Of
our American character, and with the tremendous
passions and ungoverned vices of savages. There
is no romance about labor among them no idea of
tropical odors and oriental scenes no hsrsic self
denial, watched by Nation. 1t is plain. dry, hard
work the "odors" are Of rotting garbage and
foul sewers; the scenes-the dark, reekiEg
noisome cellars Of great City, the re~ard-to
ca . hnr made hX God fnr the sarna d.stinx "a