Cleveland daily leader. [volume] ([Cleveland, Ohio]) 1865-1873, 1866-06-29
FROM NEW YORK,
The Cholera Aspect-MetrOpOlitan PO-
Iiee-LOSt ChiIdren's Department
CIeVeIanders in the Metropolis.
Especial Correspondence Cleveland LEADER.l
NEW YORK, June 25, 1866.

| ~ VI hE III NONLluLh hAlO NldAAh wv lOu
are not as we are? Do you imagine US
shuddering with a direful dread of chol-
era each morning as weopen our eyes and
forsaking business that we may mourn
together over the pestilence which has
been SO confidently predicted? Because
if you do, you may spares your ympathy
and bottle up your self complacency. Both
are wasted. We donot particularly envy
you your lake breezes, especially if they
give one rheumatism as they did On last
Sunday and Monday, and as to the chol-
era, we have no more of it in the city and
scarcely more thought of it than in each
preceding year. TheIcases in the city do
not average more than two per day, and 1
imagine that if each of the previous years
had seen such thorough visitation from
house to house and well systematized a
method of making known all circumstan-
ces attendant upon every death, as this
one, there would have been as many cases
of cholera developed as now. Of course
there is danger of it here. The fact that
it has arrived upon our shores in crowded
emigrant ships is enough to warn the most
Indifferent, but the very energetic efforts
to thoroughly cleanse the filthy portions
of the city have thus far found their best
argument in the general freedom from the
epidemic. The determination of the
Board of Health to make public the whole
truth, every day, whether it is favorable or
unfavorable, has quieted apprehension and
pravanted the SLIGHTEST manic.
The Metropolitan Police have cast off
their thick winter suits and donned the
summer regulation suit of blue flannel
pants and sack, with Panama hat. The
organization of the Police system was
one of the best things for the city that
was ever done at Albany. 1t is a pleas
ure to witness the quiet dignity of these
policemen, and the easy, self-possessed
way in which they preserve the peace.
Two of them stand at this moment below
my window-tall, athletic fellows, with
no show of locust or pistol, and yet you
know that they are game to the death, and
SO well trained in the use of their clubs
that one of them may put to flight a dis
organized crowd of q dozen loafers. In
one of the cross streets this morning, 1
saw and heard a shouting, swearing
and scrambling crowd of roughs gathered
around the spot where two bruisers were
having a bloody fight. As the villianous
crew were squirting on the fighters and
intent only on seeing who hit the hardest
and who drew the most blood, down came
two NJ. P.'s
Like the wolf on the fold,'
and in less time than it takes me 10 write
the fact the horde was scattered two
or three were picking themselves up out
of the cutters, or rubbing their heads and
wishing that that club hadn't been quite
so hard, while the two principals were
being marched off TO the TOombs. Stri-
king into Broadway and coming down to
the vicinity OF the celebrated Fulton
corner, l saw two others of these same
stalwart NJ. P.'s, giving all their attention
to safely escorting ladies and children
across the perilous street. Dress and style
had no preference here; the poor old APP.
pie woman or the bewildered old lady
from the country, who had "rather wait
till the procession had got by received
just as careful and polite attention as the
dainty miss whose apparel exceeded that
of Solomon in all his glory. 1t was an il
lustration of the varied duties deyolYing
upon the blue-coated gentlemen, and they
are equally at home in either capacity.
Long may they control turbulent New
York with their locust batons, in gloves
of white silk.
1t is not only as preservers of the pub
lie peace that the Metropolitan Police earn
their title to the grateful consideration of
all New Workers. You have been startled
by the bell and voice of the crier who goes
through ycur streets and shouts at the top
of his voice that there is a "child lostF'
And if you have little ones Of your own,
you tremble lest such a fate should come
to some of them. You grieve for the
mother who has exhausted her strength
in hunting her boy before she so far &C
knowlcdged to herself that he vas really
lost as to call in the aid of the public crier.
And you speculate upon the chances of
his being found you think of the uncov-
cred sewers, of the unprotected railroad
tracks, of the treacherous docks, of the
bad men and women who may catch and
keep him in the hope of a reward.
These things may happen to you twice or
thrice in a year, and when a new case
comes up you think it was but a little
time since you heard the bell and the cry.
But here in this great city there were last
year more than four hundred in the
| month of June alone, and more than two
thousand lost children in the course of the
year. No bell or cry will answer here,
where one may in five minutes be as COM
pletely separated from the starting place
as if he had stepped over a hundred
miles. 1t is here that the Police appear
and win the love and gratitude of a null
titude of thankful hearts. The Lost
Children's Department is onn-of the
~ iustitutinnsu-oR the city. Its head
quarters is at the Police Headquarters in
Mulberry street, Here is q reception
room In which there are baths, tables,
eight large beds and a large number of
cradles. All of these last are kept
scrupulously clean, and all the apartments
are thoroughly ventilated. A matron is
ready at all times to receive the little
wanderers and care for them. To her are
brought all children found wandering
ABOUT the city unable to find their homes
or to tell where their homes are, and they
remain under her charge until they are
reclaimed by their friends or-failing to
be called for after a stated time-sent to
the Juvenile Asylum on Wards Islands,
where they are reared under the care of
tie Commissioners of Public Charities.
Some singular facts have been developed !
in the progress of the working of this de-
partment. 0neis that many of the child
rem are carried into strange streets and
~purposely abandoned by their unnatural
parents. These are the sequels to the ad-
vertisements which you may see in the
Herald of "Ladies DESTROYS of finding a
mndinal attand- |
ance during their confinement, may find
such by applying to --." Sometimes
their parents afterwards repent of their
treatment and come to the Department
for their children, eonfessing to the previ-
abandonment. Other children there
are who express the greatest dread of
going back to their homes, who tell of
constant blows and abuse from those who
should look at them only in kindness, and
who beg that they may remain in any
other home than that which is only asso-
ciated in their minds with pain and sor-
row.
Sometimes the history of the persons
thus found wandering in the streets has
a comical aspect. The supervision of the
police is not confined to children, bat any
person found lost is taken to the station
until his or her friends may be heard
from. Not long ago q newly married
came to the city, and, leaving his
wife at a hotel, the husband went out to
soma nurehases tAlIinr his hrida 70