New-York tribune., 1869-04-09
1.-THE CRY or TIE HUMAN.p

perhaps five thousand young men who knew
not where to find bread for the day. Home
less amid q thousand homes they stood, and
near thousand tables pined and wanted
| food These youths are not paupers. They
have q little money in their pockets and
much honesty in their hearts. They have also
| a refinement of nature and certain religion
of health in their souls. Because they are
Door, they cannot live at a perfect restaurant
like the St. James or Brevoort, where bread is
worth its weight in gold; because they are
gentlemen and not Esquimaux, they cannot
live at a downtown "saloon;" and because
they believe that to be good and to be
healthy are convertible terms, they shrink
from the cuisine of a cheap boarding house.
This army of hungry vagabondS is chiefly
made up of divinity students, medical students,
law students, struggling artists, clerks and
statesmen. They can find tidy lodgings for
from five to twelve dollars a week, including
fires. They can afford to spend from five to
ten dollars n week for meals. At a second
rate boarding house. feed-we choose the term
is seven dollars. The dining-room is base
ment, with ptfall of a carpet bare walls
dingy windows opened or washed at the sweet
will of the Celtic maid who dribbles the soup
over the table cloth and slOps the coffee into
the saucers, and changes the napery on high
days and holidays. Ventilation there Is none
| Cleanliness there is none. Food there Is In
scant or free measure 1t is fried beef
steak. Ii is that Housekeepers' Friend,
liver, also fried. 1t Is intermittent eggs,
also fried. 1t is ham, also fried. 1t is
| the iuiceless age of beef, and the pale
immaturity Of veal 1t is pickles, green with
vitrio IL is fiat and flabby breakfast cakes
eaten with "a syrup which clogs the appetite.
| Ii is bread, bitter and dry with alum. Ii is
butter white and fluid with lard. 1t
is dessert of horrible compound in
digenous to our glorious Union, and called
pie. Chemically speaking, it is biting acid
and crumblilg alkali. Physiologcally speaking,
it is indigestion and biliOusness. Morally speak
ing, it is the devil, at whom we fire our ink
stand. The cheap restaurants change nothing.
! Except that the victim has bill of fare, prof
fered by a dirty waiter instead of frowsy
maid and pays little more for the outline of
that walters big thumb on his plate, dinner is
the same depressing experiment.
| Most Of these young men have fed on whole
some bread and well-cooked meats. They
come from homes where fresh table-linen and
shining dishes certain as the new day.
Where also, let us hope eating is not the coarsest
animal necessity, but graceful social service For
the first month they regard the new disorder
of things with horror. In the second, certain
Indifference possesses them. They accept the
manners of the creatures with whom they herd.
They cease to scrutiDize the doubtful dinners.
They bolt them in swift silence. They assimi-
late even the fateful pie. After three months
the young medical students consider curiously
the structure of the liver and the effect OF
oleic acid, count their few dollars balance
hunger and health, sigh, and fall to again at
the fried ham. All the rest Of the neophytes,
understanding neither physiology nor chcms-
try, know that something is wrong buy n
box of patent pills, swallow new poi
son, and go back to underdOno potatoes.
Six months of this life make Il dYspeptc. A
dyspeptic is a man without hope. A hopeless
man is Conservative lie votes the Demo-
cratic ticket or withdraws himself from poll
tics. TO paraphase n famous pOet-when
stomach stops, when liver dies, the man is
dead. Our new Raphael sits this very day,
perhaps, among his pigments salcratus fox
gpawing at his vitas. Rich as is the Academy
of Design, it cannot spare new Raphael from
| its catalogue. An immature Chancellor Kent
breakfasts dismally in Bleecker-st., and slowly
! poisOns himself with the copperas in his
! teacup. Even bench graced by Cardozo and
| Barnard has ample room and verge enough for
| a coming Kent. The financial genius who could
pay the National Debt may be tomorrow cut
off in his prime by sOggy pie-crust in Ninth-st
basement. 1t was insight that placed the sound
mind in the sound body. The unsound mind
in the unsound body makes bitter blunders
The unsound body, by its weakness. complains
of its bad food. The unsound mind mistakes
its craving and insults it with worse drink
The unsound body then tempts the unsound
mind to morbid ents-gaming, debauch-
cry, unsecmly plays, vile books. The whole
round of vices follows bad health. Bad health
follows bad food, In this struggle for life in
great cities there is no favored race to be
saved. Blood and breeding count for little.
Comfort is too costly for poor young men OF
however fine strain.
Here is q broad field for missionary labor.
Here is chance to save souls by first
saving bodies. The Young Mems Christian
Association is building Palace. In this
| palace let it include an eating nall,
commOdious, elegant, cheerful. Let the table
furnishing DO beautiful with cleanliness, but
inexpensive Let the food be plain, abun-
dant, well cooked. Let the prices cover
small profit on the cost, and let this profit go
to the opening of other eating-halls under the
same patronage. Our word for it that the
youths thronging thither would bo grateful al
lies of the Y. M. c. A.; that reading-room and
| treasury would thrive; that the dangerous