The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-02-16
NEW YORK.
Something About he p, Dangerous Jar Glasses oftho


sO"e'"'"S ""O MelropoIis. nS 0"' O'"SseS oi the
Appleton'S Journal for February 10 con-
tains an interesting article by Mr.. Charles L.
Brace on ''The Dangerous Glasses of New
York, from which we clip the following ex-
tracts:-
Certain small districts can be found in our
metropolis with the unhappy fame of con-
tanning more human beings packed to the
square yard, and stained with more acts of
blood and riot, within given period, than is
true of any other equal space of earth in the
civilized world There are houses, we'll
known to sanitary boards and the police,
where fever has taken perennial lease, and
will obey no legal summons to quit; where
cholera, if a single germ-seed of it floats
anywhere in American atmosphere, at once
ripens a black harvest; where murder has
stained every floor of its gloomy stories, and
vice skulks or riots from one years end to
the other. Such houses are never reformed.
The only hope for them is the march of street
improvements, which will utterly sweep them
away.
One of the remarkable and hopeful things
about New York, to a close observer of its
dangerous classes, " is that they do not tend
to become fixed and inherited, as in Euro
pean cities. The universal turmoil of Ame-
rican life, the upturning of everything, the
searching character of its great forces such
as religion, education, and self-respect, which
reach down, directly or indirectly, to the
lowest strata-all these causes seem continu-
ally to disintegrate the American poor and
criminal classes and even more in the cities
than in the villages. The same families do
not remain here long in the same houses, or
the same quarters. The husband leaves the
wife, and the wife the husband; the children
abandon the disagreeable home or are caught
up and trained by the various charitable and
educational associations some member of
the family is continually rising to opu-
lence or responsibility. The families of the
paupers and beggars and criminals are con-
stantly being broken up.
But, though the crime and pauperism of
| New York are not so deeply stamped in the
blood of the population as in European cities,
they are even more dangerous. The intensity
| of the American temperament is felt in every
fibre of these children of poverty and vice.
| Their crimes have the unrestrained and
| sanguinary character of o race accustomed to
| overcome all obstacles. They rifle bank,
where English thieves pick pocket; they
murder, where European pq0IetdtTes cudgel
| or fight with fists; in riot, they begin what
seems about to be the sacking of city, where
| English rioters would merely batter police
| men or smash lamps. The dangerous
| classes" of New York are mainly American
|
i'm migrants They are as ignorant as London
flash men or rcostermongers. They are farm
| brutal than the peasantry from whom they
| descend, and they are much banded together
| in associations, such as dead Rabbit, !"
''Plug-ugly," and various target companies
They are our entdntS perduS, grown up to
young manhood. A murder of an unoffend-
ing old man, like Mr.. Rogers, is nothing to
them. They are ready for any offense or
| ariT aNy
York has never experienced the full effect of
the nurture of these youthful ruffians as she
will one day. They showed their hand only
slightly at the riots during the war. At pre-
sent, they are like the athletes and gladiators
of the Roman demagogues. They are the
''roughs" who sustain the ward politicians,
and frighten honest voters They can ''re-
peat" to an unlimited extent, and serve
their employers. They live on ''pGnens ct cir
ceaaSeS," or City Hall places and pot-houses
where they have full credit. If an unfortu-
nate time should come when our city dema-
gogues could no longer help to support this
host of ruffians, and all business were de-
pressed, and capital seemed selfish and in
different, these young men could raise such q
following in our thronged eastern quarters, with
some cry like ''Bread or Blood" as would
shake the city with alarm to it's foundations
and might crimson our streets with the blood
| of civil strife.
The young ruffians of New York are mainly
the products Of accident. Among a million
people, such as compose the population OF
this city and its suburbs, there will always be
great number of misfortunes; fathers die
and leave their children unprovided for
parents drink, and abuse their little ones, and
they float away on the currents of the street
stepmothers or stepfathers drive out by
neglect or ill-treatment, their sons from the
home. One cause which is fruitful source
of criminals among the working-class, is theil
little respect for MARRIAGE
All the neglect and bad education and evi
example of al poor class tend to form others
who grow up to swell the ranks of ruffianl
and criminals. So, at length, great multi
tude of ignorant unframed, passionate, ire
ligious boys and young men are formed, whC
become ''the dangerous class" of our city
They form the Nineteenth street gangs,
the young burglars and murderers, the garro
ters and rioters, the thieves and fash-men
the ''repeaters" and rufians, so well known
, to all who know this metropolis.