, 1879-05-08
"M0RLEY'S" LETTERS FROM NEW
YORK,
From our own correspondent
New YORK, April 20, 1879.

NEW YORK, April ~, 1879.
THE BETTER SIDE OF NEW YORK.
While the tenement house tells
the story of the Dives and Lazarus
Of the nineteenth century, let it not
be supposed that only Dives inhabit
yonder brown stone.row. Neither
should you infer from our gambling
dsns, brutal walking matches, drink
ing holes, and Haunting "social evil"
that New York is a modern Sodom.
Thank Heaven, this is but the heath
en- side of what called in an earlier
letter the most Christian and most
heathen city west OF the Atlantic.
The rich centurion and Dorcas and
Cornelius, all live just across Fifth
Avenue from Dives, but all the syn
agogues they have built, all the poor
people clad, and all the aims bes-
towed by them have made less noise
in the world than the blind beggar,
full of sores, lying at Dives gate.
Fair play, gentlemen
HOW THE WEALTH OF NEW YORK Is
GIVEN.
This city has nearly FIVE hundred
churches and chapels, costing forty
million dollars to build, and FIVE mill
ions more per annum to keep them
going. We have fifty-nine hospitals
and asylums for the sick, aged, blind,
deaf and dumb, lunatics, inebriatss,
orphans, and soldiers, which have
cost twenty millions to build, and
require Eve millions year to sus-
tain. The public school sdificss have
cost six millions, and four millions a
year to operate. The amount spent
in private charities no man can esti-
mate, but it must be several mill
ions. The beautiful city of Eliza
beth, containing twenty.eight thou
sand inhabitants, is valued at $14,-
| 000,000..-and the annual benefac-
tions of New York, not counting
private charities, amount to over
| $lS,000,000. That's "biz."
l
/ don't know how many missiona.
ries there may be in Japan, but do
know how many are at work among
the Arabs and in the slums of this
city. Before you read further, just
stop and guess how many there are.
I asked hard working Presbyterian
deacon, this morning, and he guessed
"twenty.fve." That was a misera-
BILE guess. Toiling among the tene-
ment houses, sailors boarding hou-
ses, ten cent lodging houses, and
along wharf and street, day and
night, are no less than two hundred
and sixty-six city missionaries 1t
is doubtful if any missionary field in
the world can show two hundred and
sixty. six laborers to million of pop.
ulation. The forty.three missiona-
ries employed by the City Missions
alone held three thousand seven hun,
drsd religious meetings last year in
the worst sections of the city, and
gave pecuniary aid to six thousand
people. This regiment Of untiring
workers visit and care for the sick,
read the Bible to those who will lis
ten, organize prayer meetings in ten
emsnt houses, on street corners and
shipboard, and every day and every
night hold meetings in their 40 mis-
sion churches. This money supports
besides, ten churches for ssamen, Z
sailors reading rooms, l6 other free
reading rooms, 8 coffee houses; and
"fowsr mission," through which
the sweet fragrance and beauty of
rose and lilly, heiiotrope and gsra.
mum, are brought into thousands Of
sick rooms, in hospitals and tsne-
msnt houses. Those blessed dollars
sustain a whole corps of trained
missionary nurses, giving them pre-.
liminary instruction In a Nurses
Training School; they support an
Infants Day Nursery for children of
working mothers, where the little
one is tenderly cared for whilo the
mother is out at work; and a cheap
lodging house for women. How of
ten this house, with its heslthful
moral atmosphere, has stood between
q homeless girl and perdition only
the last Great Day will unfold. Be-
sides these there is Working mems
Club, which is about sslf-supporting,
designed as an Offset to the drinking
saloon, and the " Midnight Mission"
for the resuoe of girls from a life Of