Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1883-05-31
A GREAT cIrrs WAITS.
The g. Fresh Air Fund.- and What Ii is Doing
for the Poor Children ofNew York During
the Hot Summer Months.

for the Poor Children of New orlk Durinr
the Hot Summer Months.
Close by the river, at the foot Of a
dismal street, stands big shed, in
which eighteen families eat and sleep.
1t is quarter of New York where de-
cent people are seldom seen. On every
side there are shanties and rookeries,
and the air is heavy with sickening
smells from slaughter-houses. Dirt is
everywhere; foul ooze of garbage
and standing water in the gutter; solid
layers of dust in dark entries which
are never scratched by broom; heaps
of unclean straw serving for pillow
and bed in the closets which are known
as bedrooms; and thick coatings Of
CRIME, ancient and modern, on the
hands and faces Of the children
swarming aboutthe doorways, as well
as in the shreds, tatters and patches
with which they are scantily clothed.
The midsummer heats up the piles of
refuse until they steam with fou
vapors, which are caught up by the
windows; and when the doors leading
into the halls are opened for a draught
of fresh air, there is sitting sense of
closeness and dampness which makes
the babies sneeze and the mothers
cough. The long wooden building,
with its three floors and rickety stair
cases, is so unsteady and tottering that
one who watches it in the noontime
heat Of a July day fairly holds his
breath, expecting to hear a sudden
crash and to see its ragged roof and
dingy walls fall to pieces, disappearing
in a cloud of dust.
That ugly shed is known as "The
Barracks" Rubbish heap though it
be, it contains within its patched and
Shiny shell eighteen homes, with as
many as sixty children. On each of
its three floors there are six families,
and no household has more than two
rooms, one of them being barely larger
than closet, and as dark as night even
in the daytime. In those two rooms
the cooking and washing Tor the family
are done, and at night the father,
mother, and sometimes as many as six
or eight children, have to sleep close
together, like sardines in box. "The
Barracks" is but one of the hundreds
of tenement houses where the children
Of the poor live all the year round
The children in these tenement
houses always look older than they
really are.
The childhood which accords- with
their years, if not with their faces, can
not be permanently restored to them,
for poverty is their birthright, and
every season brings with it privations
and misery. But if they can be helped
to be children for two weeks in the
year, the memories of their holiday and
the renewed health which it gives to
them will make them younger as well
as healthier and happier. If, when
the scorching midsummer sun falls
with white glare upon the thin roofs
and fiimsy walls Of their tenement
homes, the children can be taken out
of the narrow closets where they sleep,
and the steaming cutters where they
swarm like big black flies, and set down
in the center of the children's play
ground, which is the country, new
glow will be kindled in their cheeks,
and they will be the children they
were meant to be-not little old men
and little old women.
Now, this is the work of what is
called "The Fresh Air Fund" Peo-
pie who are rich or have moderate
means furnish the money for the chill
dren's travelling expenses, sending it
to newspaper. Last summer there
were more than fifteen hundred gen
erous persons, many of them children
themselves, who gave money for this
purpose, the contributions amounting
to $21, ,556.91. With this sum, 5,599
of the poor children of New York were
taken into the country, given a holi-
day Of two weeks, and carried back to
their tenement homes. While their
travelling expenses were paid by the
contributors to the fund, the children
were the invited guests of farmers and
other hospitable people living in the
country. During the spring seventy
i've public meetings were held in as
many villages in New York, Connecti-
cut, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Yer
mont and other States, ard arrange
ments were made with committees
and clergymen in as many localities;
and when the kind-hearted entertainers
in the country were ready to receive
them, the children were sent out from
the city in large companies, and dis
tributed among the villages.
The manager Of the fresh-air fund
is Willard Parker, a bachelor clergy
man, who has adopted the poor chill
dren of New York as his own. Hale
and hearty. with ruddy face and an
eye twinkling with good humor, he
has a heart brimful Of kindness for
neglected children, and the energy Of
twenty men. He it was who devised
this simple and effective plan of enter
tanning in the country the poorest of
poor children living in New York and
Brooklyn. The experiment was tried