The Carbon advocate. [volume] (Lehighton, Pa.) 1872-1924, 1885-08-22
BrOadbrimS New York letter
Special to the CARBON ADVOCATE.

Special to the CARBON ADVOCATE.
1t is nearly sixty years since Robert
Malthus gave to the world his great
work on Political Economy, in which he
breaches number of principles which
have made his name famous among the
philosophers Of these latter days; and
the more we think the matter over the
more we are inclined to believe that
Malthus and Martineau were right. For
years past have been trying to figure
out the intimate family connection be-
tween poverty and population, walk
about this city, and in the nelghbor-
hoods where poverty and crime abound,
children swarm like the locusts of
Egypt, The other day took stroll
through the streets that radiate from
the Five Points. The point of radiation
is Paradise Park, though why it is so
called confess cannot tell; only the
conclusion is forced upon you, that
Paradise and Shcol are not very far
apart. 1t is almost exactly in the centre
OF the Sixth Ward, ward of unsavory
reputation for century past, and which
to-day contains more thieves and bad
characters to the square foot than any
other ward in the city. The lowest re-
fuse of our foreign population is here; it
is the stronghold of the Italians and
Chinese. In all of these streets the
children swarm by the thousands.
stood leaning against lamp-post on the
corner of Mott and Bayard streets, ,and
counted, in groups of five and ten, one
hundred and eighty-siX children, the
oldest of whom could not have been
over ten years of age. None of them
were well clad and clean; many of them
were in rags and dirty; but it is vacation
now and and all the children are in the
streets. l 90 along the Fifth avenue
and the streets that branch from it on
Murray Hill, among the brown stone
and marble palaces whore Dives dwells
and Croesus lives, and | scarcely meet a
child, and those ] do meet are like hot
house plants, and the nurse that accom-
panieS them seems to be afraid that the
winds of Heaven may visit their faces
too roughly. The gutter-snipes of the
| slums, turned adrift on the streets in
the early morning, unwashed, unkempt
and uncared for, are growing up in our
midst by hundreds of thousands, and
we are forced to ask ourselves what is
going to become of them. Certain it is
/ that no power In our midst as yet has
grappled successfully with this impor-
tant question. -
ltis supposed that the christian church
is doing much for theit welfare, but here
is a plain statement staring Us in the
face. In the city of New York there
are about four hundredplaees of various
kinds dedicated to public worship ysohAe
of these will only seat-a: cehple-of hun
dred, being held by religious and semi
religious societies. in rooms or halls;
very few viii holda thousand, and there
are five or six that might possibly hold
two thousand; but the four hundred
places of wOrshipif full to oyerAowing
would not contain two hundred and fifty
thousand of our people, leaving eleven
hundred and fifty thousand unproyided
with the means of spiritual grace. If
except the Catholic churches, none of
our churches are full. In the Methodist
and Presbyterian churches where once
there was scarcelya seat to be had there
are dozens Of empty pews. This is par