Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1886-10-03
MISSIONS OF NEW YORK.
INSTITUTIONS OF CHARITY FOR
THE POOR AND DEPRAVED.
The Five Points Home of Industry
The st. Marks Nission--The Convicts'
Housekeeping Fallen Women.

The Five Points Home of Industry
The st. Marks Mission--The Convicts'
Housekeeping Fallen Women.
NEW YORK, Oct. 2.-The Five Points
has become name of the past. Its rock
for the lofty warehouses; OF merchants. and
their criminal occupants have been
obliged to seek homes in other quarters
OF the city. Here and there only cluster
OF shanties remains to suggest what the
place must have been in former days.
Forty years ago 1t was the plague spot of
the city, the home OF debsuchery and
sounded with the blasphemIes and
revelries of their inmates. Ruffianism
reigned supreme, and no respectable per-
son could venture with safety in the
neigh borhood.
In tho year 1850 the Rev. Lewis NJ
Pease and his wife made this sink OF vice
their home. They saw that no mission
airy work could be successful unless they
lived themselves in the midst OF the
wretchedness they sought to relieve. The
Five Points House of Industry Is the re-
suit Of their labor. Year by year tt has
grown in size until now it occupies 100
square feet of ground. The building is
OF brick, with a tower at the western cor
ner. The front is partly overgrown with
ivy, and overlooks Paradise Park, made
famous as the platform OF Fatty w alsh
when addressing his political constitu-
ency. The work OF this mission is devoted
to the relief of destitute children.
| 1t is not an industrial school, as it's
name implies. Toe first floor has a beau
! tifuI 0hanat with atQinpu Ulnac winIDwG
where the 300 little waits gather each
| Sunday for divine service. On this floor
| are also the dining room for the older
ones, the kitchen and the laundry. Upon
the second floor are the cheerful school
rooms, where Tor five hours each day those
| living in the building and any who may
| choose to come from the neighbNrhood
are taught the rudiments OF an ordinary
education. The scholars are mostly
chubby little rascals, OF both sexes, many
OF them very pretty. The boys go bare
| footed, but are cleanly washed and
dressed; and as the floors of the building
! throughout are scrubbed as clean as a
! Chinaman's ironing board, shoes and
stockings would be supsrfluous luXuries.
Children of all natioualities are gath
cred here. Irish, German, Italians,
negroes, Spanish, and in one instance a
| native-bOrn Chinese. Margaret Ar W 90
/ 10 NY QUO 10 IltltJ Nuliu anu
remarkably intelligent for her years. The
| specimen OF her penmanship shown me
would have done honor to a Murray Hill
| belle. Her father, Ar Woo, visits her at
intervals Of IA fortnight, and apparently
lsves Der very dearly. She is of mixed
| Mongolian and Caucasian origin. Above
| the school rooms are the nursery, where
infants under years old are cared for,
and the sleeping rooms for the girls. Next
above is the large dormitory for the boys,
where about one hundred and twent five
are lodged. How white and clean are
those small Oeds! What d contrast to
the dirt of a Mulberry street tenement!
| The top floor is devoted to the uses Of a
! play room. 1t extends the entire length
and breadth OF the building, and fur
nishes az cheerful a place for playing as
can be imagined. The bath room is a
| large apartment with mammoth tank
In the centre. Each child has jet OF
water and towel and soap for Its own
use. Add to the foregoing hospital for
the sick and a printing office to teach thu
| older bows the trade of type setting and
you Will have some idea OF the work &C
| cOmpished by this mission.