St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-12-16
GA RING FOR GAMINS.
Club Rooms and a Pleasant
Home Provided for News
boys.
Friends Needed to Kaintain
a Worthy and Necessary :
Institution.
Police Assistance Invoked to
Break Up a Craze for
Gambling.
Waits Who Have Not Forgot
ten the Comforts They
Have Received.

boys home, $50 Robert street, where
kind and charitlbly disposed citizens
have provided and maintain place of
refuge, that is home in every sense of
the word, for newsboys and street
waits. A great surprise is in store for
the stranger who visits the place. In
stead of finding the cherries rooms, bare
floors and walls, rude wooden
furniture, gruff managers and gen.
eral GOODNESS so common in
institutions of the kind, he is received
by pleasant and entertaining young
lady who supervises the place, and is
ushered through bright and CHEEKY
rooms, prettily papered, carpeted and
decorated. A large library of juvenile
literature, magazines, newspapers,
clean and unobjectionable sporting pa
pers, and other reading matter contrib
uted by interested citizens will be OBJ
served. Games of all kinds are also TO
he found, and in one corner of the front
parlor stands piano which often plays
an important part in their amusement.
On the second floor are four large rooms
containing twenty single beds, always
clean, neatly arranged and inviting, at
the foot of each of which is a
CONVENIENT LOCKER FOR CLOTHING.
and trinkets, though many of the in
mates have little more than paper col
lar TO deposit in them. Convenient to
the sleeping apartments is large bath
room to which the boys are compelled
10 repair regularly. A pleasant dining
room, kitchen, etc, are found on the
ground floor. Here the street boys are
boarded and lodged at regular fee of
% cents per day.
At the regular quarterly meeting of
the board of managers of the assOcia-
ton held yesterday afternoon at the
chamber of commerce, interesting i'll
formation concerning the home and the
street boys of the city was brought out.
The secretary of the association re-
ported that the number of boys living
at the home had been disappointingly
small. There are accommodations for
twenty, and it is desirable that the
home should be filled to its capacity.
The club rooms which were es-
tablished by the late Mr.. Corning,
and which were III operation
for some time after this asSo-
citation came to his assistance, would it
was thought, serve every purpose of the
association, and that the home was UNI
necessary. The club room serves as a
recruiting Office for the house. The
home is to them one of restraint. The
club room is an easy step to the home,
and had it not been for the club it is
hard TO see how il would have been pos
sibe to start the home with third as
many occupants as it had in the begin
ming. We have only small balance
on hand. Our receipts for the past year
have included some extraordinary con-
tributons, which cannot be
RELIED ON IN THE FUTURE.
The home is firmly established, and
the work is no longer experimental. 1t
will require $3.50 per month to carry on
| the business of the association. The
home is by no means self-supporting.
for. although the boys are not allowed
to feel themselves the objects of char
| ity, and are compelled to pay their
| board, the amount received is applied
| only to the purchase of food. and is
sometimes hardly sufficient for that
! purpose. I'VE have heretofore avoided
! personal solicitations, and under the
! circumstances ii ought not to be neceS-
| sary, but | would suggest that we at
| least make our invitation as cordial as
we can, and that we adopt some method
| of making it known to everybody that
we need money, and need it now"
The report was unanimously adopted,
after which q resolution was passed di-
recting the executive committee to pro-
eeed forthwith 10 secure and furnish
suitable quarters, located convenient to
the different newspaper offices, for club
| rooms.
A communication was received from
Archbishop Ireland Offering to con-
tribute personally one half the rent of
the
CLUB ROOMS FOR ONE YEAR.
A report of the management of the
home was read 10y Miss Johnston, the
resident manager, the substance OF
which is as follows:
The Corning home has now been
| opened for nearly eight months, and
may Justly be considered to have
passed the experimental stage of its eX-
istence. There are 1T present fifteen
boys living at the home. OF them
twelve may be said to constitute the
family, the number varying from that
TO eighteen. The irregular habits and
rowing tendencies OF street boys are
leading characteristics of their
class. Since the opening OF
the home over fifty boys have
lived here for periods of various
lengths, and many more than that
number have availed themselves of the
transient privileges of the home.
While many of them have gone, scat
tered over the entire Union, letters
come back to us speaking of remem-
brance and appreciation of the pleasant
resting place the wanderers found here
These letters, faulty, irregular, and
comical as they are, are touching
proofs of the power of kindness over
even their rough natures. Several run
always have been returned to theiI
homes; some boys have found the
home stepping stone to a better posi-
ton in life, and those who have re-
manned with us show most encouraging
symptoms of awakening ambition, and
desire TO lift their eyes TO higher
things.n
Quite recently a gambling craze struck
all of the street boys, the home boys a
well. Through them the pool rooms re-
sorted to for that purpose were dis
covered, and through the efforts of j
5. How, on behalf of the association
an order was issued by the chief Of
police, prohibiting the presence of boy:
in saloons and pool rooms. When {
policeman entered
A MINNESOTA STREET DIVE
in the middle of the afternoon To en-
force the order, he found the place lit
orally crowded with boys of all ages
smoking, gambling and playing pool
The police are aiding the association in
reducing the opportunities for the boys
indulgence in their craze for gambling
and now the boys are grumbling be
cause cold weather is coming on and
there is no place for them te go. Mos
of the street boys have homes so unat
traetive that they have no desire TO re
main there. particularly in the evening
Our home boys have pleasant home
and many prefer to remain there in the
evening, but as the rules say 'be home
at O'clock" they are protected from
the worse temptations of the streets al
night.
Sunday afternoons the Catholic boys
| have their catechiSm with Catholic in.