The evening world., 1889-08-22
and to this wall Street" can have personal


access.
Aftera six hours round in Fast Fifteenth
and Seventeenth streets and West Fiftieth,
Fifty third and Forty-third streets. We
haven't a penny, q flower, a prescription
blank nor an excursion ticket left, and more
than hfty-two orders have issued TO needy
bnbies for tho clothes contributed by the
married men of Catlin a Co., which the
" Jenny Wrens" of Larchmont are making.
We visit twenty. one houses, relieve with
medicine, groceries. clothing, Hrdials aud
small sums of money sixty families, aud by n
specia system Of mathema les estimate that
i2g women aud children ere benefited by the
gift of - Wall Street =" and the skill Of DIR.
Mason.
in and out of the towering tenemen's we
run across unhappy children and niling
babies, among whom we distribute SlO in
change for milk, fruit, dinner, drugs, car
fare. &c. Many Of these children are
bl~isterebwiih hives and mosquito bites, to
relieve which thirty odd dimes are invested
in the syrups, o%intinents and modicated ices,
prescribed by the doctor.
Occasionally q gauze veil or q netting is
bough' to throw over a fly-tormented child,
lying III u DhDJ WhEOu, uuu w hibSOh oNuh'J
meals spread over that many kitchen tables
We contribute a chop. n muskmelon or a
course of sweet fruit and rolls. But $40 goes
a long way in kltch n courtes sizes OF this sort.
In one of the flats Of q big, gloomy tone
ment on East FIJI eonth street lives O young
mother and her five children, who seem to be
running a sort Of steeplecLase with mis-
fortune.
The baby boy, a beautiful creature. who
has just succeeded in freeing himself from
the combined attacks of bronchitis, measels
and diarrhuen. Ia painfully ruptured his
elder brother, not yet ten years of age, is a
helpless little cripple, and his sister. a shy,
sweet girl Of twelve, with yellow HAIR and
violet eyes, is physically weak aud mentally
deranged.
The other two are perfect children. All
are loving and lovable, md would be happy
and light-hearted with IL few more creature
comforts md an occasional gift In the shape
of wearing apparel.
DIR. Constable has been most generous in
his attention to the little flock, but his fresh
air ticket is still on the clock, considerably
hy-specked, but still unused.
mo, l couldn't accept II. It only admits
my baby. and l wouldn't leave the Others"
She has been n resident of New York
twenty-one wears, and in all that time has
never seen the ocean. Her little ones are
pale Tommy is very thin neither of the
girls hive any color and there is no elasticity
10 the mothers step.
How would you like to take a sail down
the bay and spend tho whole day OIL the
beach,"
Could all of us go"
All; every one"
"Oh. it would be heavenly" the woman
says, and the children begin to grow wild.
Absent-minded Mary twines her arms about
her mothers neck and gazes at me with her
vacant. beautiful blue eyes. Annie. the
eldest girl, proceeds TO scour Tommy's face,
and that ordeal finished he gives little Dickie
q tight hug that dislocates the centre OF
gravity, and they roll over together on the
floor.
We figure on the fares, allowing SLIGO via
the Iron Steamboats,, and spend o full quarter
of an hour thinking out the luncheon.
Tommy wants n lemon with q lump oil
sugar squeezed through the hole in the top
Mary shyiy bids for cakes; brother Charles
don't care for anything 80 long as he gets
there" and wise Annie asks il l can get heI
q piece Of meat to boil.
We buy the lemons and sugar; q tenderloir
OF beef 10 boil; u measure of sweet, juicy
pears; two quarts of milk TO be boiled before
bottling. fresh rolls. Araway cookies, and
nav clean chip basket to put it IN.
Three dollars pays the entire bill. But the
mother hesitates, and by long and careful
probing l get at the sad truth.
The children have not sufficient clothing,
and in the admission can be read the surren,
der of hope.
Out comes the tablet aud another calcula
ton is made, for. Mary must have a ha
and o dress; Charles needs a pair of stockings
and shoes must be bought for beautiful
Dickie and his accomplishing mother.
Annie shops with me in Third avenue
where a triumph in straw and ribbon, will
the wing of a dove i~auntily perched on ON
side. is bought for SO cents. The little muslin
dress only cost 10 cents, the stockings are
third cheaper md s5 shoes the baby and BIZ
brother and covers the tired soles Of mother
hood.
By the time this goes to print the littl
family will be in sight of Manhattan Beach
amt I envy them the pleasure that await
their coming.
In the same house, never mind what floor
is a laborer's family consisting of a wife an,
seven small children. where peace and low
reign but plenty never.
The father has been out of employment be
cause out of health, nearly all Summer, an,
their Obligations to the grocer and butohe
and land agent have destroyed the mother
peace Of mind.
However glorious the position, the profit
of motherhood, viewed from a mercantil
standpoint, are vague and uncertain.
This particular mother, whose head ha
been touched by the storms of weather an
misfortune, and whose face is crossed an
recrossed by tine wrinkles of care, has an il
come from her toll, too precarious to kee
her IN pins. The dress she wears is fires
If, on1 clean and tIdy huf ayoru foura has su,