The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1903-07-05

children. many of them. who know the
pinch of poverty and something of the
ways of the vicious.
| An oath does not appeal especially to
their abhorance, until after they have been
, for some time under the care of the good
, sisters. and then they go back to their
| homes to tell Of the better ways that they
! have learned.
| This is one of the missionary ways. one of
| the social reform ways by which St. Johns
/ hopes to 60 much good throughout its big
| parish.
| ST. johns parish is planted in the middle
| of the city.
| Its boundary lines do not mark what IS
popularity believed to be the ''slums," the
! slums usually understood as being districts
| In the neighborhood of the Levee or the
/ tenement-houses in the old neighborhood of
! Kerry Patch and the Ashley building. the
! latter often cited as an example of a big
| citys overcrowded tenement-house where
conditions prevail that would appear to
| make the life not worth living.
| But the police. and the pastor Of St.
] Johns, the Reverend James T. Coffey.
| know that all Of the "slums" do not cling
TO the river or the immediate vicinity of
the Ashley building.
While this fact may serve to interest the
police and keep them busy. 1t adds to the
priestly duties of Father Coffey multi
| plicity of cares. for Father Coffey is an
| open, an avowed enforcer of the city's
| laws. to better the cty's social condition,
and he is untirins in his efforts in this
| direction.
Father Coffey hunts out the wicked spots
and declares them, and from all that he
has found he does not hesitate to put his
finger down on one particular one and de-
clare it the wickedest.
Father Coffey has lately picked out the
corner of jefferson avenue and Olive street
as the center of the wickedest spots in St.
Louis.
THE RECTORY A DINGY
But PEACEFUL RETREAT.
The rectory of St. Johns adjoins the
church-is Just behind the church. facing
on Chestnut street. one of a row of brick
houses, which in the palmy days, the fash
ioinable and exclusive days, Of Chestnut
street were the residences of prosperous
citizens.
| Now these houses announce furnished
rooms to let and at the corners nearby
there are saloons with hangers-on in plenty
and neglected-looking children both black
and white play on the dusty pavements OF
wade in the muddy water that flows down
the cutters in the wake of the street-sprink.
ling carts.
Idle men and women lounge about the
, windows, and on every hand surveying the
immediate vicinity Of St. Johns Church
there are many signs Of poverty as well a.
the cheap glitter and tawdry finery that be
long not so much to the love of the beau
= tiful as to vain desire to boldly fiaunt III
= | gotten gains.
Unfortunately. poverty makes strang,
companions. and the poor must only to,
often find themselves close neighbors to al
that they would most like to get far from,
The parlors in the rectory of St. John
: have worn carpets and other furnishing
r that harmonic.
They are much used rooms.
: All day long there are callers bent upo
| one mission or another, for in his thrice,
years of residence in the rectory Of S,
Johns Father Coffey has made hinsel
known to hundreds their friend.
: To the young and the poor are Fathe
$ 'Cofrey's most agreeable smiles of weIcom
given.
Though the parlors of st. Johns may be
trife dingy, affording marked contras
t TO the humble homes of the district saw
n | in the air of peace that seems to pervad
: them. the personality of the pastor of ST