The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-12-18

New York, Dec. l1.-~One or the iafS' est Christmas parties in this great city this year will be held in stone build ing on Washington Heights, where over 1000 little folks will gather around two great Christmas trees laden with toys and the good things appropriate to the season. After these gifts havA been distributed, there will be an en- tertainment in which very likely . sleight of hand performer or ,ventrilo- qrist will be the central figure. To many of this resimefit sf children, the gathering wiu be the first Christmas .psxty ia~v@hseh they have been includ- ed among the guests. They have come mostly from the crowded East Side to be made into good Americans by the New York Juvenile Asylum, an insti- tuition which in the. fifty years of its existence has sent out into the world 37,000 boys and girls.
 The party on Washington Heights has an especial significance this year because by the time another Christmas comes, the work of the institution VIII have been transferred to a new nome which, when completed, will represent an expenditure of $S.000.Oo0, capital in- vested in what may be described as the business of transforming the raw ma terial of the slums into the finished product of good citizenship. The great majority of children received into this New York asylum are the victims of misfortune to which they have not themselves contributed, and they do not enter the building on Washington Heights thorugh the police courts. Among them are only a few who have been committed to the asylum because ,f tal II. orphans of the tenements or the chill dren of parents who have found the struggle of life too bitter to enable them to keep their families together. These children of today constitute the raw material from which are to be made the men and women of tomorrow. Left to themselves or to chance charity in the crowded streets they would be in constant danger of falling into wrong-doing. Under the care of the asylum they are brought under health- ful influence both in the institution itself and in the homes which are found for them.
 Tn every State and Territory in the Union, including far-off Alaska, are men and women now prosperous and successful who recall similar Christ mas parties in the asylum building on the aeientsi nich viii he el ss sscbch bchgistmas
 
 York this year will be delivered by a formet pupil of the asylum, for he is now the rector of a large church in Brooklyn. Another graduate, who a sport time ago added to the, Christmas -heer of the directors by sending them ] generous check, the proceeds to be added to the graduates building fund, Is prominent lawyer in a Western Jfty. In his case, it may be truthfully ha for l. stealing apples from a push-cart on me Bowery. He was only six years old, street urchin growing up among
 VI influences from which he was re- Elsid because of his theft of the ap- til thfact to which he jolxingly aalud- home, hS> letter accompanying his factory. s.. d that while 1t might be had had the | @l1 came through eat ifsntansh,pie. it was certain that his own regeneration was directly trace able to the same cause. Tn
 Still another of the asylum boys Tno keep in touch with the institution where they received their early train ing is now a county judge in a West ern State and has been prominently mentioned as one who Is likely to- be numbered among its future Governors. He was only seven years old in 1861 when he became an inmate of the asylum. AICeF remaining LneEe a iIttle over a year, he was sent West with g number of other boys and girls, a home being found for him in the family Of a well-to-do farmer. The boys foster father had two sons of about the same age as the little waif from New York. Years passed and when the three had finished their education in the schools of the nearby town, the farmer offered to send one of his sons to college, but neither cared to so and so 1t came about that the former urchin had the bene- fit of the higher education. After graduating, he studied law and was admitted to the bar. He has since made a name for himself, has been prominent an politics of his State .serv- ing in the upper branch of the Legis- lature, and numbers among his friends many of the leading men of the coun- try.
 Many other instances might be cited of the beneficial results which the in- huence of the asylum training has brought about in the lives and charac- ters of it's charges. At least one of its former pupils has actually held the office of Governor, serving as chief mag istrate of one of the territories. and there are today hundreds of men and women occupying positions of useful ness and responsibility in the commu- nity who gratefully acknowledge that they owe most of their success In life to the early training they received at