The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-01-21
WORK TO RECLAIM
A CITY'S WAITS
Ihe Personal Equation Figures
in the Task
VIEW OF TENEMENT LIFE
Misery, squalor and Drunkenness
Some of the Factors That Send
Children Out to Shift for
Themselves.

SSlAlHdteQ that Oh New OTk OiOfUVU GILL;
dren-a number which does not include
the swarming population of infants-14,0OO
boys and girls between the ages of 2 and
1B are in the city's hands as destitutes,
as Improperly guardianed. or crimi-
nails, petty or great. In other words,
more than IA per cent of the next gem
Grafton of New Workers. are today in the
shelter of asylums. reformatories and
charitable substitutes for homes In gen
eral.
Only a few years ago the effort Of phi
lanthropy would have been to cast these
thousands in one mould, like so many
buttons, subjecting them all to the same
treatment regardless of their individual
characteristics. The wiser policy of to-
day gives the personal equation first con-
sideration. 1t begins by making acquaint-
aGce-the intimate acquaintance, such as
can be gained only by personal contact
with the surroundings that have produced
the young unfortunates and the people
who have been responsible for their care.
The New York juvenile asylum, for in
stance-the Protestant instituton-to
which, with the Catholic and Hebrew
protectories, the city authorities consign
most of the waits who come directly I'M
der their notice-employs a. visitor to Gull
tivate this personal acquaintance in the
light of which so much of its work is
done.
Peculiar Case.
There has been at the juvenile asylum
for month now a weu-grown German
lad of IL whose peculiar indifference and
hardness always attracts attention. His
mother, at hoT-lo in three rooms OF a
tenement the upper East Side, cries
about him every day, calling him my
Philip"
He vas not a bad boy. my Philip" she
says to the visitor only he has cursed
so hart and vas always init de bad boys
Nights he would stay oud unit den, be-
cause he is afraid of getting vipping
off his papa he don't dast come back.
Sometimes he comes back unit sleeps in
DIRE hall outsite; but he wouldn't never
come in.
Den, one morning. ven he had been
away tree nights, he comes in unit says
Mama he says, won't you gift me a
cup of coffee? Unit l tell him l must
take him to der judge to put him away
because | vas not able to keep him from
der bad boys. But he has broke my
heart" wept the patient, stold looking
German woman.
Yet In this home there appears to be
nothing to drive a boy away. The rooms
are bare, but they are clean and whole
some; there Is even an attractiveness
about them. The mother, distressfully
thin and sad, has a touching tenderness
of manner toward her children the father
is a sober. hard worker, who uses his au-
thority with his family justly and kindly.
1t seems to have been the curse of the
pavements" that made. Philip unmanage-
able
Only two doors away there is another
German mother whose boy was sent to
the asylum from the children's court for
stealing a gold watch. Here, too, there
are many things that might help a young
ster to be good; certainly there is nothing
that need estrange him from the home
influence. But Hermann succumbed to
temptation one day, when, taking bum
die of washing to one of his mothers
customers. he found the watch lying
upon a table.
Hermann will do anything to get
money--always must he hat money" his
mother told the visitor. He will come
by me first, und wen he gets all l have
he will go oud and stole some. Once he
took a wash which gave bill of seven
dollars und sold 1t for Elm dollar. Dat
boy crazy init de theaytre. Dere
amt night what he amt went dere
since long time"
Such Cases Exceptional.
Such cases are exceptional, however.
Most often sqnalor, misery and hunger
be traced in deep lines through the
stories of the asylum's charges. Four
tots were before the childrens court not
long ago for lack of proper guardianship
The home, from which they came would
seem to justify-would certainly explain
any length of absence on any boys part.
When the visitor knocked at the door
the father was away, and the mother
seriously Ill In hospital. The
kitchen stove had been cold for a month
A table and a sink, above which hung a
cracked mirror, alone kept it company
In the other room, gorgeous, new.
pink wall paper was the background for
a table, one shaky chair and a sewing
machine-nothing else, except a dirty,
upholstered sofa, spread over with a
cheap, red quilt which was half thrown
back, just as the father of the family
had left 1t in the morning.
The spectres of drink and sickness
stalked through this home" The man
spent his money in the neighboring sa-
looms and could never be depended upon
TO furnish regularly the nine dollars de-
manded for the privilege or dwelling for
a month in the pinched, desolate, repel-
liant quarters. The woman, like many of
her sisters, of the tenements. had been
slowly crushed by the struggle to exist
In the face of this added difficulty. So
only the sheltering arms of the asylum
were left for the children.
In the asylums motley company at
Dobbs Ferry there is picturesque little
Italian Romilio, who lately abandoned
his home and mother Though Romilio
Is nuent In certain branches OF EngllSn.
his mother-a tiny woman whose bright
eyes are the one lively feature of an ex-
pressionless face-can still speak no Ian
guage but that of her peasant home. She
wanted to hear about her boy, though.
and his new life in the chidrens village,
so she called in as interpreter neighbor.
another tiny daughter of Italy on whom
the impress of the East Side had been
deeply fixed.
Picture of Tenement Life.
The two women with their broods of
little Giovannis and Francescas clinging
about their skirts, stood talking with the
visitor in the only spot In the kitchen
not cluttered with delapidated furniture.
unwashed kettles, pans and Dishes refuse
rags and papers, or dirt, pure and sim
pie And in the riot of disheveled un-
cleanliness the children were the most
disheveled and uncleanly objects. When
the visitor asked what Romrs father was
doing for living the group of matted
heads chorused, Father drunk which
gratuitous bit of information was re-
warded with a specially imperative call
for silence and particularly pointed
menace of fisticuff. Mild curiosity, a
dull, perverted sense of Importance
these seemed to be the only feelings ex-
~ - m nAu0nk M