The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-01-21

Hermann will do anyt'ing, to get money-always must he haf money" his mother told the visitor. file will come by me first, und wen he gets all I have, he will go out und stole some. Once he took a wash which gave a bill of seven dollars und sold 1t for ein dol lar. Dat boy was crazy init de theay- Ire. Dere ain't no night what he ain't went dere since long time."s
 Such cases are exceptional, however. Most often squalor, misery and hunger can be traced in deep lines through the stories of the Asylum's charges. Four tots were before the Children's Court not long ago for lack of proper guar dianship. The home from which they came would seem to justIfy-would cer- tainly explain--any length of absence on any boys part.
 When the visitor knocked at the door the father was away, and the mother was seriously III in hospital The kitchen stove had been cold for a month. A table and sink, above which hung A cracked mirror. alone kept 1t company. In the other room, a gorgeous, new, pink wall paper was the background for a table, one shaky chair and a sewing machine-nothinS else, except dirty, upholstered sofa, spread over with a cheap. red quilt which was half thrown back. just as the father of the family had left it in the morning.
 The spectres of drink and sickness stallted through this "home." The man spent his money in the neighboring sa- looms. and could never be depended up- on to furnish regularly the nine dollars demanded for the privilege of dwelling
 for a month in the pinched. desolate repellant quarters. The woman. like many of her sisters of the tenements had been slowly crushed by the strug- gle to exist in the face of this added difficulty. So only the sheltering arms
 of the Asylum were left for the chil-
 dren.
 h the Asylum's motley company al Dobbs Ferry there is a picturesque lit- ! tie Italian, Romilio, who lately aban-
 doned his home and mother Though Romilio is fluent in certain branches of English. his mother--a tiny woman
 whose bright eyes are the one lively
 feature of an expressionless face--ean
 still speak no language but that of her
 peasant home. She wanted to hear
 about her boy. though, and his new life
 in the Children's Village, so she called | in as interpreter a neighbor. another tiny daughter of Italy on whom the im- press of the East Side had been deeply l fixed
 l 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 kitchen not cluttered with dilapidated dishes, refuse rags and papers, or dirt, pure and simple. And In the riot of disheveled uncleanliness. the children
 were the most disheveled and uncleanly objects. When the visitor asked what Ronnfs father was doing for living. the group of matted heads chorused,
 Father drunk'-which gratuitous bit
 of information was rewarded with a sneciallv imperatlye call for silence and | A particularly pointed menace of a fistt- cuff. Mild curiosity, dull, perverted sense of importance-these seemed to ha the only feeling excited by Romrs predicament; and the eight besmirched, neoleoted youngsters evidently had all tbe Inducements in the world to follow | him as fast as their wobbly legs would carry them when their opportunity
 arrived.
 From homes such as these the transi- t,on to the street Is SO easy as to be
 scarcely perceptibIe. In some cases the | lad Ia actually driven out, and in many he has no apparent relatance about going The parents of one little fellow now in the Asylum. preferring whiskey
 to work. began by sending him out to hss, for inc food they were unwilling to earn Begging for money followed nat