C. THE IMMIGRANT CHILD AS A SOCIAL PROBLEM

1. "Why should I have children? . . .They say the childer here all is ruined"

"Walks among the New-York poor," New-York Daily Times, June 28, 1853.

This account is by a member of the New York Children's Aid Society who visited immigrant families in their tenements.

It is a fact worth noticing, that of all the many children who come under our operations, very seldom, indeed, is ever one an American or a Protestant. The Irish emigrants are generally more degraded, even, than the German. They rise more slowly, and are cursed with that scourge of their race — Intemperance.

I visited lately one of their lodging houses for the newly-arrived — a den such as I had no idea existed in New-York. It was in the neighborhood of Water-street—a high, respectable-looking brick house on the outside. A number of ragged children were playing at the door; within, the hall was dark and reeking with the worst filth. I climbed the dirty stairway, knocked at the door, and entered a little room where some women were cooking; in the room adjoining, a little closet of a place, half-a-dozen Irish girls were sitting, making coarse straw bags, "for a cent a-piece," as I was afterwards informed. I told my object to a sharp-looking man in charge. He said there were no children there, and directed me up stairs. The girls looked overdone, and were probably freshly arrived, and not in the best hands. I wanted to have a few words with them, but it seemed hardly advisable, and I went up stairs. A knock again, and this time, a little room, five feet by fifteen; two women sitting and another, younger, on a bed. "Have you any children here you would like to get work for in the country?" "No, Sir, we haven't—yes, though—there's NELLY!" said one; "and what is the work, plase?" I told them, and said a little of the dangers for a poor man's children in a great city. They allowed it: "Oh, NELLY, Sir—she's not my child; but then I love her as mine; and, plase God, I never meant to lave her. But, then, you see. Sir, we can't take care of her. She's only fourteen, and she's away and in the streets so much, and I'd rather have her dead than in some places."

"It's ruin here! — I've lived it all! I know it," said the young woman on the bed. I turned, and saw for the first time, how care-worn and wretched her face was.

"But could you get a respectable situation, I Sir, for NELLY?" I told her what we could do, I and NELLY is to come up to the office.

The upper part of the house was filled with little narrow rooms, each one having five or six occupants; all very filthy. The people seemed very poor, honest Irish, not long here, and without work, usually. Women and men, evidently not of the same family, were herded in the same rooms, as one sees them in peasants' cabins in Ireland. They all looked depressed, worn, degraded. "Oh, yes. Sir," said an old woman, as I asked her, "I do want my boy out of the City. I can't do nothin' with him. He sleeps out nights, now, and he gets in with the bad boys. It's all thrue what ye say. Sir, and I fear ivry day to have had news of him amang the Police."

In an attic room, a young woman with a black eye and bloody face was making a fire of shavings, and a child was beside her. "Children!: she said, wildly, hardly looking at me— "No, thank God! I have none but her. Why should I have children? It was he bate me — he strikes me. They say the childer here all is ruined — I know it," and, turning abruptly to me, "Yes, Sir, there be paple down below that set their ain children to stale cotton. I've seen it—1 know it, Sir. They makes 'em thieves. But what does he care, wid his liquor?" She spoke of her husband, who was lying on I the floor in the corner—"It is he who is a murthering us!"

I was glad to leave as soon as possible. There were other rooms in the same way, filled with these poor, half-brutalized men and women. The girls and the boys left to themselves in the street—not a family sent children to school.

The whole was very depressing. It seemed like the worst part of old Europe transplanted. There was not even intelligence about their sensuality. You felt hopeless of ever reforming such natures — and, under all common probabilities, the children must be beggars, and prostitutes, and thieves.

You appreciated the dangers if many such colonies were scattered about in our cities. Our work with this immense class of poor children is often very discouraging.

The suspicions and prejudices of their parents, brought with them from another society — the aspect it gives of the crushing temptations to evil over all the poor and friendless in our great cities — the difficulty of arousing even good men from their old accustomed ways, to help in new channels — and the sad contrast of the unresting activity of society, when those whom they once neglected are to be hunted and punished. Almost every week there is the gloomy knell of some new execution through the land—generally of young men, once the street boys, the poor or neglected children of our great cities.

The papers are full of the conviction of young offenders. One cannot but think how easy, a few years ago, a cure might have been. We could have made a useful man of the vagrant lad then — now, we can only hang him.

2. Illegitimate births among immigrant mothers

Massachusetts, House, "Report of the Commissioners of Alien Passengers and Foreign Paupers, 1853," Doc. 18, Documents, 1853 (Boston, 1853), pp. 14-19.

Whole number of children examined 2,896; number of children of American birth, but of foreign parentage, under 12 years, is 1,573.

Number from 1 day to 4 years old, 1,211

Number from 4 years to 8 years old, 903

Number from 8 years to 12 years old, 782

                                                ------------

                                                    2,896

Of the foregoing number there are girls, 1,263

Of the foregoing number there are boys, 1,633

                                                ---------------

                                                    2,896

Of those under one year of age, a very large number are illegitimate children, whose mothers have been assisted to this country by the fathers of such children, or have been seduced soon after landing here. By many women our almshouses are made lying-in hospitals; these women go there and remain until they recover after their delivery, while their husbands are able to maintain them at home. No less than 94 births of the above classes have taken place at the House of Industry, South Boston, during the last year, and 96 in the year 1851. Some of those, and many of a larger class, are now orphan children, and must be maintained at the expense of the State until they grow up or are qualified to provide for themselves. There is another class of paupers, who are more expensive to the community, and less likely to ever become good mothers, than those who are inmates of our public institutions.

3. Deportation of an Irish mother and her illegitimate child, 1855

Boston Daily Advertiser, May 16, 1855.

Yesterday morning there sailed from this port a splendid packet-ship bearing the noble name of "Daniel Webster," which fitly belongs to so fine a vessel. Yet so many fine ships sail out of our harbor that the reader may inquire why we make this departure the occasion for such conspicuous notice.

Among the crowd of human beings on board that proud vessel was one poor woman, with an infant daughter. Her passage and that of her child were paid by the rich and powerful commonwealth of Massachusetts. She left our free and happy shores unwilling and reluctant. She went away against her own free will, constrained by force of the civil authorities of the State. Her cries as she begged not to be thus so cruelly banished, were, we are told, most piteous, and such as to cause the accidental witness of the scene to burn with indignation.

The offence of this poor woman, for which she was thus violently and ignominiously expelled from Massachusetts, was the fact that she was born in Ireland and is called a pauper. Her infant daughter, who unconsciously shares her mother's sad fate, is a native of the commonwealth of Massachusetts; but she too partakes of that hard lot of poverty which it has been reserved for Massachusetts to make a crime, and a crime which Massachusetts punishes as no other crime is punished in America, by banishment — banishment from one's native land.

The name of this victim to Know-Nothing intolerance was Mary Williams; and her infant, Bridget, is but a few weeks old. About thirty-five paupers, perhaps more, were sent away at the same time, in the same vessel, at the expense of the State. These facts we learn from eye-witnesses of the scene, and from other certain and authentic sources of information.

Our readers are aware that there exists upon our statute book a law which authorizes any Justice of the Peace upon complaint, by a warrant directed to and to be executed by any constable, or any other person there designed, to cause any pauper to be removed out of the State, to any place beyond the sea where he belongs, if the Justice thinks proper, and he may be conveniently removed, and also that, independently of this provision of law, a practice has arisen by which the Commissioner of Alien Passengers undertakes, even without the warrant of a Justice of the Peace, to send back paupers in cases in which he sees fit, and pays the expenses from money in his hands belonging to the State Treasury.

On account of the temporary absence of the Commissioner of Alien Passengers, and none of the gentlemen in his office being possessed of the facts, we are unable to state which of these two methods was employed as the pretext of authority for effecting the rendition of the unfortunate creatures who sailed yesterday in the "Daniel Webster"; nor can we state by what Justice of the Peace, if any, the warrant was issued. But the facts that they were sent away and that the State paid their passage, and that the piteous cries of this poor woman with her child were such as to attract the attention of the bystanders as she was led on board the vessel — these facts we have certainly ascertained.

The Citizen (New York), May 26, 1855.

Subsequent investigation also has put the case of Mary Williams in a worse form than it was at first represented. The Boston Atlas has sifted the matter to the bottom, and declares:

She was not a pauper abroad, and she never had been a pauper . . . She came here with an aunt who is now living in the State, and is not a pauper. This girl—for she is quite young—had been deceived abroad, and she came here to conceal her shame. When near the time of her confinement, she was sent to the alms-house; and when next we hear of her, she is torn from the only being who loves her, and is sent over the sea. Before she could make her wants known, before she could appeal to benevolent men or women for aid, before she could effect any arrangement for supporting herself by her own labor, she is driven by force out of this hospitable Commonwealth —to want, to loneliness, to irreclaimable infamy. And all of this cost the State of Massachusetts just $12 passage money! . . .

4. Female street beggars and pilferers in Boston Massachusetts, House, "Report of the Commissioners of Alien Passengers and Foreign Paupers, 1853,"pp. 15-19.

The Commissioners refer to young female street beggars, and pilferers, who are to be found in all the cities, and many of the large towns in this Commonwealth. These cases are so numerous that it appears to the Commissioners highly necessary to give them some consideration; they have had many interviews with various officers of different humane societies, and gentlemen having charge of the municipal affairs in some of our cities, and all admit that something should be done to check the crime, and prevent the miseries of the many young girls, who are continually growing up in idleness, or what is worse, are hangers on or errand girls for the vilest haunts of iniquity that our cities are infested with.

It is a subject in which the Commissioners themselves feel a deep interest, claiming as they do some little knowledge of the misfortunes of young females in the city of Boston, and the causes, which finally end in degradation misery and ruin; and although they feel their inability to point out all the particulars necessary for a thorough reform of this class of persons, yet they are fully convinced that an effort should be made towards such a reform. They therefore ask leave to introduce a few statistics, and suggest a plan, which if carried out, will do much towards accomplishing a very desirable end, and will greatly improve the condition of many young females. One week's report by the police of Boston, in January, 1851, says:

25 girls, between the ages of 7 and 15 years have been seen picking up chips in various parts of the city, ..................………………………………………………25

7 have been seen with baskets apparently going begging, ………………...7

37 have been seen peddling apples,……………………………………….37

2 stealing cotton, ...........…………………………………………………..2

10 picking over ashes for coal…………………………………………….10

2 picking up junk,…………………………………………………………..2

37 begging in the street,…………………………………………………..37

4 idle and strolling about streets,…………………………………………..4

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                                                                                                                  124

. . . 1,263 girls under 12 years of age, were inmates of the various almshouses during the past year; many of them are orphans, and will be compelled to remain inmates a long time, unless some other mode be adopted for their support. True, many of our cities and large towns have connected with their pauper institutions, schools, that are well conducted; but it is very certain that children of any number cannot receive the instruction both mental and physical, that is necessary for their future welfare, in institutions where the halt, the lame and the imbecile of all kinds, assemble together, and where much improper language is spoken, and many influences of an unfavorable character operate on these young females, and their continuance so precarious, as they would in an institution peculiarly adapted to their wants; one that would possess all the elements necessary to train the young mind for all the virtuous walks of life.

5. Facing the danger of immigrant paupers

New York Children's Aid Society, First Annual Report (New York, 1854), pp. 3-6.

The Children's Aid Society, founded in 1853, addressed itself specifically to problems of neglected and delinquent youth. [1a]

This Association — the Children's Aid Society—has sprung from the increasing sense among our citizens of the evils of the city. Thirty years ago, the proposal of an important organization, which should devote itself entirely to the class of vagrant, homeless and criminal children in New York, would have seemed absurd. There were vile streets, and destitute and abandoned people; but the city was young and thriving . . .

In these considerations, one element was forgotten. During the last twenty years, a tide of population has been setting towards these shores, to which there is no movement parallel in history. During the year 1852 alone, 300,992 alien passengers have landed in New York, or nearly at the rate of one thousand a day, for every week day. Of these 118,131 were from Ireland, and 118,611 from Germany. A portion of this immigration has been good—sober, hard-working people, who have spread over the country and become mingled with our population. Another part has been bad, almost the worst — the off-scouring of the poorest districts and the most degraded cities of the Old World. The pauperism and poverty of England and Ireland has been drained into New York. If this could have spread over our land, to be influenced by the new circumstances, the effect would not have been so bad. But in the main, it has settled and stagnated in the city. The poor immigrants could not afford to go to the West, or with the natural caution of ignorance, they dreaded to go. Our poorest streets began to be filled up with a thriftless, beggared, dissolute population. As is always the case in such circumstances, vice and laziness stimulated each other. The poor and idle of a street grew worse for having poor and idle neighbors. The respectable and industrious moved out of certain quarters; and such places as the Five Points began to be known. Streets once inhabited by the best of people, as Lower Pearl, and Cherry, and Dover streets, were abandoned, and have since been held mostly by lodging-houses of the poorest immigrants.

Crime among boys and girls has become organized, as it never was, previously. The Police state that picking pockets is now a profession among a certain class of boys. They have their haunts, their "flash" language, their "decoys," and "coverers," as they are called, or persons who will entice others where they can be plundered, and protect the thieves if they are caught.

There is a class of young lads now in the city, known as "feelers," who are employed by older rogues, to ascertain where their depredations can be most easily committed.

Cotton-picking on the wharves, iron stealing in the drydocks, "smashing" of baggage, in other words, pilfering under pretence of carrying it, and "book-bluffing," which is a species of mock book-selling, are all means of livelihood for the dishonest poor boys of New York.

Of the young girls in the city, driven to dishonest means of living, it is most sad to speak. Privation, crime, and old debasement in the pure an sunny years of childhood.

It must not be thought that all our street children are engaged in dishonest business. In the district east of the Bowery, near the foot of Houston and Rivington streets, will be found thousands of children, whose sole occupation is picking rags and bones in the street to sell. They are Germans, and mostly Bavarians. The work is filthy, laborious, and dangerous to the morals, but it is honest. The little street-sweepers come often from the same class. There are besides match selling and candy selling—in themselves honest trades; hundreds and thousands of children make their living from them. Among the little traders of the city rank the news boys, the shrewdest and sharpest of them all — a class numbering several hundreds, living solely on their own earnings, and the mass of them sleeping in boxes or printing-house alleys, constantly exposed to the worst influences.

All these little trades are honest, and are infinitely better than begging; but the danger is that the roving, vagabond life will lead to the worst habits. The children are liable to the most bitter want, and are exposed to every temptation. They are growing up to be citizens, or women, under the vilest influences.

1a.  See below. Chap. VI, sec. C, The Children's Aid Society, New York, 1853-1860.

6. What is done for the poor female servants

Five Points Monthly Record (New York,1854),pp. 113-116.

Our Female Domestic Servants form a whose moral wants exact, from our sympathies and self-interest alike, a peculiar regard, class of persons exists in this country, to whom the name of stranger, with all its painfullest associations, so truly belongs. Aliens to our race, our soil, our institutions, and our faith, they are also thrown into a position of antagonism in interest and feeling, which every year that passes over them, embitters more and more. They enter into no truly humane social relation with our families, of which are never members, but only uncomfortable appendages, tolerated because we cannot do without them. There are no ties of long attachment between us and them, connecting each to each from generation to generation, by the by the endearing links of infancy and old age, of birth and death; the utmost average duration of this heartless and mercenary connection, being probably not longer than six months. Among us but of us, serving us but not loving us or loved by us, they are in a most pitiable sense outcasts; and if the element of contempt be essential to that condition, they suffer it in fuller measure than any other lawful and recognized class in society. No American girl is so poor or degraded as not to think herself superior to the condition or the person of a domestic servant. A consequence of this contempt, indeed, is to produce such a scarcity of domestics, as gives the class a fictitious importance and an unnatural advantage over their employers; aggravating the evils inseparable from the existence of an unwilling servitude, by the addition of presumption, jealousy and contention.

The consequence of all this is plainly to be seen, and exactly what might be expected. We have the worst servants in the world; the most dishonest, unserviceable, unruly and changeable, and as a class they are daily growing worse. Our dependence on Roman Catholic immigration for domestics, is commonly considered the main cause of this great evil; but the cause of this dependence, and the barrier to any natural corrective of its inconveniences, are the same, and will be found in the perverted relation of employer as it exists among us. A vulgar purse-pride, and a mercenary habit of mind, have thrust apart the poor servant from the circle of our domestic sympathies and consideration, denying her a home among us, thus driving the native laboring class to other and more endurable situations, and degrading and alienating those whose necessities compel them to take service in our houses. If servants were as plenty as blackberries, their miserable character and entire recklessness of our interests, could never be remedied, while the relation of employer continued to be filled in such a spirit as at present.

The vagrant character of our female domestics, produces employment in the city of New York for some twenty-six intelligence offices, which are supported in nearly equal proportions by the employers and employed. The most of these are mere mercenary establishments, and it is difficult to decide whether the servant or the employer is on the whole the worse abused by their intervention. They serve to lighten the inconvenience of changing servants frequently, and as plainly aggravate the same evil a hundred-fold, besides training the girls to proficiency in the worst faults of their class.

A Christian Home for Female Servants, is a noble enterprise, at once expedient and philanthropic, in a high degree. New and better ideas of the qualifications of a domestic servant, must be communicated to that friendless class of beings, by the interposition of Christian kindness and instruction with respect to their temporal and spiritual interests. The Christian philanthropist who makes himself their friend and patron, receiving no fee from their hard earnings, will shortly gain an influence over them which may compete even with that of the priesthood. On the other hand, employers will be insensibly conducted by the mediation of Christian love into a new relation and sense of responsibility to those who live in their households as servants, and who ought to be members with them of that holy and divine institution, the family. Finally, as a convenience to those who desire good servants, there can be no other sort of intelligence office comparable to this: insomuch that it cannot be doubtful that such an institution, well conducted, would be liberally supported by the fees which employers will gladly pay, with a considerable margin for charitable and religious purposes relating to the class to which it is devoted.

An institution of this nature was opened on the 29th of May last, at No. 614 Sixth Avenue, corner of Thirty-Sixth-Street, under the direction of a voluntary committee of most respectable ladies. The energy and enthusiasm of its projector and superintendent, Mrs. JOSEPH L. LINFORD, who has devoted herself personally to the management, have already realized the most encouraging results. We are informed that not less than a thousand females have already received from this institution good situations, with affectionate, maternal advice, and religious instruction, appropriate to their circumstances. Of these, perhaps a third have applied in circumstances of destitution and distress, and many a heart-rending and well authenticated tale of wrong, neglect and suffering, has been brought to light and to a happy conclusion, by means of this yet infant enterprise.

No fee is received from the applicant registered at this institution for a situation. On the contrary, if destitute of a place or home, and of money, she is gratuitously provided with board, lodging, opportunities for washing, and all the advantages of the establishment. About one-third, as was just observed, of the applicants have been in these distressed circumstances, and have been thus gratuitously relieved until good situations could be found for them. In a word, this establishment is intended to be, according to its title, a Christian Home for the Female Servant, where not only situations may be obtained, but where every blessing of a Christian family which can be imparted, is freely offered to all females in want of friends or employment, without money and without price; those able to pay, and those only, being charged with the actual expenses of their board while they remain inmates of the house; while those who simply register name and address for situations, are subjected to no expense whatever. One exception only is made to this extended offer, and that only until a suitable separate building can be appropriated to the class excluded; until then, none can be admitted as inmates or registered for situations, unless provided with satisfactory testimonials of good character. It is obviously improper and unjust, both to the girl of good character and to the employer, that the virtuous and the vicious should be mingled in the same establishment, or brought into familiar contact with each other.

Among the special advantages of the Home, may be instanced, first, family devotion, morning and evening, at which (as it should be in every Christian family, whatever the Roman priesthood may say) each inmate is expected to be present, whatever her religious persuasion; but at which only the pure and universal principles of Christianity and morals, are recognized or adverted to, and no real offence or violence is done to the feelings of any devout member of any sect.

Next, a daily evening school is open to all who choose to enter, in which useful branches of education are pursued. The neat and convenient sitting room is also furnished with desks, miscellaneous books and bibles, and is always accessible.

On Sunday evenings a religious service is held with females exclusively, of the class for whom the institution is designed, and also ladies who are heads of families and desire to witness the instructions and exhortations afforded to the inmates.

A small store is kept on the ground floor, for the sale of articles made by those out of employment, who are furnished with plain sewing for their support while unemployed, and for the purpose of supplying them with such articles as they need, at the lowest prices, without danger of imposition.

Employers are received, and their particular wishes noted, with their address, in a distinct part of the establishment. If a girl supposed to be suitable is at hand, she is sent for and introduced to the employer. If not, the superintendent undertakes, if possible, the task of finding a person suitable to the wishes of the applicant, who is promptly sent to her address. Employers pay according to a certain schedule of prices; or, frequently make liberal contributions to the benevolent purposes of the Home, without regard to the prescribed amount.

Such are some of the features of the institution in its present infant condition. We understand its ultimate plan to be more extensive and reformatory. At present its moral efforts are, from circumstances, confined to the improvement of those who already bear a good outward character. A large building or suite of buildings is projected, and partly arranged for, in which different departments and classes be instituted with reference to character and wants. These schemes we will not now anticipate. As it stands, the establishment is eminently worthy of encouragement and sympathy, and affords, without doubt, the best office for obtaining domestic servants in the city or elsewhere. Its liberality towards the poor servant necessarily attracts a very large number of candidates for the employer's choice; its parental interest in her character, history, spiritual wants, tends to sift out the hardened and depraved, by mutual repulsion, and to attract the well-disposed and manageable; its influence will naturally be strong, and the dread of incurring the disapprobation of the Superintendent, influential over the servant to a degree quite unknown with respect to the mercenary intelligence offices of the day; and the confidence reasonably to be indulged in the judgment and disposition of the Superintendent, by the Christian lady who is anxious for servants whom she can trust, and to whom she can hope to do good, is a privilege not elsewhere accessible. It is impossible to set bounds to the influence of such an institution, well carried forward in the pure spirit of Christianity, upon the minds and characters of the class to which it is devoted, upon the interest which the community has in blending the foreign immigration harmoniously and freely in living social relations with ourselves, and upon the welfare and comfort of our families, to which that immigration is now an incalculable detriment.

7. The ruin of female honor

Thurlow Weed, in John F. Maguire, The Irish in America (London, 1868), p. 340.

Thurlow Weed, member of the New York Commissioners of Emigration, addressed himself to the plight of immigrant girls in his speech at the laying of the foundation stone of the Emigrant Hospital on Ward's Island, 1864.

Referring to the helpless condition of the emigrant before the present admirable system was organised in New York, he says: "Families were frequently plundered of all the money they possessed, and left to the charity of the city. Young and friendless females coming from abroad, to find their friends, or seeking employment, were not unfrequently outraged. . . Innocent and unprotected girls came consigned to houses of prostitution." Mr. Weed was referring to what frequently occurred some years before; but it is notorious that similar evils have existed at a later period, and are not yet effectually suppressed. The panderers to the lust of great cities are constantly on the watch to drag into their dens of infamy the young, the innocent, and the unsuspecting. There is scarcely a House of Protection under the care of a Religious Order in America, which cannot record cases of young girls snatched from the jaws of danger. Many, it is true, are saved; but what can the helpless do against the snares and traps and frauds of those who live by the vilest crime? The contest is unequal: the lamb is helpless in the talons of the vulture, or the fangs of the wolf. As a single instance of the peril awaiting the unsuspecting, may be mentioned that of a young and handsome Irish girl who was lately trapped into hiring, in a Western city, with a person of infamous character. She was fortunately observed by a poor old Irish woman, who, knowing the peril in which the young creature stood, boldly rushed to her rescue, and, at personal risk to herself, literally tore the prey from the grasp of the enemy. The rescued girl was taken to the Refuge in the Convent of Mercy, where she was at once in safety; and though she lost all her clothes, save those in which she then stood, she congratulated herself that she had never crossed the threshold of a house of ill-fame.

Perils by sea, and perils by land, is it wonderful that fraud and violence so often triumph over innocence and helplessness? — that human wrecks occasionally strew the highways of the centres of wealth, of luxury, and of vice?

I have in another place referred to the evils of overcrowding, in lowering the tone of the community, and exposing the humbler classes to dangers of various kinds, moral as well as sanitary. Besides the temptations of poverty and passion, of youth and thoughtlessness, there is the terrible mischief of daily and hourly association in the densely-populated lodging-house, in which it too often happens that, even with the best intentions, the most ordinary decency cannot be maintained. There is not a physician or a clergyman in New York who will not say that this system is fraught with danger to the health of soul and body. It is in the last degree unfavourable to the development of virtue…

8. San Francisco, the ideal home for the Irish girl

Maguire, The Irish in America, pp. 276-277.

Of the Irish girls in America I have spoken elsewhere; but any notice of the race in San Francisco, in which special mention of the Irish girls of that city was not made, would be most incomplete. They form a considerable and valuable portion of its population, and are deservedly esteemed by all classes of its citizens. They are industrious, intelligent, faithful, generous, high-spirited, and intensely devoted to their religion, of which they are the proudest ornaments and best examples. So justly esteemed are these Irish girls for purity and honour, that some 2,000 of them have been well married—fully half of that number to men of substance and good position. It may be remarked that a considerable number of them had been tenderly reared at home, where they received a fair education; but, driven by circumstances to emigrate, they were of necessity obliged to accept even the humblest situations in a foreign land. They soon, however, rose above the lowly condition which they dignified by their intelligence and worth, and found in an honourable marriage ample compensation for all their former trials. It is estimated that seventy-five per cent. of the Irish girls in domestic employment in San Francisco can read fairly, while more than fifty per cent. can both write and read well. The rate of wages for domestic employment ranges from 20 to 40 dollars a month. The average would come to 60l. a year. Out of this income they save a certain portion, indulge their Celtic love of finery, gratify their charitable and religious instincts by generous contributions to church, to convent, to orphanage, and to asylum; and the balance is devoted to the twofold purpose, with them almost equally sacred — to assist their parents or aged relatives in the old country, or bring out a brother or a sister to their adopted home. It is calculated by those who have every means of ascertaining the fact, that the Irish girls employed in San Francisco annually remit to Ireland, for the purposes stated, the sum of 270,000 dollars! What eulogium can equal the mere mention of this fact?

1. The poor Germans insist upon using their children to earn money

New York Children's Aid Society, Third Annual Report (New York 1856) pp.14-15.

To meet the needs of immigrant children, the Society established a series of industrial schools for respective foreign groups. Among these were the German School at 14 Avenue C, the German Industrial School of Calvary Church, composed of sixty German Protestant children, and an Italian school at the Five Points House of Industry.

THE GERMAN SCHOOL——AT NO. 14 AVENUE C.

There has been a difficulty in regard to the School for the German children, which has not been felt to such a degree in any other school. The poor Germans insist upon using their children to earn money, whether they have had any education or not. They prefer the present shillings to any future spiritual or moral benefit for the child, which may be offered. For this reason, the older scholars have been constantly withdrawn from the School, sometimes merely for street trades; and much of the hard labor for them, has seemed to have been wasted. And yet, in the assault of temptations from every side, which must meet the poor foreign girl in New York, who can say what the refined example and the Christian instructions of such schools may not effect! . . . About forty volunteer teachers have come to the School every week through this most inclement winter —some a distance of two miles. If the plan, now under consideration, of forming a work-room where a regular trade can be taught, shall be successfully carried out, there can be no doubt of the School regaining its influence over the older girls, who have temporarily left it.

Whole number in attendance through the year, 235; average daily attendance, 97; number sent to public schools, 50; number sent to the country and into families, 42. Cost of provisions for one year, $250; number of dinners given, 10,352; number of garments and shoes distributed, 227. Salaried teachers and matron, 3. Expenses, $1,687.47.

2. "Not one family in a hundred ever send their children to school"

"Walks among the New-York poor," New-York Daily Times, June 28, 1853.

We have now a German gentleman, the Rev. Mr. BOGEN, employed in visiting in that quarter, and he reports that not one family in a hundred ever send their children to school. [1b] They were forced to school them in Germany; here they want the pleasure of having their own way. The boys, some of them, do well — though very many fall in with the multitude of young thieves and vagrants of that Ward. The girls, in the great proportion of cases, as soon as they mature, are more or less dissolute in morals. The filthy habits of their parents, and the open street-life which they must pursue, seem of necessity to degrade their morals.

Yet, the children themselves long to do better. In visiting for the Girls Industrial School in Avenue D., the difficulty to all has always been with the parents, not the girls. They jump at the chance of learning something beyond what their parents have known; and, as that school shows, only want the opportunity to make great progress . . .

1b. Reverend Bogen was a visitor for the Children's Aid Society. He collected children from the streets and took them to the industrial school at the Calvary Church in New York City. The school, affiliated with the Children's Aid Society, had an average of fifty pupils, all German.

3. Making the Italians understand that they are not like brutes

Rev. J. B. Torricelli, 27th Annual Report of the Executive Committee of the Benevolent Fraternity of Churches (Boston, 1861), pp.27-29.

The Benevolent Fraternity of Churches, a missionary Protestant society, was founded in Boston ca. 1835. Among its members were Unitarian and Congregational churches and other private religious and voluntary associations. It was dedicated to educational work in the poverty districts of Boston. Although originally interested in the native poor, the association adjusted grudgingly to meet the needs of poor immigrants as the "swarms of [Irish] immigrants descended upon" the quays of Boston. By 1860 the Association had German and Italian agents for those respective groups.

It is now a little over ten months since began my mission among the Italians of this city and vicinity . . .

The obstacles I have met on my way have been many, and not easily removed; especially the utter indifference, the deadly apathy, with which every thing spiritual is regarded by the class of people committed to my care. The slanders and intrigues of the malevolent, the prejudices and superstitions of the ignorant, the corruption and degradation of a large majority,—all these things together are not so difficult to be conquered as that only one. Even when aroused by the apprehension of their own danger, they fall back into their lethargy, as soon as the voice that shook them is silent.

As the result of the influence acquired over many of them, I will mention a few facts. Several parents, who were strongly prejudiced against our common and evening schools, were prevailed upon to send their children; and thus from thirty to forty boys and girls were taken from the streets, and are now under a better influence. In some instances, I took them to school myself, and helped their friends to clothe them, or make up for the little they used to bring home by peddling and begging . . .

A few copies of the Scriptures were given to such as desired them, and several volumes on different matters are circulated among those who know how to read; but, owing to the fact that very few can read our language well enough to enjoy and profit by English reading, this means of instruction cannot be extended, and rendered more useful. Italian works which they would read with advantage are not many at my disposal. The few I own are accessible to any one that can use them: when my means will permit, their number will be increased.

. . . several families received substantial aid that enabled them to go back to their country, after it had been found the only possible way of benefiting them. Twenty-seven individuals—men, women, and children—left for Italy during last summer and fall.

On the whole, the good done to the Italians through this mission has been more material and temporal than moral and spiritual; not because the moral and spiritual is not wanted and possible, but because they are not prepared. With most of them, the work must begin by making them understand that they are not like brutes. Once awakened to a sense of their dignity as human beings, I have no doubt that our efforts to make them better and happier would prove successful.

4. Drawing German children into the sabbath school

A. Ubelacker, 26th Annual Report of the Executive Committee of the Benevolent Fraternity of Churches (Boston, 1860), pp. 22-23.

A portion of the Germans have a strong prejudice toward both church and minister, arising from the deplorable union of Church and State in Germany; in consequence of which the Church is an institution of the State, and the minister, in some degree, a civil officer.

... I have endeavored to draw the children of German parentage into the Sabbath school, and have found but little difficulty in persuading them to attend; and generally the parents are also willing. Such expressions as, “If we do not attend services ourselves, we will not deprive our children of gospel privileges,” &c., are of common occurrence . . .

The Young Men's Association which I organized some time ago, has done much good in keeping young men from bad company, and leading them to devote their leisure hours to profitable instruction.

I have visited two hundred and sixty families, and made over three hundred calls/

5. American Germans neglect the education of their children

Francis Lieber, ed., Letters to a Gentleman in Germany (Philadelphia, 1834), pp. 213, 216-217.

Lieber (1800-1872), German-born educator and political scientist, was himself the writer of the letters. The work was later issued under the title The Stranger in America.

I believe I have descanted already, in a former letter, on the great advantage which accrues to all parties, if the Germans, who come to this country, assimilate with the predominating race. I repeat it — they are a valuable addition to our population, if they mix. But let truth prevail every where: twisting of facts, and stating or being silent according to convenience, is an unmanly thing — unworthy of a lover of his species, and a man who thinks he has expanded his views by travelling into other countries, and by studying history back into other ages. It is painful, indeed, for a German, that the descendants of his nation in this country, where they live closely together, have not only done less for the common education of their offspring, than their neighbors, but have actually often frustrated the endeavors of government to establish a system of general education.[1c] How a scion of a people, who have done more for education than any other on earth, comes thus to neglect one of the most sacred duties, would be inexplicable, were it not for the fact, on which I think I have touched on a former occasion, that it is difficult for a community, severed from the mother country, and separated from a surrounding population by the barrier of a different language, to prevent mental stagnation . . .

1c. We say with the author, let truth prevail; thus only can evils be corrected. It has been stated, that the act lately passed by the legislature of Pennsylvania, providing for the education of the poor and of the children of people not favorably circumstanced, is far from meeting with ready and cheerful support from the German population of that state. Even obstacles are thrown in the way of this salutary law. [Lieber's note.]

1. Care of pregnant women and newborn babies

Commissioners of Emigration of the State of New York, "Fifth Annual Report for the Year 1851," Annual Reports of the Commissioners of Emigration of the State of New York, 1847-60 (New York, 1861), pp.98-99.

Women, during all periods of gestation, a received at the Emigrants' Refuge, in large and well ventilated wards, and enjoy those indulgences and privileges to which their parturient state entitles them. Here they remain until the premonitory symptoms of labor appear, when they are transferred to the Lying-in ward, and receive immediate attendance of one of the resident physicians of this department; upon one of whom it is obligatory to attend in all such cases, or in event of any serious difficulty occurring, to request the aid of Dr. Williams.

After delivery, the patient remains in the hospital until convalescence is completely established, when, their infants having been vaccinated, they are transferred to other wards appropriated to infants of this tender age where they still continue to be under the control of the physicians of the mid-wifery department.

The diet of lying-in women, during the first week after delivery, consists of farina, milk, weak tea, broths, and other light articles of this nature, unless circumstances call for a more stimulating course. During the second week more substantial food is allowed, as beef or chicken tea, bread, tea or coffee, and small quantities of solid animal food. Thus they are permitted gradually to return to their regular mode of living.

Women who have been but lately delivered, either privately or otherwise, and who have not recovered from its debilitating effects, or such as are suffering from puerperal or other diseases peculiar to the female, are, on application, received into this division of the hospital.

Connected with the Lying-in department, and under the same medical control, are the Nursery and Infants' wards, both of which receive daily attendance from the visiting and resident physicians. The latter consists of two large well-ventilated wards, each capable of accommodating sixty mothers with infants. In the former are the Orphans' ward, and one appropriated to the reception of all diseases of the scalp and skin occurring in children.

2. Sickness, deaths, and births among passengers (see table below)

Commissioners of Emigration, "Table A: Statement of Vessels with Emigrants that have arrived at the Port of New York, in the year 1849," Annual Reports, 1847-60, p. 289.

3. The mortality rates are high

Commissioners of Emigration, “Medical and Surgical Report of the State Immigrant Hospitals (Jan. 7, 1854),” Annual Reports, 1847-1860, p.324.

Pregnant women are also confined on shipboard, and come to us immediate after having landed; some directly after confinement in the city are received, both mother and child in a desperate condition; others, but a few days in the country, reach the hospital, and are prematurely delivered of feeble infants, many of which merely breathe and then cease to exist; others linger a few hours or days at most; and in this way they swell our bills mortality, without being in any way amenable to the physician's skill, or the surgeon’s art; they end their sufferings almost as soon as begun, but they are as prominent in the necrology of the hospital as if they had reached adult life.

4. Admissions and dispositions of emigrants (see table on next page)

Commissioners of Emigration, Annual Reports,1847-60, p. 302.

Distribution In Hospitals___

The table above shows the number of admissions to, and births and deaths in the State Emigrant Refuge and Hospitals, Ward's Island, under the charge of the Commissioners of Emigration, from the organization of the Commission, May 5, 1847, to Dec. 31,1860.

5. Authority of the New York State commissioners of emigration over poor, orphan, and illegitimate immigrant children

"An act to amend an act entitled 'An act concerning passengers in vessels coming to the city of New-York,' passed May 5, 1847 " 1847 — ch. 483, New York Laws of 1847 (Albany, 1847), II, 716-717.

The commissioners of emigration, or any one or more of them, shall have and exercise the same powers and authority, in relation to poor children actually chargeable upon, or receiving support from said commissioners, as are now conferred by law upon the "commissioner of the alms house department," of city of New-York, respecting the "act concerning apprentices and servants."

In all cases in which the minor children of alien passengers shall become orphans, by their parents or last surviving parent, dying on the passage to the port of New-York, or in the marine hospital on Staten Island, the personal property which said parents or parent may have had with them, shall be taken in charge by the commissioners of emigration to be by them appropriated for the sole benefit of said orphan children; and said commissioners shall give in their annual report to the legislature, a minute statement of all cases in which property shall come into their possession by virtue of this section, and the disposition made of the same. And the commissioners of emigration are hereby authorized to prescribe rules requiring the health officer to make such reports to them respecting the persons and property at said hospital as they may consider necessary. [1d]

1d. This act was amended in 1849 to cover “any other establishment under the charge of the commissioners" in addition to the Marine Hospital.

6. Administration of property belonging to orphan children (see table below)

"Table No. V: Statement of Moneys received by the Commissioners of Emigration on account of Minor Children becoming orphans; made in accordance with Section 10, Act of April 11, 1849," in Commissioners of Emigration, Annual Reports, 1847-60, p. 362.

7. Status of American-born children of immigrant parents while under the authority of the commissioners of emigration, 1854

Commissioners of Emigration, "Report of the subjects in dispute between the Commissioners of Emigration and the Alms-house Department of the City of New York," Annual Reports, 1847-60, pp.399-404.

The Commissioners are authorized to take care of emigrants alone. During the sevens years of their existence, many emigrant females have been delivered of children in the hospitals of the Commissioners. These children are not emigrants, but native-born, and their care and maintenance belong to the Governors of the Alms-house; and the expense of taking care of them, your Committee is advised, is an equitable set-off, to some extent at least, to the claims of the Governors for lunatics and smallpox patients. This is denied by the latter, and the Commissioners are told to send such children to the alms-house. They are willing, and have offered, to do so provided the Governors will also take charge of the mothers, for whose expenses they will be indemnified. This is refused, on the ground that the mothers, being emigrants, are properly inmates of the Institutions on Ward's Island, and will not be received into the poor-house. And thus the Commissioners are obliged to be either guilty of the inhumanity of separating tender babes from their mothers, or must bear the expenses of thousands of infants chargeable of right to another fund and another body. The Commissioners have adopted the latter alternative, and will, for humanity's sake, continue so to do…

The above has been the case for over eight years, and the amount expended for such children is computed to exceed $50,000. The Governors, however, refuse to allow it; and it is therefore to be the subject of arbitration or litigation. It is well worth while, however, to observe in the above statement, the ground upon which its disallowance is placed by the honorable the Governors, and to consider whether it may not be that the "quibble" —the mote in the eye of the Commission—is not seen by the Governors from behind a beam in their own optics.

Even, however, allowing that the Commissioners are in error in claiming an equitable allowance on this account, equal at least to the balance claimed by the Governors, still assuredly, when it is considered that this unadjusted balance of $20,700 is on a long account, upon which payments of seven times that amount have been actually made, and that over a hundred times that amount have been expended for the use of the city by this Commission, a little delay in settlement can hardly justify the broad charges of the Governors, and still less can it afford any ground for the assertion, that it will "compel this department to call for a sum of not less than $100,000 for the special purpose of providing for the impositions of the Commissioners of Emigration not otherwise provided for."

If a deficiency in the large grants to the Governors has occurred, requiring such an additional call from the department, it must arise from "impositions" from some other quarter than the Commissioners of Emigration.

8. Post-mortems performed on immigrant children without consent of parents, 1850

Commissioners of Emigration, "Report of the Committee to inquire and report in relation to certain abuses, alleged to have taken place ... in the Hospitals and Refuge at Ward's Island, November 27,1850," Annual Reports, 1847-60, pp. 386-394.

In November 1850, the New York City papers accused the hospital on Ward's Island of the illegal dissection of two deceased children. The committee appointed by the commissioners of emigration to investigate the scandal was divided in its conclusions. Gulian C. Verplank, president of the commission, and Adolf Rodewald, president of the German Society, argued that the proceedings had been legal, since the doctors performed a post-mortem, rather than dissection. They censured, however, the conduct of one of the younger doctors, who had stolen the body of one of the two children from Potter's Field, after interment. On the other hand, Gregory Dillon, president of the Irish Society, saw this case as a violation of the rights of the poor.

In the two cases of children which had been stated in certain city papers to have dissected, were both of them cases of…post-mortem examinations. One of them died of a disease of the throat . . . The parts affected were opened, and the examinations made by Dr. Cox, and afterwards sewed up, the whole being done, as the committee was assured, precisely as it would have been done in the chambers of the wealthy in private practice, and without defacing the body. It was stated by Dr. Carnochan, that this post-mortem inspection was not only valuable as to general medical skill, but had resulted in immediate advantages in the treatment of similar cases in the practice of the hospital.

The other . . . body was also opened by direction of Dr. Macneven, who had attended the case, and the examination made in the manner usual in private practice.

If the dissections had been confined to those patients who were here without friends or relatives, it would have involved simply a violation of the rights of the dead; but two cases were proved to us, in which children were dissected without permission of their parents, and in wanton violation of their rights and feelings, although the parents had been to the island to make preparations for the decent burial of their offspring. In one of these cases, even after the child had been buried, one of the young physicians so far forgot the rights of the father and his own duty, that in the dead of night he, in company with two other house physicians, went to the grave-yard at Potter's Field, and with his own hands dug up the remains of the child and carried them to the dead-house for dissection, thus superadding to the other enormities of this transaction a violation of a law of the State. It also appeared before the committee, that in some cases, after dissection, the bodies were not buried entire, but parts were taken away by the physicians as it pleased them; and that portions of different bodies were thrown into the same coffin and buried together.

The late scandalous proceedings at Ward's Island may be traced to another cause, which penetrates through all our establishments, and works quietly but with the most baleful effect. I refer to the opinion entertained by many that the emigrants are paupers, and are, therefore, entitled only to pauper consideration. This is a radical error . . . They are not paupers in any just sense of the term; they were called paupers when they were a charge upon the city, and before this commission was established; but the returns show that they never have been paupers, and are not paupers now. Every emigrant that comes to our shores pays a dollar and fifty cents to this Commission. Those who have health spread over the country, to increase our wealth and prosperity; those who are sick are relieved by the fund to which all, both well and sick, have contributed, and the fund is sufficient, and in my opinion more than sufficient under proper management. The whole class, therefore, are, as it were, underwriters for each of their members, and by their own aggregate contributions alone relieve the misfortunes of one another.

9. Wanted — immigrant children

New York Daily Tribune, Sept. 26, 1850, p.5

Wanted—Situations for a number of excellent girls and children, recently arrived, free from city habits and associations, and willing to work for moderate wages. Application to be made at the office of Commissioners of Emigration, in the Park. No charges.

10. Request for state support of the school sponsored by the New York commissioners of emigration on Ward's Island

Commissioners of Emigration, "Fifth Annual Report for the Year 1851,” pp.91-93.

[The school] consists of boys and girls of suitable age, who are in care of a male and female teacher, of excellent qualifications and experience, aided by competent assistants. The average attendance in the former part of the year, was one hundred and forty-three; but during the last six months, the number had increased to two hundred and four. The same course of instruction is pursued as in City Public Schools; and the discipline and order maintained, as also the improvement of the pupils in their respective studies, it is believed, will favorably compare with any of them. The Board, regarding the young, impressible children as a peculiarly interesting and hopeful portion of their charge, have spared no exertions to render these means of instruction as beneficial as the circumstances admit.

They would observe, moreover, in this connection, that a primary class has also been formed, and is in charge of a carefully selected instructress, for the benefit of young children, five years of age, and under. Being without maternal care, their tender age required such a guardianship as this provision is designed to supply. Having an apartment to themselves, nothing needful to their comfort is withheld; while by appropriate exercises of body and mind, the health and vigor of both are promoted. Recitations, interspersed with singing, marching, and other agreeable recreations suited to their years, will doubtless, in their case, as experience has shown in others, tend to their present enjoyment and lasting advantage.

From the rapid succession of children in these schools, and the comparatively short period they remain there, the system of instruction cannot be carried so far, ordinarily, as in the larger Public Schools of the State. But for the same reason, this instruction, so far as it goes, reaches a greater number in proportion to the number there at any one time, and is found of much value in habituating children to order and attention, and preparing them to derive immediate benefit from other schools, whenever they leave the island.

The cost of maintaining these schools has been hitherto defrayed from the income of the Emigration Fund.

As all these children are part of the population of the State, and destined to become its citizens, there seems no reason why they should not partake of the general benefits of the liberal provision made by the State for public education. On the contrary, it seems right that the Emigration Fund, limited in amount in comparison with the large demands upon it, should be relieved from every charge which does not of necessity fall within its objects. The Commissioners have had it under consideration to have their schools, on Ward's Island, organized under the authority of the Board of Education, on the footing of a ward school. But on further consideration and consultation with the officers of the Board of Education, various difficulties presented themselves as to such an organization, the requirements of the law transferring the property and control of such schools to other hands, whilst the efficiency and good order of the establishment required that the teachers resident and employed in the Emigrant Refuge, should be subject to the appointment and authority of the Commissioners, and their officers.

The Commissioners, therefore, respectfully submit to the Legislature the propriety and justice of placing the schools in the Emigrant Refuge, on the same footing with those of the New York Public School Society, the Orphan Asylum, and the Half Orphan Asylum, the Institution for the Blind, and the School of the Mechanics' Society, all of which, with some others, are, by law, authorized to receive a proportional share of the school moneys, on compliance with the general system of instruction, and being subject to the visitation and inspection of the Board of Education. The immediate control and government would then remain with the Commissioners, as they do with the Trustees of the several above-named institutions in relation to their own schools.