Care of the Homeless, the Helpless and the Vicious : Part 2

American Woman's Home
by Catharine Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe

(Page 39 of 44)

"In the Fourth ward, the tenant-house population is crowded at the rate of two hundred and ninety thousand inhabitants to the square mile. Such packing was probably never equaled in any other city. Were the buildings occupied by these miserable creatures removed and the people placed by each other, there would be but one and two ninths of a square yard for each and this unparalleled packing is increasing. Two hundred and twenty-four families in the ward live below the sidewalk, many of them below high-water mark. Often in very high tide they are driven from their cellars or lie in bed until the tide ebbs. Not one half of the houses have any drain or connection with the sewer. The liquid refuse is emptied on the sidewalk or into the street, giving forth sickening exhalations and uniting its fetid streams with others from similar sources.

There are more than four hundred families in this ward whose homes can only be reached by wading through a disgusting deposit of filthy refuse. 'In one tenant-house one hundred and forty-six were sick with small-pox, typhus fever, scarlatina, measles, marasmus, phthisis pulmonalis, dysentery and chronic diarrhea. In another, containing three hundred and forty-nine persons, one in nineteen died during the year and on the day of inspection, which was during the most healthy season of the year, there were one hundred and fifteen persons sick! In another (in the Sixth Ward, but near us,) are sixty-five families; seventy-seven persons were sick or diseased at the time of inspection and one in four always sick. In fifteen of these families twenty-five children were living, thirty-seven had died.'

"Here are found the lowest class of sailor boarding-houses, dance- houses and dens of infamy. There are less than two dwelling-houses for each rum-hole. Here are the poorest, vilest, most degraded and desperate representatives of all nations. In the homes of thousands here, a ray of sunlight never shines, a flower never blooms, a bird song is never heard, a breath of pure air never breathed." A procession of vagrant and neglected children that in double file would reach eight miles, living in such filth, vice and unhealthy pollution; all of them God's children, all Christ's younger brethren, to save whom he humbled himself, even to the shameful death of the cross!

Meantime, the city of New York has millions of wealth placed in the hands of men and women who profess to be followers of Jesus Christ and to have consecrated themselves, their time and their wealth to his service. And they daily are passing and repassing within a stone's throw of the streets where all this misery and sin are accumulated!

So in all our large cities and towns all over the land are found similar, if not so extensive, collections of vice and misery. And even where there are not such extremes of degradation, there are contrasts of condition that should "give us pause." For example, in the vicinity of our large towns and cities will be seen spacious mansions inhabited by professed followers of Jesus Christ, each surrounded by ornamented grounds. Not far from them will be seen small tenement-houses, abounding with children, each house having about as many square yards of land as the large houses have square acres. In the small tenements, the boys rise early and go forth with the father to work from eight to ten hours, with little opportunity for amusement or for reading or study. In the large houses, the boys sleep till a late breakfast, then lounge about till school-time, then spend three hours in school, stimulating brain and nerves. Then home to a hearty dinner and then again to school.

So with the girls: in the tenement-houses, they, go to kitchens and shops to work most of the day, with little chance for mental culture or the refinements of taste. In the large mansions, the daughters sleep late, do little or no labor for the family and spend their time in school, or in light reading, ornamental accomplishments, or amusement.

Therefore one class are trained to feel that they are a privileged few for whom others are to work, while they do little or nothing to promote the improvement or enjoyment of their poorer neighbors.

Then, again, labor being confined chiefly to the unrefined and uncultivated, is disgraced and rendered unattractive to the young. One class is overworked and the body deteriorates from excess. The other class overwork the brain and nerves and the neglected muscles grow thin, flabby and weak.

Notice also the style in which they accumulate the elegances of civilization without even an attempt to elevate their destitute neighbors to such culture and enjoyment. Their expensive pictures multiply on their frescoed walls, their elegant books increase in their closed bookcases, their fine pictures and prints remain shut in portfolios, to be only occasionally opened by a privileged few. Their handsome equipages are for the comfortable and prosperous - not for the feeble and poor who have none of their own. All their social amusements are exclusive and their expensive entertainments are for those only who can return the same to them.

Our Divine Master therefore teaches, "When You make a feast, call not thy kinsmen or thy rich neighbors, lest they also bid thee again and a recompense he made thee. But when You make a feast, call the poor, for they can not recompense thee; for You should be recompensed at the resurrection of the just." Again, our Lord, after performing the most servile office, taught thus: "If I, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye should to wash one another's feet."

In all these large towns and cities are women of wealth and leisure, who profess to be followers of Jesus Christ. Some of them, having property in their own right, live in large mansions, with equipage and servants demanding a large outlay. They travel abroad and gather around themselves the elegant refinements of foreign lands. They give, perhaps, a tenth of their time and income (which is far less than was required of the Jews), for benevolent purposes and then think and say that they have consecrated themselves and all they have to the service of Christ.

If there is any thing plainly taught in the New Testament it is, that the followers of Christ are to be different and distinct from the world around them; "a peculiar people," and subject to opposition and ill-will for their distinctive peculiarities.

About the Author

Catharine Esther Beecher (1800 - 1878) was a noted educator, renowned for her forthright opinions on women's education as well as her vehement support of the many benefits of the incorporation of a kindergarten into children's education.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811 - 1896) was a white American abolitionist and novelist, whose Uncle Tom's Cabin attacked the cruelty of slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential, even in Britain.