Kitabı oku: «The Bay State Monthly. Volume 2, No. 2, November, 1884», sayfa 4

THE PROTECTION OF CHILDREN

BY ERNEST NUSSE

The census of 1880 fixed the juvenile population of the United States at 20,000,000, of whom 10,158,954 were boys and 9,884,705 were girls. "From a political point of view," says the eminent philanthropist, Mr. Elbridge T. Gerry, "the future of the nation depends on the physical and intellectual education of its children, whose numbers increase every year, and who will soon constitute the sovereign people. From the moral and social point of view, the welfare of society imperatively demands that the atmosphere in which they live, and the treatment that they receive from those intrusted with their care or custody, shall be such as to establish in them habits of industry, of sobriety, of honesty, and good conduct. For injurious treatment of a child, inasmuch as it tends to result in the distortion of its physical and moral nature, constitutes an offence whose importance seriously effects the public order." But what is to be understood by cruel treatment? It consists in every act of omission or of commission which causes or procures physical injury or death. It is hardly necessary to observe that this definition must be limited to its practical meaning, rather than interpreted in its broader, philosophical sense. We must leave out of the question the results of improper or imperfect educational training and discipline. It is doubtless a cause of harm to a delicate and nervous child to force the development of its intelligence; a harsh word hastily uttered by parents may leave an ineffaceable impression upon a sensitive organization; severity degenerates into injustice when it confounds a peevish act, the result of physical disorder, with an act of deliberate disobedience. The weakness which resigns its authority In order to spare itself the care of a child's education engenders for life the spirit of insubordination. The humiliating and unjust reproach, the stinging sarcasm, wound the child in its tenderest feelings;—but these are not the forms of cruelty and wrong which fall within reach of the law. It is unable to interpose between the parents and the child, except in case of an actual and serious offence, and for the rest it must rely upon the affection planted by nature in the hearts of parents. These distinctions are more felt than expressed, and opinion will never deceive itself in regard to the conduct of unnatural parents.

But if these propositions are absolutely incontestable, how do they leave room for the function of a society? If children are beaten, abandoned, given over to odious practices, will not the authorities, on the complaint of those interested, or compelled by public opinion, be able adequately to fulfil the task? This reasoning, altogether French, would not properly take into account the American temperament, the genius of the Anglo-Saxon race, of its institutions, and of its usages. In France, since the fourteenth century, misdemeanors have been prosecuted the more generally by the public minister, acting under whose orders are numerous officers of judiciary police, who entertain the complaints of the public and send them, with the result of their examination, to our courts. The magistrates charged with the case complete the investigations, if they take place. The elements of the evidence are therefore combined when the prosecution is instituted. In the United States these intermediate officials exist but imperfectly between the injured party and the magistrate who renders judgment. From lack of sufficient evidence, the rights of this injured party run the risk of being compromised through his inexperience. Moreover, the complaint of the child, often directed against its parents or its legal guardians, involves the examination of a delicate situation, which must be conducted with much discernment. Without comparing the two systems, American and French, which correspond each to the particular genius of the two nations, it will be seen that the American system leaves much more to private initiative, and that it would become ineffectual when the victim of the offence, being a child, has neither the energy nor the knowledge necessary to demonstrate that its complaint is well founded, without the aid of some one in power. This is the aid which is given by the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children; and we can now understand how the exigency of the case, so powerfully felt by the practical intelligence of the Americans, has called into existence this potent organization, which we may call the guardian of the rights of childhood, for the repression of the offences from which it is liable to suffer. The following anecdote shows how the necessity for this institution arose, in a manner at once thrilling and dramatic:—

Ten years ago in New York, on the top floor of a tenement-house, in a miserable room without furniture, a dying woman lay on a pallet, in the last stage of consumption. A charitable lady who visited her asked what she could do for her. The dying woman replied: "My hours are numbered, but how can I die in peace when night and day I hear the beating by her mother-in-law of the unhappy little girl who lives in the room next to mine." And, in fact, for a month her heart had been torn by the cries of this child, Mary Ellen, kept in confinement by this brute. Much moved by this recital, the visitor felt impelled to demand the interference of the police. They told her this was impracticable unless she was able to furnish proof of her allegation. She knew the facts only upon hearsay, and only in case a misdemeanor were actually proved would it be possible for the police to interfere as she desired. The charitable feelings of the lady would not permit her to stop here. She made inquiries among benevolent societies. But here again she experienced a check. The societies could not receive the child except upon legal commitment by an order of court. And charitable persons with the most benevolent tendencies, being consulted on this difficulty, confessed themselves at a loss to suggest a remedy in the case, and declared that it was dangerous to interfere between parents and children; that in so doing one is liable to become involved in inextricable difficulties, since the heads of the family are the best guardians of their children. However, the sorrowful appeal of the dying woman echoed continually in the ears of her whose charitable aid had been implored. She resolved upon a supreme effort to rescue this child. She sought Mr. Henry Bergh, a man who has never been deaf to a cry of despair, and who has devoted his life to the protection of animals. Mr. Bergh considered the life of a child to be quite as valuable as that of a beast, and gave it as his opinion that the tribunals should be appealed to. A warrant was immediately procured and the child was produced in court, its face covered with horrible wounds. A pair of scissors with which these wounds had been inflicted were produced. The facts in the case caused a profound sensation in the court and throughout the city. The mother-in-law was arrested, found guilty, and the little girl was taken from her hands to receive an education which has rendered her an elegant and accomplished young woman.

Humble beginnings, which it will be well for us to bear in remembrance for the confusion of our pride! It is from the protection of animals that has sprung, in New York, that of the child. And, when we contemplate the great number of societies in the United States,—the Humane Society of Saratoga, of Bangor, of Keene, of Taunton, of Connecticut, the Western Pennsylvania, the Tennessee Society, those of Nashville, of Cleveland, of Cincinnati, of Indianapolis, of Chicago, of Peoria, of Sangamon, of Quincy, of Minnesota, of Minneapolis, extending, simultaneously, their help to children and to the brutes, we shall be no longer astonished either at the combination of effort explained by this historic origin, or especially at a philosophy which rightly esteems that cruelty commences with the animal, only to end fatally with the human being. The proceeding instituted at the instance of Mr. Henry Bergh was a most valuable precedent. The establishment of a method of rescue, encouraged complaints, which, till then, had been silent, of the abandonment, misery, or sufferings of children. Mr. Bergh's society found itself besieged, and, after deliberation with his counsel, it was determined to establish another in New York, whose special mission should be the protection of children. An old gentleman of high respectability, belonging to the sect of the Quakers, Mr. John D. Wright, was elected to the presidency, which office he held until his death, which occurred on the 21st of August, 1880. His successor is Mr. Elbridge T. Gerry.

However, inasmuch as the authority with which the society sought to be invested had reference to public justice, and involved the power to appear for the defence of the interests of others, and to require the coöperation of public officials, a law was indispensable, in order to confer these powers. Such a law was passed August 21, 1875, whose provisions covered not only the case of the New York society, but determined the functions of all institutions of a similar nature. On condition of complying with the prescribed formalities for acquiring a corporate existence, the law granted to these institutions the right to make complaints, in any jurisdiction, of violations of the statutes regarding children; it set forth, formally, the duty of magistrates or officers of police, to cooperate with the societies acting in the limits of their several jurisdictions. The boundaries of the ground of protection were thus defined, but there was still lacking the requisite legislative authority. Experience showed that, besides the misdemeanors of common law—attempts upon the morals, murder, assault and battery, etc.—a multitude of offences against children remained unpunished. The society, therefore, solicited and obtained from the Legislature, powers which permitted it to repress acts of cruelty towards children that the law failed to reach. The first of these measures was the law of 1876, forbidding the employment of minors under sixteen years as dancers, beggars, street peddlers, as gymnasts or contortionists, or in indecent occupations prejudicial to their health or perilous to their life. Then came the law of June 6, 1877, forbidding the admission of minors under fourteen years into public places, liquor saloons, balls, concerts, theatres, unless accompanied by a parent or legal guardian. With these laws, which it caused to be interpreted in the courts in certain test cases, the society arrived at the most satisfactory results. There were no longer seen in New York those juvenile beggars whose miserable appearance is made an instrument of gain by their worthless masters; those vagrants who disguise their vagabondage under the pretext of imaginary professions, collecting cigar stumps and rag picking; those little girls who sell flowers at the doors of houses of bad repute, often concealing under this ostensible occupation infamous transactions with panders who keep them in their pay. A determined warfare was declared against the Italian padroni, who thrive upon the toil of the little unfortunates to whom they pretend to teach music, and whom they utilize as peddlers and chimney-sweepers. The conviction of the too notorious Ancarola was the signal for the suppression of these shameless villains; the purchases of children ceased, and the cause of humanity triumphed, thanks to the combined efforts of the society and of the Italian consul, after long and earnest conferences. It is not only the Italians, but the children of all nationalities, who have profited from this powerful patronage: Hungarian, German, Chinese, Irish, French. One of our compatriots, a girl of fourteen years, came one day to implore its aid. Her father was a drunkard, who had reached the lowest round in the ladder of degradation; her mother had no means of subsistence except concubinage, nor her two sisters except prostitution. She begged that they would save her from this life of shame. The society received her, procured her a position, a good education. Learning that she was heiress to a considerable property left by a grandfather, the society took active steps in France to secure to her her rights. Unfortunately, the agent who had possession of the estate became insolvent after having squandered the property, and it was impossible to recover it. The society continued to care for the young girl up to the day of her marriage to a young man enjoying a regular salary of $1,200, and worthy of her in all respects.

The strict watch kept upon the liquor saloons contributed equally to improve the condition of children. Many were in the habit of being sent by confirmed drunkards to buy the "liquid poison!" They thus promoted this vice whose hardened subjects would prolong It even beyond the grave by asking that "a bottle of whiskey may be put in their coffin." The obedience of the children was rewarded by invitations to drink, which initiated them in debauchery. It was among women abandoned to drink that lived Eliza Clark, a child of eleven years, paying for the drinks with the gains which she realized from dancing or singing; in return, the women gave her brandy to drink and tobacco to smoke, so that when she was found she resembled "a beast more than a human creature." They also suppressed the playing of pool for drinks by minors, instituted by saloon keepers to induce them to drink liquor, which was the reward of those whom fortune favored in the game.

The police of the theatres performed their duty conscientiously, and the statutes were obeyed. The necessity of being accompanied by an adult was felt to be a strange restraint by these gamins eager for the theatre, whose attractions led them to abandon school, work, and family, and to procure the money for their admission by stealing it from their parents, or at a pinch from strangers; and where they would mingle, between the acts, with pick-pockets and low characters who encouraged them in the ways of vice. And for a stronger reason, the child was more carefully protected against the perils of the stage than against those of the auditory. Juvenile performances were forbidden, and the youthful performers were excluded successively from the Columbia Opera House or Theatre des Folies, from the Italian Opera, from the Gem Theatre, from Parker's American Theatre, and from the Juvenile Opera. Permissions for individual performances were peremptorily refused even to parents who were actors. Here the work of the society encountered serious obstacles, and it is necessary to quote from Mr. Elbridge T. Gerry in order to appreciate the motives by which the society was actuated in combating with vigorous purpose the opposition which it met with: "The Press, which is influenced to a considerable extent by the representations of theatrical managers, often criticises severely any attempt to deprive the public of what it is pleased to call its legitimate amusements, by the suppression of such entertainments. And many pronounced patrons of the dramatic art even maintain that such exhibitions are indispensable to the proper development of a dramatic education, and that when the necessities of the parents require it, charity should encourage the children to procure this means of obtaining a livelihood. But let us examine the other side of the question. When the curtain rises in the theatre, a draught of warm air rushes from the audience on to the stage, and often paralyzes for some moments the vocal chords of the actors. When the curtain falls, the cold air comes down from the flies, and the children, who have become over heated by their physical exertions, shiver to the marrow before they are able to accustom themselves to this sudden change of temperature. Every night these things are renewed. During the day the children sleep as best they can. Their nervous system is rapidly undermined; their digestion becomes impaired. It is rare that one can point to instances of children arriving early at positions of eminence in the dramatic art. It is true that there are a few who shine as stars in the theatrical profession, and who entered upon their dramatic career in early childhood; but these are rare exceptions."

It is not only on the stage that the morals of the children have been protected; the keepers of low resorts have been prosecuted by the society.

It has shut up the den of the too celebrated Owney Geoghegan, who long defied the law and the police, encouraging the efforts of prostitutes to debauch young girls. Women of notorious reputation, who enticed away the children of respectable mechanics to sell them for money, have been severely punished. In short, not content with bringing to justice these outrageous offenders with a firmness which has made it the terror of these oppressors of childhood, the society has been the instrument of checking acts even of carelessness or imprudence. It no longer permits the drunkard to keep his children in a cellar where the rats bite their feet; or the mercenary father to allow his son to engage in a wager, dangerous to his health, to make a hundred miles in twenty-four hours; or a man to ride a bicycle bearing on his shoulders his five-year-old daughter.

So great a work demanded accommodations of corresponding magnitude. In 1881, and at the price of $43,000, the society purchased a large building situated at the corner of 23rd street and 4th avenue, one of the most important thoroughfares of New York. Not far from the offices, in the main part of the building, is found a collection of all the instruments of cruelty seized in the legal proceedings,—rods of iron, whips, firebars (barres de poeles), pokers, cudgels (gourdins), and other instruments. These furnish convincing proofs of the sufferings of the children,—for example those of Maggie Scully, when she said: "I do all the work at my aunt's house, and if you do not believe that I have been beaten, look at me, for my aunt has beaten me this morning with a poker." Adjoining the offices are the rooms for the officers and the archives of the institution, containing the papers in each case setting forth the facts and the evidence. On the upper floor is a dormitory, where the children are kept until final disposition is made of them, that is to say, generally during one night. In fact, the work is going on without interruption at all hours of the day and night. If at night a call by telephone is received from the police-station, an officer of the society responds immediately to this appeal.

As is most frequently the case, he finds a drunken woman in the street, with three or four ragged children gathered about her, covered with vermin, without fire or lodging, having been abandoned by the father. The mother is detained at the station, but the children are taken to the society, where they are washed, fed, and for the first time in their lives, perhaps, put to sleep in a bed. On the following day, the children are taken to court. If the parents or guardians are worthy, they are returned to them; if not, the justice commits them to some charitable institution. Some of these have a religious character, and others a secular one; the American judge, in rendering his decision, is influenced by interests of family, of nationality, of race, or of religion of the child, as well as by the requirements of the law. Sick children and nursing infants are sent to the hospital on Randall's Island, the Ladies' Deborah Nursery, and the Child's Hospital. Each of the charitable institutions receives a per capita allowance for children during the time that they remain in their care.

The society does not abandon them, and if a complaint arises of improper treatment, it causes legal proceedings to be instituted against those who are responsible therefor.

A recent case of this kind was that of the "Old Gentlemen's Home."

It will be readily seen that the cases which come before the society must be very numerous: during the nine years of its existence it has investigated 13,077 complaints, involving 52,308 children, prosecuted 4,035 cases, convicted 3,637 offenders, rescued and placed in homes or institutions 7,555 children. In the last three years it has temporarily sheltered and clothed 1,092 children and furnished them with 9,309 meals. These figures acquire a singular force when one reads in the annual reports the curious history of these cases setting forth the facts in detail. In 1882 the magistrates of the city issued 1,267 warrants. On the information furnished, 834 children were held in custody, 1,040 released. The city of New York is compelled to pay for the support of children thus committed to custody. A saving of $108,160 has therefore been realized to the benefit of the tax-payers of New York. In 1883 they received 2,966 complaints; there were 1,176 prosecutions and 1,128 convictions; 2,008 children were placed in institutions of charity. Of 2,341 children arrested 1,078 were held, 1,263 released.

The resources of the society are derived exclusively from the liberality of the public. It receives no aid either from the State or city. On the contrary, it pay taxes even on the water used in the care of the children in its charge. The account of receipts and expenditures amounts to about $17,000. Of the $43,000 which its building cost, $25,000 remain on mortgage. The field in which the society employs its activity is already large, and is rapidly extending. It endeavors to obtain from the legislature laws which will defeat the aims of those too numerous enterprises which, under color of charity, utilize young children, for example, the baby farms and those establishments (called hospitaliers) which have neither the means nor the facilities necessary to their proper conduct. It requires that children shall not be employed in manual labor before the age of fourteen years, and only after their physical capability has been certified to by a physician. It insists on the prohibition of all dangerous occupations. The former articles in this Bulletin on the abuses which exist in the industrial employment of children in New York show how justifiable is this action of the society. "Thousands of children," says Mr. Gerry, "die of diseases contracted in these injurious employments; in this respect our nation is far behind Europe in its means of affording protection to children. In France, severe laws have been in operation since 1841. England has promptly followed this example, and like the English legislation, that of France expressly forbids the employment of children in the manufacture of dangerous substances, of a nature poisonous or explosive. You have only to visit our hospitals to see the little creatures with hand or fingers mutilated, from being employed at too early an age in the operation of machinery. Our negligence makes manifest the wisdom of the French law, whose lesson is so necessary with us." This needed progress will without doubt be made, and the society will continue with increased zeal its charitable work. It gives to the legislator the benefit of a practical experience in the work, to the child its powerful advocacy in the courts, to justice the impartiality of prudent investigations, to public opinion the assurance of the proper conduct of charitable institutions and an impulse in the direction of improvement. It is thus that in this land of enterprise, whose customs are adverse to permitting affairs even of the gravest importance, like the prosecution of crimes or the direction of works of benevolence, to be concentrated in the hands of public officials, the consequences of self-government have been happily corrected in points where they would otherwise become extreme, in regard to children. The New York society is therefore well described by its worthy president, Mr. Elbridge T. Gerry, as "the Hand of Protection." And this hand is too charitable for us to forbear to give it a cordial pressure across the vast expanse of the Atlantic.