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PRIVATE CHARITIES, PUBLIC LANDS AND PUBLIC MONEY.

GRANTS OF LAND

GIFTS OF MONEY

TO

Catholic and Non-Catholic Institntions

IN NEW YORK COMPARED:

WHICH CHURCH DOES THE STATE AND CITY SUPPORT?

S'li

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9 Barclay Street.

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hE^p(hl'iG

PRIVATE CHARITIES, PUBLIC LANDS AND PUBLIC MONEY.

GRANTS OF LAND
AND

GIFTS OF MONEY

- Catholic and Non-Catholic Institutions
Ik

IN NEW YORK COMPARED:

WHICH CHURCH DOES THE STATE AND CITY SUPPORT?

NEW YORK

:

THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY CO.,
9 Barclay Street.

1880.



Copyright, 1879,

THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY CO.



PRIVATE CHARITIES AND PUBLIC LANDS.

The difficulty which honest peo-

ple sometimes find in stating the

exact truth on a subject which ex-

cites their prejudices has been illus-

trated in a most remarkable man-

ner by a recent correspondence in

the Atlantic Monthly. We may well

pause and consider the historic

value of “ contemporary records
”

when we 'find a gentleman for

whose character We have a high

respect, and in whose good faith

we have entire confidence, writing a

wholly mistaken account of impor-

tant public transactions occurring

in his own city during his own time,

and, when his errors are pointed out,

excusing them by the perpetration of

other inaccuracies hardly less seri-

ous than the original blunder. Ifall

this may be done with good inten-

tions by an honest contemporary

observer, how may not history be

daily falsified by people who write

without opportunity of knowing

the truth or without the desire to

tell it ?

Mr. Clarence Cook contributed

to the February number of the

Atlantic Mo7ithly a criticism upon
the new cathedral in this city, and
in order to give more force to his

strictures he represented the whole

work as a monument of fraud, chi-
canery, political immorality, and

outrageous taxation of the poor.

He asserted that the wages of ser-
vants are extravagantly high be-

cause “the receivers of these wages

are obliged to pay the greater part

I.

of what they get to the support of

their church, and are regularly tax-

ed besides for the building of their

cathedral.” But even this plun-

dering of the poor was not enough;

and Archbishop Hughes (whose re-

spected memory Mr. Cook assailed

with extreme bitterness) supplied

the deficiency with “ the money

of Protestants and non-Catholics.”

“Of course,” said the critic, “it

was a subject of no little wonder

where the money was to come

from, not only to build the churcli

itself but to buy the land, whicli

under ordinary circumstances would

have cost no small part of the whole

sum. Flow this latter feat was ac-

complished we all know now, and

New-Yorkers are disposed to say

as little about it as possible. The

city was jockeyed out of the finest

site on the island by a crafty and un-

scrupulous priestplaying upon the po-

litical hopes and fears of as base a

lot of men as ever got the government

of a great city into their poiver. For

the consideration of one dollar the

Archbishop of New York became
possessor of the deed for the whole

square bounded west and east by

Fifth Avenue and Madison Ave-

nue, and south and north by Fif-

tieth Street and Fifty-first Street,

a plot of ground 420 feet on the

cross streets and 200 feet on the

avenues, situated in tlie heart of

the most fashionable part of the

city, and on one of the highest

points of the whole island.” This



4 Private Charities and Public Lands.

would appear from the context to

have occurred in 1858; Mr. Cook

no doubt supposed that it did oc-

cur at that date. He added, how-

ever, that the Protestants would

have generously pardoned the rob-

bery if the Catholics had built a

better church : “ We were willing

even to wink at the scurvy trick by

which the land belonging to all the

citizens was given in fee to a mi-

nority for their own private use.

‘ Let them have it,’ we said
;

‘ there

is no other body of our citizens

who can command money enough^

to build such a splendid structure

as the Catholics can.’
”

When we say that every one of

the statements we have quoted

from the article in the Atlantic is

untrue, we wish it to be distinctly

understood once more that we do

not impugn Mr. Cook’s good faith.

We know that he believed what he
wTote. The story about the cathe-

dral land is an old no-popery in-

vention which, although it has been

exposed a hundred times, is con-

tinually renewed; and since there is

nothing so hard to extirpate as a

striking lie, it is quite conceivable

that a gentleman who may be no

very industrious reader of the news-

papers should have missed the

numerous contradictions by which

the false statement has been regu-

larly followed. He heard the story

once upon a time
;
he assumed that

it was correct
;
and he made no

further inquiries. Yet while he

thus acquits himself of intentional

wrong, he remains open to the

charge of a recklessness which is

but too common in the controver-

sies of our time.

The charge that a church, or an
archbishop, or a body of priests
“ jockeyed ” a community by crafty
and unscrupulous arts out of a

valuable piece of property is too

serious to be made on the strength

of vague rumor. And that it was

made upon nothing better is quite

clear. The slightest investigation

would have shown that the story

had no basis—none, at least, in any
transaction of a doubtful or dis-

creditable character. The records

of all transfers of land are open to

public inspection. The conditions

of all sales, leases, or grants by the

city may be examined by anybody

who will take the trouble to go to

the City Hall and ask for the book

in which they are entered. To do

this would have been only an ordi-

nary precaution. But Mr. Cook, no

doubt unconsciously, fell into the

common error of supposing that

headlong denunciation of Catholic

priests was entirely safe. How
carelessly he treated the impor-

tant charge is illustrated, moreover,

by the dramatic incidents which

he adduces in connection with it.

He says that it was a matter of

no little wonder in 1858 where the

money was to come from to buy

the land; that can hardly be, be-

cause the cathedral and St. Peter’s

Church had bought the land to-

gether nearly thirty years before

that date; the cathedral had pur-

chased St. Peter's share at public

auction in 1852 ; and the notorious

fact that this property was held by

the Catholics for church purposes

was kept constantly before the

eyes of citizens by the Orphan Asy-

lum standing on the north side of

the property, and the church of St.

John the Evangelist on the east

side. Mr. Cook may have wonder-

ed where the money was to come

from
;

but to the community at

large it was well known that the

trustees of the cathedral had been

in possession of the land for a

long while. So, too, Mr. Cook un-

intentionally draws upon his im-



Private Charities and Public Lands. 5

agination when he adds that the

Protestants were willing to wink at

a trick which never was played,

and that they said, “ Let the Catho-

lics have this land, provided they

put a fine building on it.” The

Protestants could not have said

anything of the kind, because we

had bought the land at auction

and paid the full price for it, and

there was no reason why they

should make the matter their busi-

ness. The public authorities had

nothing whatever to do with the

affair. The lots anciently formed

part of the common lands of the

city, but the city sold them to pri-

vate persons before the close of

the last century, and they had pass-

ed through several hands when they

came into possession of the Catho-

lics by purchase, at what was then

probably the fair price of $5,500, in

1829. When they were put up at

auction again in 1852’ the cathe-

dral bought out the half-interest of

St. Peter’s for $59,500.

Mr. Cook’s mistakes were cor-

rected in a private note addressed

to him by Mr. John R. G. Hassard,

and Mr. Cook, with a frankness

which does him credit, caused this

note to be printed in the next

number of the Atlantic^ along with

an expression of his regret for hav-

ing been the means of disseminat-

ing a fiction. Here, it would seem,

the affair ought to have stopped.

What fatality drove Mr. Cook far-

ther.? In the desire to excuse his

first error he rushed headlong into

another, less venial since it was

made after such ample warning.

Accepting, like a man of honor,

the correction of his statement

about the cathedral, he neverthe-

less added that the blunder was a

natural and, we suppose he meant

to imply, a wholly immaterial one,

because if the Catholics did not

“jockey ” the city out of that par-

ticular block of land they did jock-

ey it out of the next block, now

occupied by the Orphan Asylum.

“ The taxpayers of New York

knew,” said he, “ that they had

been tricked out of a large and

valuable tract of land, and they are

not to be too hardly judged for

having mistaken one block of land

for another immediately adjacent,

and not at that time separated from

it by any actually existing street.”

To this the reply might be made that

the two tracts were distinguishable

by something much more conspicu-

ous than a roadway between them,

because when the cathedral was be-

gun the Orphan Asylum grant had

long been occupied by the Orphan

Asylum buildings. This matter,

however, is of no consequence.

We are concerned now in knowing,
not how the error originated, but

by what evil spirit of sectarian hos-

tility it is so persistently kept

alive.

Mr. Cook’s next sentences are as

follows

:

“ From a point of view outside of any

sect or party I cannot see any defence or

excuse for the transaction I have de-

scribed. The men who were at the
head of the city government at the time

had no right to give away or to lease in

perpetuity for the benefit of any body of

men, secular or religious, lands that be-

longed to the whole people. Nor could

the bargain have been proposed and

consummated except by crafty and un-

scrupulous men. That was a dark day

for our city politics, and I am much mis-

taken in your character if you do not

agree with me that it was a time in the

history of the Catholic Church in this

city which its best friends must prefer

not to have dragged into the light.”

The critic adheres, then, to the

sdbstance of his original charges.

The piece of land involved in the

case is not the one he suppos-

ed, but an adjoining piece of the



6 Private Charities and Public Lands.

same size and value. Otherwise

he holds the accusations to be true.

A crafty and unscrupulous priest
obtained the land from the city by

trick
—

“jockeyed the city out of

the finest site on the island.” The

wicked priest accomplished this

feat by playing upon the political

hopes and fears of the Common

Council. The municipal authori-

ties at that time (1846) were as

base a lot of men as ever got the

government of a great city into

their power. The transaction can

neither be defended nor excused.

It was a bargain which could

not have been proposed and con-

summated except by crafty and un-

scrupulous men. The city govern-

ment has no right to give away or to

lease m perpetuity for the benefit of
any body of men, secular or religious,

lands that belong to the whole people.

In this sentence which we have

placed in italics lies the essence

of Mr. Cook’s accusations. Upon

this principle alone, propounded

with as much assurance as if it

were a rule in arithmetic, are bas-

ed his indictment of the Catho-

lic Church and clergy, of Bishop

Hughes, and of the city govern-

ment of 1846. No reason is as-

signed for calling one party base

and the other crafty and unscrupu-

lous, except that they combined to

violate this principle.

The proposition is not stated

with perfect clearness, because

there is no pretence that the lands

were given away or leased “ for

the benefit of any body of men,”

and Mr. Cook knew, as lie shows in

the context, that the donation was

made for the benefit of the Orphan

Asylum, the conditions as to the

use of the land being stated in the

deed and lease. Undoubtedly the

critic meant to lay down the gene-

ral rule that the city has no right

to apply the public property to the

endowment of any charitable in-

stitution controlled by a private

corporation or society. If that was

not his meaning we can discover

no meaning at all in the sentence

we have quoted. He raises no ob-
jection to the amount of the en-

dowment. He does not complain
that the Catholics received more

than the Protestants. He does
not denounce the grant for the rea-

son that the institution benefited

was what he perhaps calls “ secta-

rian ”
;
but he sets forth the broad

general principle that the city has

no right to endow any charitable

foundations whatever.

If he does hold that opinion he

has the distinction of holding it

almost entirely alone. Neither in

this city, nor in any other Christian

community that we know of, has

it ever been accepted. For the

honor of human nature, for the

cause of civilization, we trust that

it may never be accepted. Dona-

tions of land and money to chari-

table societies have always been

made, with great liberality, by our

national. State, and municipal gov-

ernments, with the cordial approval

of all classes of citizens. All denomi-

nations have shared in them. Trans-

actions such as Mr. Cook denounces

begin in the early days of our his-

tory and reach down to the present

time. Appropriations from the

public treasury or the public lands,

which he thinks could only be ob-

tained by fraud, have been made

habitually in New York, in Albany,

in Washington, in probably every

State capital and every large city,

Jto Catholic, to Protestant, to Jew,

to infidel, and have been regard-

ed by all classes as the best evi-

dences of the enlightenment and

humanity of the American people.

Manhattan Island contains about



Private Charities and Public Lands. 7

one hundred and fifty asylums,

hospitals, refuges, and similar

establishments for the succor of

the unfortunate; nearly all of them

have been aided from the public

funds
;

a majority, we suppose,

derive a considerable part of

their revenues from State or city

appropriations
;
and many of them

have obtained grants of land from

the Common Council by “ transac-

tions ’’ precisely like that which we

have seen stigmatized as a scurvy

trick. It seems strange that a New-

Yorker should be ignorant of the

existence of this long-established

and approved system of distribut-

ing municipal and State aid among

the sick and poor; but we must

infer from Mr. Cook’s letter that

he imagined the concession to the

Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum

to be something extraordinary, if

not unprecedented.

His error is the more remarkable

because the steps which he took to

ascertain the particulars of the

grant for the benefit of the Orphan

Asylum ought to have led him to

the discovery that such grants are

customary, and that their propriety

has always been recognized. The

same books in the comptroller’s of-

fice from which the deed and leases

of the Orphan Asylum property were

copied for his use contain numer-

ous other deeds and leases to insti-

tutions of the same class, and for

one grant to a Catholic institution

there are five grants to Protestant

or non-Catholic institutions. Were

they all obtained by chicanery and

fraud } Are they all without de-

fence or excuse } Were all the

Common Councilmen who voted for
these concessions, and all the may-

ors who approved them, “as base a

lot of men as ever got the govern-

ment of a great city into their pow-

er”.? Was every day on which

such a grant was made a dark day

in our city politics .? Are there

times in the history of every reli-

gious denomination in this city

which its best friends must pre-

fer not to have dragged into the

light .?

We have caused a careful search

to be made in the comptroller’s office,

and memoranda to be taken of all

grants and leases of land executed

by the city to institutions of cha-

rity under the management of

churches, religious orders, or other

societies and private corporations,

“ secular or religious.” The mu-

nicipal charities, such as the alms-

house, Bellevue Hospital, etc., are

of course not included
;

neither

are the schools and colleges, none

of these institutions coming within

the scope of Mr. Cook’s remarks;

but we have endeavored to include

everything else. If any grant has

been overlooked the omission is

accidental, and we shall be grate-

ful for an opportunity to correct it.

Before we proceed there are a few

points which the reader is request-

ed to fix in his mind :

I. If it appear that the propriety

of public grants to private chari-

ties (that is to say, charities not

managed by State or municipal of-

ficers) has been generally admitted

both in theory and practice, and

that such grants are an ordinary

incident of our city administration,,

then the charge of Mr. Cook, that

the grant to the Orphan Asylum was

a scurvy trick which could not

have been played upon the people

except by crafty and unscrupulous

men, falls to the ground.

II. There is no question at pre-

sent of the justice or policy of pub-

lic aid to denominational charities.

Mr. Cook’s statement is clear and

broad that a donation of public

land to any body of men, “ secular.



.
Private Charities and Public Lands,8

or religious/’ is a fraud upon the

taxpayers.

III. There is no question as to

the comparative value of the gifts

to Catholics and to Protestants.

The objection is made on princi-

ple to any gift at all, either to Ca-

tholic, to Protestant, to Jew, or to

infidel. Nevertheless it will be

seen that the grants to Catholics

are far below what we should be

entitled to. under any pro-rata dis-

tribution.

DEEDS AND LEASES OF LAND TO

CATHOLIC INSTITUTIONS.

I . The Roman Catholic Orphan

Asylum .—The grants to the Orphan
Asylum, conducted by the Sisters of

Charity, were made in 1846. The

institution had then been in exist-

ence nearly thirty years, and the

buildings in Prince Street contain-

ed about 270 children, who were

^supported entirely by private con-

tributions. The accommodations

being inadequate to the demands

upon the society, a petition for the

appropriation of land for a new

asylum was presented to the Com-

^mon Council in December, 1845,

but it was not acted upon until the

following July, when the Finance

Committee of the Board of Alder-

men presented a report in which

-occurs the following passage :

“ It has been questioned by some as

'to the right of the corporation to make
similar grants of land, as in the case of

the Colored Orphan Asylum and the

Colored Home, but your committee be-
lieve it to be perfectly legitimate for the

city authorities to dispense charity to the

helpless and the destitute in any manner

which may best comport with the public
interest; and they consider the object

much more economically and satisfacto-
rily obtained by assisting the efforts of

humane associations, by the granting of
a piece of land upon which to erect the

necessary asylum building, than to

maintain the recipients of their bounty

in the almshouse.”

The committee consequently re-

commended the grant, and their re-

port was adopted. It does not ap-

pear from the official record of the

proceedings of the Common Coun-
cil whether there was an,y opposi-

tion to the resolution offered by

the committee, but it was prompt-

ly adopted at any rate both by the

aldermen and the assistants. The

submission of the favorable report

was announced (somewhat conspic-

uously) in the New York Tribune

of the next morning. No com-

ment was made upon it in that

journal at the time, nor does an ex-

amination of the newspaper files

show any trace of a discussion of

the matter outside of the Common

Council. Of course there may

have been such debate
;
but we

chance not to have discovered any

indication of the great “ stir ” of

which Mr. Cook speaks. In ac-

cordance, then, with the resolution

of the Common Council, a deed,

dated August i, 1846, conveyed

to the Orphan Asylum Association

the land now bounded by Fifth

and Madison Avenues and Fifty-

first and Fifty-second Streets (34

lots), for the consideration of one

dollar, and on the condition that

within three years the managers

should erect a suitable asylum. A
lease was executed on the same

day, transferring to the same so-

ciety the block between Madison

and Fourth Avenues and Fifty-first

and Fifty-second Streets (30 lots),

at the rent of one dollar a year,

during the pleasure of the Com-

mon Council. In 1857 a new lease

was granted of the same premises,

so long as they should be occupied

for the purposes of an orphan

asylum.

On the land thus acquired the Ca-



Private Charities and Public Lands, 9

tholics erected extensive buildings,

and on January i, 1877, the num-

ber of children maintained by their

society was 1,345. The support of

these waifs would have fallen upon

the city, if they had not been cared

for by a private corporation. The

revenue for the previous year was

about $100,000, of which sum $28,-

600 was drawn from the public trea-

sury under general laws makingper-

capita allowances to all such insti-

tutions, and the rest, except a few

miscellaneous items, consisted of

the voluntary offerings of the Ca-

tholic people and about $15,000 in

legacies. The expenditures, in-

cluding payment of debts and per-

manent improvements, were some-

what in excess of the income. The

society maintains four establish-

ments—namely, the old one in
Prince Street, two asylum.s (male

and female) on the city grant, and

a farm at Peekskill. The aggre-

gate cost of administration in 1877

was, for salaries of officers only

$3,045 ; wages of servants and

laborers, $5,660, about half of which

was on the farm
;
and maintenance

of -the Sisters of Charity and Bro-

thers of the Christian Schools em-

ployed in the care of the asylums,

$6,300. The religious give their

services gratuitously. In point of

economy and efficiency the admin-

istration is admitted to be a model.

The charge that the city govern-

ment which made the grant to this

institution was composed of a par-

ticularly base set of men we con-

fess that we do not. understand.

The Common Council of 1846 has

not left in the annals of our city, so

far as we have'learned, a bad repu-

tation, or, indeed, a reputation of

any kind. The list of aldermen

and assistant aldermen contains

very few names that are now re-

membered. One of the assistant

aldermen was Mr. Thomas McEl-

rath, for many years Mr. Greeley’s

partner in the publication of the

Tribune. One of the aldermen was

Mr. William V. Brady, whom the

Tribune earnestly supported for

mayor the next year. One of the

signers of the report of the Finance

Committee recommending the grant

to the Orphan Asylum was Aider-

man Egbert Benson, whom Mr.

Greeley urged for re-election a few

months later as a reward for his

eminent faithfulness. The mayor

was Andrew H. Mickle.

2. St. Joseph's Industrial Home .

—

This institution, under the charge

of the Sisters of Mercy, was found-

ed for the protection and support

of destitute girls between the ages

of eleven and eighteen, who are

received free of expense and taught

remunerative trades. In 1878 it

had between 500 and 600 inmates.

The land which it* occupies, an ir-

regular block, 200 feet on Madison

Avenue, 255 feet on Eighty-hrst

Street, and 205 feet on Eighty-

second Street (about eighteen city

lots), was leased from the corpora-

tion February 3, 1866, for the term

of ninety-nine years, at the yearly

rent of one dollar.

3. New York Foundling Asylum.
—This establishment, one of the
best of its class in the world, and

one of the noblest in the metropolis,

is under the charge of the Sisters of

Charity. It supports about 2,000

infants, and how much crime, suf-

fering, and mortality are prevent-

ed by its beneficent and extensive

operations the mind can hardly even

conjecture. It is needless to say

that the poor little creatures com-

mitted to its charge have the

strongest possible claims upon the

compassion of the public, and that

tl>ey could not be cared for except

by a voluntary association of be-



lO Private Charities and Public Lands.

nevolent women. The land now

occupied by the asylum was ob-

tained from the city December 15,

1870, on a lease for ninety-nine years,

at the yearly rent of one dollar.

The grant covers about thirty-four

lots, being the block between Lex-

ington and Third Avenues and Six-

ty-eighth and Sixty-ninth Streets.

These are the only grants or

leases of land from the city to Cath-

olic . institutions of which we find

any record, except that, in order to

rectify the street lines, an exchange

of small gores was made between

the city’ and the trustees of the new

cathedral in 1852. The question

of appropriations of money has not

been raised in this controversy, but

we shall consider it later. We
come now to the concessions of

land to Protestant and other non-

Catholic institutions

:

DEEDS AND LEASES OF LAND TO

PROTESTANT AND OTHER INSTI-

TUTIONS.

I. The Colored Orphan Asylum .

—

On December 29, 1842, the city

sold to the Association for the

Benefit of Colored Orphans, for one

dollar, a piece of land 200 feet on

the west side of Fifth Avenue, an*d

250 feet on Forty-third and Forty-

fourth Streets (20 lots), which was

a much more liberal appropriation,

considering the number of orphans

to be relieved, than the concession

to the Catholic asylum. The trus-

tees were required to erect a suit-

able building within three years,

and to provide for twelve colored

pauper children committed to their

care by the public authorities.

After the destruction of the asylum

during the draft riots the society

sold this land, and with the pro-

ceeds purchased a new site on One

Hundred and Forty-third Street.

Like other institutions of the same

class, the Colored Orphan Asylum

receives per-capita allowances from

the city and State. The religion

taught the children is Protestant,

although no particular denomina-

tion is recognized to the exclusion

of others. The number of orphans

in the asylum on December i, 1878,

was 307.

2. Protestant Episcopal Orphaji

Asyluin.—This institution is strictly
denominational; the religious ser-

vices and instructions are those of

the Protestant Episcopal Church,

and all persons to whom children

are bound out from the asylum

must be Episcopalians. The land

which it occupies, 100 feet on Lex-

ington Avenue and 305 feet on

Forty-ninth Street (about 12 lots),

was leased from the city April 26,

1861, for twenty years, at a yearly

rent of one dollar. The asylum is

not a large one, being intended

only for a small class of the poor.

Under the circumstances, it is in-

teresting to note that The Church-

man^ Protestant Episcopal journal

of this city, “ agrees with Mr. Cook

that the less said about the leasing

of the thirty-six lots by the city

government to the Roman Catholic

Orphan Asylum Society, the better

for the Roman Catholics and the

city government.”

3. Hebrew Orpha7i Asylum.—The
Hebrew Benevolent Society of New

York manages an Orphan Asylum,

and also a general charitable fund,

the two branches of the benevolent

enterprise being kept separate.

As the title of the association im-

plies, its object is to relieve the

suffering and destitute of the He-

brew race
;
the trustees are requir-

ed to be Israelites
;
and the chil-

dren in the asylum are instructed

in the Jewish faith, none but Jew-

ish children being admitted. Of



Private Charities and Public Lands. II

course the number of inmates is

not large. On October 29, i860,

the city conveyed to the society,

in fee simple, for the consideration

of one dollar, a parcel of ground

consisting of about twelve lots, ex-

tending 300 feet on Seventy-seventh

Street and 102 feet on the west

side of Third Avenue ; and on the

17th of October, 1864, a second

deed, for the same consideration,

added to the grant the five adjoin-

ing lots on Seventy-seventh Street.

The land is now occupied by the

Hebrew Orphan Asylum.

4. Baptist Ladies' Ho7ne.—The
Ladies’ Home Society of the Bap-

tist churches in the city of New

York manages an institution com-

monly known as the Baptist Home.

Its object is “ to provide the aged,

infirm, or destitute members of the

Baptist churches with a comforta-

ble residence, with board, clothing,

skilful medical attendance, with

their accustomed religious services,

and at their death with respectable

burial.” It is not an almshouse, for

an entrance fee of Jioo is required.

At the date of the last published

report (1878) the number of inmates

was ninety-one. This institution

received from the city, November

28, 1870, a lease for ninety-nine

years, at the yearly rent of one

dollar, of the land which it now

occupies, comprising ten lots, be-

tween Lexington and Fourth Ave-

nues, running through from Sixty-

seventh to Sixty-eighth Street, with

a width of 125 feet and a depth of

200 feet.

5. The Chapin Home is an insti-

tution for the aged and infirm

under the control of the Universal-

ists, only members of that denomi-

nation being eligible as trustees.

Its objects are like those of the

Baptist Home, and it demands an

admission fee of $300. In 1878

the number of inmates was forty-

four. The asylum obtained from

the city, March 29, 1871, a lease

for ninety-nine years, at the yearly

rent of one dollar, of the premises

extending from Sixty-sixth to Sixty-

seventh Street between Lexington

and Third Avenues, with a width

of 170 feet and a depth of 200 feet,

being nearly fourteen lots. We

have no fault to find either with

the plan or administration of the

Baptist and Chapin Homes, or with

the liberality of the corporation

towards them
;
but we do not be-

lieve it would be easy to select more

striking examples of what Mr. Cook

calls the giving away of the lands

of the whole people for the benefit

of a small minority than these

grants of valuable property, made

not to save the destitute from star-

vation, but to enable forty or ninety

members of a particular church to

obtain a great deal of comfort for

a very small price.

6.

Society for the Reformation of

Juvejiile Delinquents ,—The House
of Refuge on Randall’s Island is

supposed by many to be a munici-

pal institution. This is a mistake.

It is under the full control of a

private corporation, although it was

founded at the public cost and is'

supported from the public funds.

Juvenile vagrants and criminals

are committed to it by the courts.

It is entirely Protestant in its reli-

gious instruction and forms of wor-

ship
;

it has a Protestant chaplain
;

Catholic priests are not allowed to

visit the children unless they are

asked for in case of sickness. Yet

that a large proportion of the in-

mates are Catholics may be gath-

ered from the fact that out of 948

boys and girls in the institution at

the beginning of last year, 317 were

of -Irish parentage. There were

also III of German parentage, and



12 Private Charities and Public Lands.

many of these, too, were doubtless

Catholics. Formerly magistrates

were required by the statute to

send Catholic children to the Ca-

tholic Protectory, but this law has

been repealed. More than half

the children are committed not for

crime but for truancy, vagrancy,

and disorderly conduct; so that in

point of fact the society obtains a

large number of innocent Catholic

children, picked up in the streets

by the police, and keeps them

under lock and key until it has for-

cibly made them Protestants. The

last annual report shows that the

expenditures for 1878 amounted to

$136,754, including about $14,500

for permanent improvements and

$5,000 in payment of a loan. Sala-

ries and wages cost $37,454, or

about one-third of the running ex-

penses
;
and the cost of maintenance

of the children, after allowing for

their earnings ($31,000), was $85 87

per capita per annum. The reve-

nues (earnings, etc., excepted) were

wholly from the public treasury

:

$68 500 from the State comptroller,

$11,843 from the Board of Educa-

tion, $22,457 from theatre licenses.

In 1824 the society obtained from

the city a grant of a triangular plot

of land on Madison Square. This,

together with an adjoining piece of

property purchased from the United

States, they afterwards transferred

to the city in exchange for premises

on Twenty-third Street and First

Avenue. A further grant of ad-
joining lots was made in 1854, and

the society then had the whole

block, 197 by 613 feet, between

Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth

Streets and Avenue A and First
Avenue. On November 10, 1851,
the city conveyed to the society

thirty-six acres on Randall’s Island,

and the buildings which it now oc-

cupies there were erected partly

with the proceeds of the sale of the

Twenty-third Street property, part-

ly by fresh appropriations from the

State. We shall have occasion to
examine hereafter the enormous

grants of money to this cruelly sec-

tarian institution. The Catholic

Protectory, which does for Catholic

children what the House of Re-

fuge does for those of Protestant

parentage, has never received any

grant or lease of land from the city

or the State.

7. Nursery and Child's Hospital.

—This institution, founded (under
another name) in 1854, has three

departments. It comprises, i, an

asylum for children who from any

cause are deprived of the care of a

mother; 2, a hospital for sick chil-

dren
; 3, a lying-in asylum and a

foundling hospital for illegitimate

children. Last year the society

received $102,000 from the city

government. The city granted the

land which the asylum occupies,

consisting of about fifteen lots, be-

tween Fiftieth and Fifty-first Streets

and Lexington and Third Avenues.

The concession was in the form of

two leases made at different times

(August I, 1857, and February 16,

1866), at the yearly rent of one dol-

lar, to hold as long as the property

is used for the purposes of the asy-

lum. The State contributed liber-

ally towards the cost of the build-

ings.

8. St. Philip's Church .—This is
a Protestant Episcopal Church for

colored persons. In 1827 the city

conveyed to it for one dollar a

plot of land in First Street, 50 by

200 feet (four lots), to be used as a

burying-ground.

9. Church of the Redeemer .—The
city granted permission to the Pro-

testant Episcopal Church of the

Redeemer, Yorkville, December 31,

1864, to occupy a plot of land ex-



Private Charities and Public Lands. 13

tending 204 feet on Fourth Ave-

nue, 200 feet on Eighty-first Street,

and 100 feet on Eighty-second

Street during the pleasure of the

Common Council.

10.

St. Luke's Hospital.—Two-
thirds of the land now occupied by

this fine institution was originally

a grant from the city, though not

to this particular establishment.

May 10, 1848, the city conveyed

to the Protestant Episcopal Church

of St. George the Martyr a plot

200 feet in extent on the west side

of Fifth Avenue, and 300 feet on

Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Streets

(24 lots), for the consideration of

one dollar, and on condition that

the rector should build a hospital

and chapel for British emigrants,

and that Trinity Church should,

moreover, surrender all its claim

to certain land in the lower part of

the city—land of which, if we are
not mistaken, the title was in dis-

pute. The value of the grant de-

pends, of course, upon the value of.

the claim thus surrendered as a

partial equivalent, and as we are

not familiar with all the facts we

state the transaction under reserve,

giving merely what appears upon

the record, and drawing no con-

clusions. Subsequently (November

20, 1851) the Common Council au-

thorized a transfer of the Fifth Ave-

nue land to the managers of St.

Luke’s Hospital, on condition that

they should comply with.the cove-

nants of the original grant. The

institution is denominational in its

government and character. It was

established “ for the purpose of af-

fording medical and surgical aid

and nursing to sick or disabled

persons, and also to provide them,

while inmates of the hospital, with

the ministrations of the Gospel

agreeably to the doctrines and

forms of the Protestant Episcopal

Church. A further object of the
society is the instructing and train-

ing of suitable persons in the art

of nursing and attending upon the

sick.” A sisterhood is connected
with the hospital. Service is held

daily in the wards. Although the

hospital opens its doors freely to

accident cases requiring immediate

attention, patients are not usually

admitted except upon payment.

But however freely it might extend

its charity to the suffering, it would

still, according to Mr. Cook’s prin-

ciple, be inexcusable for the city

to help it.

11. Mount Sinai Hospital. —
Founded especially for the benefit

of the Jews, and governed by men
of that race and creed, this insti-

tution admits patients of whatever

belief, and, we believe, allows them

all to receive the visits of clergy-

men of their choice
;
but naturally

the inmates are nearly all Hebrews.

It received from the city. May 31,
1871, on a lease for ninety-nine

years at the yearly rent of one dol-

lar, the ground which it now occu-
pies, 200 feet on Lexington Ave-

nue and 170 feet on Sixty-sixth

and Sixty-seventh Streets—that is
to say, about fourteen lots.

12. German Hospital.—The Ger-
man Hospital and Dispensary oc-
cupies the block between Lexing-

ton and Fourth Avenues and

Seventy-sixth and Seventy-seventh

Streets. It purchased a part of

the land from a private owner, and

obtained the rest (eighteen lots)

from the city February 9, 1866, on

a lease for fifty years, at the yearly

rent of one dollar.

13. Hahnemaiin Hospital.—This
homoeopathic institution, occupy-

ing 200 feet on Fourth Avenue and

125 teet on Sixty-seventh and Six-

ty-eighth Streets (ten lots), obtain-

ed a lease ot its land from the city,



14 Private Charities and Public Lands,

January lo, 1871, for ninety-nine

years, at a yearly rent of one dollar.

This would certainly seem to be a

case in which “ the land belonging

to all the citizens was given to a

minority for their own private use

but we are not prepared to believe

that the felonious deed was accom-

plished by “a scurvy trick.”

14. New York State Woman!

s

Hospital.—This is not only an in-
stitution for the benefit of a small

minority, but it is intended for the

treatment of a certain crass of dis-

eases only. A considerable propor-
tion of the patients pay board, but

there is a fixed number of free beds.

The sick are allowed to call for the

services of any clergyman they de-

sire, but only “in extreme cases.”

January 10, 1859, the institution

obtained from the city, for one dol-

lar, the whole block between Fourth

and Lexington Avenues and Forty-

ninth and Fiftieth Streets (32 lots),

on condition that twenty-four free

beds should be provided for poor

persons residing in New York City.

15. Deaf and Dumb Institution.

—Although the New York Institu-
tion for the Instruction of the Deaf

and Dumb is supported chiefly at

the cost of the State, it is, like all

the other institutions we have men-

tioned, a truly private charity in

its management. In its religious

character it is distinctly Protestant,

and the pupils attend Protestant

service every day. In September,

1827, the city conveyed to the in-

stitution for one dollar a tract of

land between Fourth and Fifth

Avenues extending from Forty-

ninth to Fiftieth Street, and 207

feet wide on each street (eight lots).

In 1850 the city sold to the institu-

tion all the remaining land between

Fourth and Fifth Avenues and

Forty-ninth and Fiftieth Streets

(25 lots) for $28,000, a price which

made the transaction virtually a

gift. The establishment was after-

wards removed to Washington

Heights, and the old buildings are

now occupied by Columbia Col-

lege.

16 .—The Association for the Im-
proved Instruction of Deaf Mutes

obtained from the city, August i,

1870, a lease for ninety-nine years,

at the yearly rent of one dollar, of

a block of land extending 200 feet

on the west side of Lexington Ave-

nue, and 155 feet on Sixty-seventh

and Sixty-eighth Streets, or about

twelve lots.

Here, then, we have a total of

nineteen charitable institutions and

churches to which the city has

made grants of land under exactly

or substantially the same conditions

that accompanied the grant to the

Orphan Asylum of the Sisters of

Charity. Only three of these in-

stitutions are Catholic. The other

sixteen, with only one or two unim-

portant exceptions, are distinctly

Protestant or Jewish. We have laid
no great stress upon the religious

influences of these sixteen estab-

lishments, because the question now

is not whether the public authori-

ties have distributed their bene-

ficence impartially between the

two great religious bodies, nor is it

whether the city has a right to aid

“ sectarian charities ”
;

it is whether

there is justification, precedent, es-

tablished and approved custom,

for the donation of public lands to

benevolent institutions, or whether,

as we have been angrily assured,

the endowment of ar> orphan asy-

lum with lands belonging to the

taxpayers was an inexcusable out-

rage, a scurvy trick, an infamous

bargain, which could only have

been proposed and consummated

by a crafty and unscrupulous



Private Charities and Public Lands,

priest on one side and a base Com-

mon Council on the other. The

high grounds within a radius of a

mile and a half of the Catholic

Orphan Asylum are covered with

magnificent hospitals, homes, re-

fuges, etc., etc., for the relief of

almost every sort of misery. That

region of the island might almost

be called a colony of charity. We

have seen that the city has given

the land for a large proportion of

the most important of these institu-

tions. We shall see hereafter that

the donations in money have been

still more generous than the dona-

tions in land. Without such aid

from the city and State not a tithe

of these foundations could exist.

To some people—we hope they are
not many—it may seem that this
expenditure of a part of the funds

of the whole people for the relief

of the suffering and destitute is a

crime. To us it appears to be one

of the glories of the metropolis.

With respect to the comparative

values of the donations to Catholic

and Protestant charities, although

the matter is not pertinent to the

present discussion, it may be worth

while to remind the reader that the

Orphan Asylum grant—which was
the most considerable made to us

—is surpassed by many others. At
the date of the deed and lease

(1846) a block of ground on Fiftieth

Street was not worth an extrava-

gant sum, probably not so much as

tlie grant to the Hebrew Orphan

Asylum was worth when it was

made fifteen and eighteen years

later. And it would be the height

of absurdity to reckon such grants

as additions to the wealth of the

church which holds them. How a
piece of land which can never yield

any revenue, but, on the contrary,

must always make necessary a

heavy annual outlay, can be called

15

an addition to one’s wealth we are

at a loss to understand.

Some of the institutions whicli

we have classed as Protestant pro-

fess to be unsectarian. Probably

there are only one or two—and those
hospitals for adults—which are en-
titled to make such a claim. In all

hospitals, if there is no religious in-

fluence or ministration there ought

to be, and it is monstrous that

the sick should be left to die with-

out the attendance of a clergy-

man unless they ask for one. In

most of the hospitals we have enu-

merated the duty of attending to

the soul is at least recognized. Asy-

lums for the care of children can

never in any case be unsectarian.

If religion is banished from them

altogether, they become nurseries

of atheism and the most cruel of

inventions for the ruin of the little

ones. If religion is taught at all, it

must be some particular kind of re-

ligion, for there is no delusion so

empty as that which hugs the idea

of abstract religion without any

concrete belief.

The question of State aid to reli-

gious charities was argued in the

Constitutional Convention of this

State in 1868. Among those who

came forward most conspicuously

in that body to rebuke the narrow

sectarian spirit which remonstrated

against “ sectarian charities ” and

which clamored at the benefactions

to Catholic asylums, was no less

bitter a Protestant than iMr. Eras-

tus Brooks, then editor of the

Evening Express, “ Let me address

a few, words,” said he, “to those

who would refuse appropriations to

men, women, and children of the

Roman Catholic faith. Those who

know my antecedents will not ac^

cus« me of any undue partiality for

the adherents of this church. I

would give them no advantage



i6 Privi te Charities and Public Lands,

over others, and I would do them

no wrong by discriminations against

them, and least of all in dispensing

charity would I inquire the reli-

gious faith of any who need assist-

ance. . . . While discarding state

and church as combinations, we

must remember that there can be no

true charity where all religion is ex-

cluded since a pure charity is the

very essence of practical Christian-

ity. To say that the state has no-

thing to do with religion makes it

atheistical
;
and that education and

charity form no part of its duties,

makes it barbarian.”



PRIVATE CHARITIES AND PUBLIC MONEY.

II.

In the preceding paper we exam-

ined the record of grants and leases

of land by the city authorities of New

York for the benefit of charitable

institutions, and we saw that it has

long been the settled policy of our

public authorities to make liberal

donations in aid of the humane en-

terprises of benevolent persons,

whether under the control of reli-

gious societies or of purely secular

associations. We saw, moreover,
that, contrary to the belief of a

great many Protestants, the grants

and leases to Catholic charities

have been far below our fair pro-

portion both in number and value.

Out of nineteen institutions which

have received portions of the city

land, only three are Catholic; and

of the other sixteen all, except,

perhaps, two, are more or less dis-,

tinctly “sectarian,” while several

are connected with particular re-

ligious denominations. We have
now something to say about grants

of money to charitable institutions,

and in this branch of the subject

we shall consider the benefactions

of the State as well as the city.

To the best of our belief there

have been no grants of land by the

State to any charity within the me-

tropolis.

The general question of the jus-

tice and policy of voting money

from the public treasury to chari-

table institutions managed by pri-

vate corporations or individuals was

discussed in the New York Consti-
tutional Convention of 1867-8, and

the principle for which we Catho-

lics contend was sustained there

with great ability by gentlemen

who are known as uncompromising

Protestants. When the Conven-

tion assembled in the summer of

1867 an anonymous document,

headed Shall the State support the

Churches I was laid on the desks

of the members. It was circu-

lated, evidently by preconcert, all

over the State. It asserted that

the money of the taxpayers was

used to build up the Roman Ca-

tholic Church. It represented that

the Legislature of 1866 had appro-

priated ^129,025 for sectarian pur-

poses, of which amount the Catho-

lics obtained no less than $124,174 !

As a natural consequence petitions

were addressed to the Convention

from various quarters, asking for a

constitutional prohibition of all

“ sectarian appropriations.” The

dishonesty of this sensational do-

cument was promptly exposed by

Mr. Ellis H. Roberts, editor of

the Utica Herald^ and a member

of the Committee of Ways and

Means in the Legislature of 1866.

It was also taken up in the Con-

vention. “ I do not hesitate to

say,” remarked Mr. Cassidy, editor

of the Albany Atlas and Argus^

“ that' it is false from beginning to

end. It has all the characteristics

of a forgery. It has been exposed*

as a deliberate and well-contrived

falsehood. Nobody disputes it.”
“ I have the memorial to which my

friend has alluded,” added Mr.

Erastus Brooks (the same gentle-

man who held the famous contro-

versy witli Archbishop Huglies on

the subject of church property in

1855), “and although it may not

go to the extent of falsehood men-



1

8

. Private Charities

tioned by the gentleman from Al-

bany, that it is an entire falsehood,

it comes under one of those defini-

tions laid down by Lord Paley [?]

where he says that a man may

state ninety-nine facts and every

one of them be a falsehood, be-

cause when the hundredth fact is

given it overthrows all that has

been stated before. This is pre-

cisely one of those cases. It has'*

just enough truth in it to make a

pretension
;

but, in point of fact

and result, it is no true statement

at all.” Mr. Alvord, the present

Speaker of the Assembly, declared

that the anonymous communica*

tion was “ from the beginning to

the end a falsehood,” and he add-

ed : “In all my legislative expe-

rience, in all these cases where

State aid has been given to institu-

tions of this character it has been

based, not upon the question wheth-

er the institution belonged to this

•or that religious denomination, but

upon the numbers who are taken care

ofby the charity, and only upon that.
”

Mr. Develin exposed the “ evident

and intentional suppression of the

truth ” in the statements of the

.same anonymous paper relative to

the legislative appropriations of

1867, and showed that, in order

to pick out the Catholic charities

-mentioned in the tax-levy, the com-

piler must necessarily have gone

through a multitude of "similar

grants to Protestant charities, of

which lie suppressed all mention.

The list was made up, in short, by

the double fraud of charging to

Catholics what they had not re-

ceived, and omitting what had

been given to non-Catholics.

This fraudulent
.
list, notwith-

standing the complete exposure of

its character in the Constitutional

Convention, seems to have been

used nevertheless by Dr. Leonard

and Public Money.

Bacon in the preparation of two ar-

ticles against the Catholics publish-

ed nearly two years later in Put-

na 9ds Magazine (and answered in

The Catholic World, August,

1869, and January, 18/0)—at all
events. Dr. Bacon adopted the same

figures—and now, ten years after-
ward, we find Mr. Cook referring

with approval to Dr. Bacon’s

“ fierce, but not too fierce, denunci-

ation of the spoliation the city was

then undergoing.” All which is

only another illustration of the dif-

ficulty of stopping the circulation

of a lie.

A small minority in the Conven-
tion wished to insert in the consti-

tution a prohibition of any appro-

priation whatever for “ sectarian
”

or private charitable institutions.

The Committee on Charities, at the

head of which was Mr. Erastus

Brooks, recommended the creation

of a State Board of Charities, and

was unwilling to limit the power

of the Legislature to give what it

deemed proper. Neither scheme

prevailed, and the proposed new

constitution left the matter as be-

fore. We do not purpose follow-
ing the debate

;
but now that a

fresh attempt has been made to ac-

complish by constitutional amend-

ments the object which failed in

the Convention, it will be especially

useful to note how thoroughly the

fallacies of the anti-Catholic party

were laid bare by some of the fore-

most Protestants in the assemblage,

and how indignantly principles

were then scouted as “ barbarian
”

which are now growing into fashion.

There were several Catliolics in the

Convention who took a distinguish-

ed part in the discussion
;
but we

shall here quote chiefly from Pro-

testants

Mr. Brooks, beginning with a

severe rebuke of the “sectarian



Private Charities and Public Money.

hate which had displayed itself in

the memorials against appropria-

tions for religious charities, laid

down the plain rule that while “ the

State ought not to support the

churches, and ought not to make

donations for purely sectarian pur-

poses,” on the other hand “ it is

also unworthy of a State to deny to

any class of needy people the State’s

aid because the recipients of its

bounty perchance belong to any

one sect or to no sect. And I may

also add,” he continued, “that it is

also unworthy of ‘ taxpayers ’ and

all others to incite the fury of the

State against any sect or party on

account of its religious faith.” Mr.

Brooks reminded the Convention

that “ there can be no true charity

where all religion is excluded”;

and to those who cherish the ab-

surd idea that there can be an ab-

stract religion distinct from any

particular creed or form of worship

he addressed the following sensible

remarks :

“ Sectarianism cannot be, must not be,

supported by the State, nor must it, if

presented in the form of a true charity, be

disowned by the State. If you strike at

one mode of religious worship you strike

at all. Your blows fall everywhere, and

prostrate all whom they may reach.
You must not suppose that asylums in

New York, Westchester, Rochester, or
Buffalo can be assailed upon the score

of sectarianism, or Romanism if you

please, and Protestant institutions like

the two State blouses of Refuge, the insti-

tutions for the deafand dumb, the blind,

the Children’s Aid Societies, Five Points

Missions, hospitals for those of mature

years and infant dependants, escape un-

scathed. All are so far Protestant as

to have Protestant officers, Protestant

boards of trustees and directors, and a

general Protestant management and su-

perintendence. This is true of all our

main institutions, either criminal or for

the maintenance of the poor. I have no

fault to find with any of them
;
but be

careful where you strike, or, like Samson,

you may bring the whole temple at your

19

feet, and destroy all in your zeal to pros-

trate those you dislike.”

Mr. George William Curtis, the

editor of Harper's Weekly, follow-

ed Mr. Brooks.

“ Unquestionably,” said he. “ if the

State, as we have determined, is to aid

charities, it cannot avoid, at least pro-

portionately, helping those institutions

which are under the care of the Roman

Church. It is impossible not to recog-

nize the fact that the charitable founda-

tions of the Roman Church are the most

comprehensive, the most vigorous, and

the most efficient known in history. It

is still further true, as the chairman of

the committee (Mr. Brooks) has told us,

that the great majority of those who

must be relieved by State charities in

certain sections of the State are mem-

bers of that church, and will naturally

fall to the care of that church. I can-

not stop to speak of the various forms

of the charity of that church, but it is to

one of its saints that civilization owes

the institution of the Sisters of Charity,

whose benign service is known even in

the hospitals of other denominations,

and any system which this State should

adopt which should strike at the very

root of such institutions would neces-

sarily bring the State to this question

:

‘ Are you willing to do, absolutely and

to the utmost, what is now done by the

institutions already in existence ?’ I do

not believe that the State is willing to do

it. I believe the experience of this State

to be that of Massachusetts. Massachu-

setts in the year 1863 established a board

of charity. In the very first report which

that board made, after looking over the

whole ground, they announced that in

their judgment the true policy of the

State was to give assistance to the pri-

vate foundations, of whatever sect, that

already existed, rather than to establish

new public institutions.”
“ I am not a Catholic,” said Mr. Martin

I. Townsend, recently member of Con-

gress from the Troy district
;

“ I am the

farthest from it, perhaps, that a man can

well be and have respect for the God that

they worship. But my Protestantism has
not taught me, when I see a naked, bare-

footed child in the month of January

tracking its little feet in the snow, to

a-sk, before I relieve its necessities, what

is the faith in which it is being brought



20 Private Charities and Public Money,

up
;
and notwithstanding the multitude

of petitions that have come here, I do

not believe that that is the sentiment of

the State, I believe the sentiment of the

State would be to relieve Catholic or-

phans as well as Protestant orphans.”

“ I am aware,” sai'd Mr. Alvord, ” that

there are numerous petitions coming up

from all parts of the State against giving

State aid for sectarian purposes
;
but I

am not aware that this cry which has

been raised throughout the State is en-

titled to any consideration, because so

far as regards the foundations of these

charities, in the very nature of the case,

in almost all of ^ese institutions of

charity throughout, our land, so far as

regards their administration, they fall

into some sectarian hands. They are the

creation of benevolent people—people
who have organized them because they

have an abundance of means—and there
are very many instances, both under Pro-

testant and Romanish auspices, where

the institutions have been the emana-

tions of the piety of individuals. Such

persons consider it a part of their reli-

gion that they should perform these acts

of charity and kindness to their fellow-

beings, and they must of necessity, under

the circumstances, gather themselves

together animated by the religious feel-

ing in order to establish their work of

benevolence.”

And after showing how essen-

tial it is to the public welfare that

orphans and other helpless and

destitute persons should be pro-

perly cared for, Mr. Alvord con-

tinued :

“ It is right and proper for the great

body politic to put their hands into the

coffers of the State from time to time, as

may be required, and give forth of the

means of the people for the purpose of

benefiting directly the people themselves

by seeing to it that this great mass of

human beings, orphans as they are, shall

not come up to be a terror to the people

of the State.”

Upon the question of the justice

of giving State aid to institutions

under religious influence or con-

trol, the sentiment of the Conven-

tion seemed, indeed, to be nearly

all one way, The policy of that

course, as a mere matter of expedi-

ency and economy, was also de-

monstrated. The point was well

made that a large proportion of

charitable institutions which origi-

nate in private beneficence and are

partly sustained by private contri-

butions must inevitably go down

if State aid is withheld. “If pri-

vate liberal-minded individuals,”

said one member, “ will from their

private means defray nineteen-twen-

tieths of this expense and leave but

one-twentieth for the State to sup-

pl)q it seems to me wise to accept

of such a donation, and not by

constitutional restrictions deny our-

selves the benefit of such liberality.”

Private beneficence already bears

about as heavy a tax as it is able

to sustain. If the state and city

should withdraw their help, indi-

viduals would not supply the defi-

ciency, but a large proportion of

the charitable institutions would

have to close their doors. Thou-

sands of destitute persons would

be thrown into the streets' and

become a burden upon the public.

The number of municipal hospi-

tals, almshouses, asylums, etc., etc.,

would have to be quadrupled
;
and

where taxation now contributes

only a small part of the cost of

supporting the poor and disabled,

it would then have to pay the

whole.

Probably the voluntary contribu-

tions of churches and private per-

sons defray not less than three-

quarters of the current expenses of

the hundred and fifty charitable

institutions of this city, and have

borne an equally large proportion

of the first cost of the buildings.

Does anybody imagine that these

donations would ever have been

made to municipal hospitals and

almshouses 1 It has been calcu-

lated that public charities of a



Private Charities and Public Money. 21

secular character consume in sala-

ries on an average about thirty per

cent, of their income. The income

of the House of Refuge last year,

exclusive of a special gift from the

State of $20,000, was $114,962, and

salaries and wages amounted to

$37,454. But in the best class of

religious charities the services of

managers, officers, and attendants

are in large part gratuitous. To

show the economy of public aid to

religious charities we have a strik-

ing illustration in the case of the

Catholic Protectory. That insti-

tution does for children of Catho-

lic parents what the House of Re-

fuge and the Juvenile Asylum do

for Protestants. All three receive

per-capita allowances from the pub-

lic funds. The House of Refuge

and the Juvenile Asylum are sup-

ported wholly by the city and State.

The House of Refuge, moreover, re-

ceived its land from the city, and

very nearly the entire expense of

its buildings was paid by the tax-

payers. According to its fiftieth

annual report, issued in 1875, the

cost of its real estate and buildings

up to that date was $745,740, and

the total amount received from

private subscriptions and donations

during its whole history was only

$38,702. Now look at the record
of the Catholic Protectory. That

establishment contained at the date

of its last report 2,034 children, the

House of Refuge having 903 and

the Juvenile Asylum 781. Up to

1875 (the same date we have taken

for the review of the expenditures

of the House of Refuge) the out-

lay on real estate and buildings

amounted to $933,968, of which the

public authorities had contributed

$193,502 in money and nothing at

all in land, leaving a balance of

about $740,000 supplied by the

liberality of Catholics, Nor is this

all. During the first three years of

its existence the Protectory receiv-

ed no allowances from the public

treasury. It obtained at last from

the Legislature a per-capita grant

of $50 (less than half the actual

cost of maintenance). It now re-

ceives $110 for each child, the

House of Refuge drawing about

the same amount, while the Juve-

nile Asylum got last year $122 50

for each child. The deficit of the

Protectory on current expenses up

to 1875 reached the sum of $250,-

000, and it is now regularly from

$40,000 to $50,000 a year ; so that

this Catholic charity has expended

in the care of the children commit-

ted to it considerably more than a

million of dollars over and above

all sums received from any public

source. If Catholic religious zeal

had not undertaken this noble

work the taxpayers must have

borne the entire burden. They

must have put up buildings for the

army of children whom the Chris-

tian Brothers and Sisters of Char-

ity have taken care of (the House

of Refuge can accommodate only

1,000, and now contains over 900) ;
they must have made per-capita

grants for their support considera-

bly larger than they have made to

the Protectory
;
or else the children

must have been left in the streets

to grow up vagrants, drunkards,

thieves, and worse. Besides doing

the public an incalculable service

by reforming and caring for these

boys and girls, the Protectory has

therefore saved the taxpayers more

than a million dollars in cash.

We can imagine no more dread-
ful condition of society than one

in which the flow of private charity

is checked by illiberal laws, and a

host of orphans and paupers are

maintained out of the taxes in

establishments from which religion



22 Private Charities and Public Money.

is excluded. Such a system is a

curse both to the community that

gives such aid and to the poor who

receive it. It discountenances the

exercise of a virtue which has been

universally recognized as one of

the brightest- ornaments of the

Christian life
;

it deprives the un-

fortunate of the chief solace of

their misery, the weak and erring

of the chief help to a new career.

It would not take long under such

a system to produce a population

hard, selfish, immoral, monstrous

beyond all example in Christian

countries. But Protestants will

tell us that although charity ought

to be religious, it must nevertheless

be “ unsectarian.” There is no

cant more absurd than this. Why

must charity be “ unsectarian Un-

sectarian is a fetich word to which

Protestants are prone to pay an

unreasoning worship. If there is

any difference between truth and er-

ror, “ sectarian ” disagreements are

founded upon important principles.

If a man has any faith he is bound

to stand by it and bring up his

children in it. To say that the

State ought to withhold its aid

from every charity dispensed in an

asylum where a positive religious

belief is professed, and to open its

purse to asylums where indifferent-

ism is cultivated, is to require the

State to discriminate against all

creeds and in favor of free-thinking.

This is not impartiality
;

it is the

most offensive form of sectarianism.

It makes the State the active enemy

of all creeds.

And in point of fact a general

system of undenominational char-

ity has never been established in

any civilized country. We can un-
derstand an unsectarian soup-house

or dispensary. But an unsectarian

orphan asylum is an impossibility.

All institutions which undertake

the care and education of children,

all which assume the ordinary

duties of parents and attempt to

supply the influences proper to the

home, 7?iust give either a distinctly

religious training or a distinctly

infidel training. If they accept

the latter alternative their managers

are guilty of the most fearful crime

against the children, and a crime,

too, against the state. If they

choose the former they are driven

to decide between rival creeds,

Christian or Jewish, Catholic or

Protestant. There is no getting

around this difficulty. There is no

devising a composite religion, suita-

ble for the use of asylums. How
shall we please the Jew with a

faith that teaches Christ crucified }

Or if we yield to the Jew, shall we

have a Christianity that ignores'

our Lord 1 Or if perchance we can

satisfy Jew and Protestant, are we

to rob Catholics of the sacraments.^

Nearly all denominations which re-

tain any love for their own creed

and any respect for spiritual things

understand the essential vice of

unsectarian asylums as clearly as

we do, and hence the multitude of

church institutions of various sorts

which have sprung up all over the

city.

An unsectarian reformatory is, if

possible, a still greater outrage

upon justice and common sense

than an unsectarian infant asylum,

since it undertakes to cultivate vir-

tue by the exclusion of religion,

and to conquer sin without the help

of grace. Homes and refuges for

adults are worse than useless if

religion is shut out of them. Hos-

pitals are places of danger if the

soul is not watched in them as

carefully as the body. Indeed, if

our Protestant friends adhered in

practice to the principles of man-

agement which they profess so



Private Charities and Public Moytey. 23

freely in the annual reports of be-

nevolent institutions, their chari-

ties would be cold enough. But in

point of fact nearly all these es-

tablishments do teach religion. It

may not be distinguishable as Epis-

copalianism, Methodism, or Pres-

byterianism, but at all events it

is surely Protestantism. The one

point upon which they all agree is

hostility to the Catholic Church.

“ Ours is a strictly unsectarian

home,” said the matron of one of

these institutions to a visitor; “we

open our doors to all, without dis-

tinction of race or creed.” “ Do

you receive Catholics too ?” “ Oh !

yes, certainly we do
;
but

”—confi-
dentially

—
“ we make sure that they

are not Catholics any more when

they leave us.” If Protestant de-

nominations care so little about

fundamental doctrines, so little

about modes of worship, so little

about positive religious duties, that

they are content to mix their chil-

dren in these great combination

asylums—where a Ritualist will
preach to them to-day and a Unita-

rian to-morrow, where nobody can

determine whether it is even pro-

per to baptize the little ones, and

Avhere they must inevitably be edu-

cated to have no respect for any

denomination whatever—that is
their affair

;
let those support the

system who like it. But in the

eyes of Catholics who cling to the

sacraments and the divinely-insti-

tuted priesthood, and who know

that our Lord enjoins upon us not

merely a vague religious sentiment

but certain religious practices, all

such pretended compromises be-

tween faith and infidelity are in the

last degree odious. He who is not

for me is against me.
.
We take the

ground that we have an absolute

right to the free exercise of our re-

ligious duties and observances, and

our children an absolute right to

a Catholic education. When the

State places our poor, our sick, our

criminals, our orphans and des-

titute children in establishments

where these rights are in any way

abridged, it commits the most griev-

ous tyranny of which a government

can be guilty. When it declares

that it will aid none who cling to

their faith and their religious privi-

leges, but will give its money liber-

ally to all who consent to abandon

their church, it is guilty of enor-

mous injustice and makes itself the

strongest support of practical infi-

delity.

No, the so-called non-sectarian

institutions are either really secta-

rian in disguise or they are schools

of indifferentism, materialism, athe-

ism. In either case they are vio-

lently hostile to the Catholic Church,

and we can have no part or lot

with them. There is only one

just and rational method of solv-

ing the problem of State aid to the

poor, only one method that treats

all alike. That is to encourage

every religious denomination or

society of charitable persons to

found and manage asylums, etc.,

for those of their own creed, and,

when private benevolence has done

its utmost, for the State to lend its

assistance to all impartially in pro-

portion to the numbers they re-

lieve, asking of none, “ Are you

Methodists? Are you Catholics?

Do you believe in the Trinity ?

Do you approve of infant baptism ?”

but only requiring proof that the

recipients of public money are hon-

estly engaged in work for the pub-

lic good, and that the funds com-

mitted to them in trust will be

honestly and wisely expended.

This is “ unsectarian charity.”

This is the only fair and economi-

cal method of taking care of the



24 -Private Charities and Public Money.

poor. And this, as we shall see,

in spite of occasional outbreaks of

fanatical opposition, is the method

to which our State has long given

at least a formal approval. “ The

very complainants who remonstrate

against sectarian charities,’' said

Mr. Erastus Brooks, in speaking of

the anonymous paper referred to

in the first part of this article, “arfe

themselves all of some sect and

party, and the complaint, I think,

is not so much that money is ex-

pended as that, perhaps, those not

of the sect of the signers get more

than their share of this money.”

At the request of the Constitu-

tional Convention in 1867 tabular re-

ports were prepared by State Comp-

troller Hillhouseand City Comptrol-

ler Connolly of all sums of money

paid by the State and City of New

York to religious, charitable, and

educational institutions during the

previous twenty years, specifying

the amounts received by each in-

stitution in each year. In these

reports were included asylums, re-

formatories, hospitals, dispensaries,

benevolent societies, colleges., cor-

porate free schools and academies

of various denominations, etc., etc.

—

everything, in short, of a charitable

nature except municipal institutions

like those under the care of the

Commissioners of Charities and Cor-

rection on Blackwell’s Island, and

the public schools, which are main-

tained by a special fund and tax.

The State report covered the period

from January i, 1847, to December

31, 1866 ; the city report compris-

ed also a part of the expenditures

of 1867
;
and both were published

with the official proceedings of the

Convention.* We have supplement-
ed these statements by obtaining

from the official records an account

* See Documents of the Convention ofthe State
•0/New York^ vol, iii. Nos. 54 and 55.

of all sums paid by the State and

city to the same or similar institu-

tions from the date of the Conven-

tion reports down to the ist of

January, 1878, so that the record is

now complete fora period of thirty-

one years. No statement covering

the past ten years has ever been

compiled until now, and the pre-

paration of this one has involved

great labor. The charitable ap-

propriations of the city alone, which

were less than ^200,000 in 1867^

amounted to $967,000 in 1877, and

the number of institutions benefit-

ed has doubled in the same time,

although corporate schools, former-

ly included, have been dropped

from the list since 1872. The figures

include payments from whatever

source, and fall under no fewer than

eight separate heads ; i. Special ap-

propriations by the Legislature; 2.

Per-capita allowances made by the

Legislature in' the annual charity

bill, and divided first among the

counties in the ratio of their taxa-

tion, the share of each county being

then divided among its charitable

institutions in proportion to the

number of their inmates
;

3. Per-

capita allowances from the school

fund to charitable institutions (such

as orphan asylums and reforma-

tories) which are partly engaged in

the work of education
;

4. Special

appropriations by the city or county;

5. Per-capita allowances from the

city or county, under general laws
;

6. The excise funds distributed

among charitable associations; 7.

License fees from theatres (paid to

the House of Refuge)
;
8. Board of

inmates of certain institutions paid

from the appropriations of the

Commissioners of Charities and

Correction.*

* During the seven years 1867 to 1873 these last-

enumerated items were paid by the commissioners

and not by the comptroller, and the confusion in the



Private Charities and Public Money, 25

The State appropriations are

taken from the State comptroller’s

annual reports. The city and coun-

ty appropriations, up to the close

of 1869, are copied from the an-

nual reports of the city comptroller.

But since December, 1869, that

officer has never made a detailed

report from which it is possible to

discover the payments to any one

institution, and the figures have

only been obtained by considera-

ble research. It has been necessary

to examine the ledgers in the comp-

troller’s office for a series of years,

and often to consolidate a great

number of entries, in order to as-

certain the amount paid to a single

society in a single year. Since the

distinction between city and coun-

ty expenditures was abolished in

1874, an inspection of the comptrol-

ler’s warrants has given the de-

sired information. The work has

been complicated by obscurities

and inaccuracies in the titles by

which institutions are occasionally

entered on the books of the city,

and in several cases it has been

difficult to ascertain which of two

establishments having somewhat

similar names was the one intend-

ed. It is possible that this confu-

sion has led to a few errors in our

statement
;
but we have taken great

pains to avoid such mistakes, and

in many instances have had re-

course to. the books of the institu-

tions themselves. It is proper to

say that the comptroller and his de-

puties and clerks have cheerfully

given us every possible facility for

the examination of the city re-

cords.

Schools and colleges are not in-

cluded in the statements that fol-

books is such that we have failed to obtain the

figures. The only institutions which received any-
thing from that source during the period mentioned

were the Colored Orphan Asylum and the Colored

Home.

low—first, because the question of
public education has been held to

be distinct from that of public cha-

rity, and cannot be discussed here

without swelling the dimensions of

this article far beyond all reason-

able bounds; and, secondly, because

no grants have been made in aid

of corporate or private scliools

since 1872, and none can be made

under the amended constitution as

it now stands. Dispensaries are

omitted, because they are a pecu-

liar kind of charity which all par-

ties approve of aiding from the

public funds, and “ sectarianism
”

has nothing to do with them. Hos-

pitals, however, are included, be-

cause religious influences are na-

turally concerned with them. So-

cieties for general charitable relief

are also included, because a very

large proportion of them combine

missionary work with alms-giving
;

as it is impossible always to speci-

fy those which confine themselves

to a single function, we have enter-

ed them all. For convenience of

comparison we group the institu-

tions under several heads accord-

ing to their chief objects. Some

operate in two or more spheres

;

the Sisters of Mercy, for instance,

and the Hebrew Benevolent Socie-

ty, besides maintaining asylums for

children, distribute a great deal of

out-door relief to adults
;
but as we

have no means of distinguishing

the revenues and expenditures of

each branch, the total grants to the

society or institution are set down

under the head which represents

its principal work.

CATHOLIC CHARITIES.

Among the Catholic institutions

of New York there are three “great

charities”—namely,theOrphan Asy-
lum, Foundling Asylum, and Protec-



26
,
Private Charities and Public Money.

tory—each of which far surpasses
in the extent of its operations any

two non-Catholic establishments in

the cit}% and each receives allow-

ances strictly proportioned to the

number of its inmates.

I. ASYLUMS FOR CHILDREN.

I. The Roma 7i Catholic Orphan

Asylum embraces four important

institutions—namely, an establish-
ment for girls at the corner of

Prince and Mott Streets, which

contained, according to the Catho-

lic Abnanac of 1879, 210 cliildren ;

another for girls on Madison Ave-

nue and Fifty-second Street, with

510 children
;
one for boys on Fifth

Avenue, with 520 children (these

three being under the care of the

Sisters of Charity)
;
and a farm at

Peekskill, where 120 of the older

boys are cared for by the Christian

Brothers. Whole number of chil-

dren, 1,360, or nearly as many as

all the seven Protestant and He-

brew orphan asylums put together.

The society was founded in 1817;

consolidated with it are the Ro-

man Catholic Half-Orphan Society

and the Society for the Relief of

Children of Poor Widows and Wid-

owers, grants to both which are

included in the figures given be-

low. After the society had been

in active operation for thirty years,

sustaining all the poor children the

Prince Street building could ac-

commodate, and pressed to make

room for more, it obtained from the

city a grant and lease of the land for

the erection of the new asylums on

Fifth and Madison Avenues. The

annual report for 1877 (the latest

at hand) shows that the society re-

ceived during the previous year

from the Board of Excise <^15,000;

from the Board of Education, $13,-

658 43; State, nothing;

from legacies, $14,861 ; from the

voluntary offerings of Catholics,

$34,830 28. The collections taken

up in the churches on Christmas

and Easter days are given to this

charity, and in prosperous years

they have generally amounted to

about $50,000 annually. No sala-

ries are paid to the sisters or the

Christian Brothers, but a small sum

is allowed for their actual expenses,

amounting in the total to $4,400,

for the sisters and $1,895 59
the brothers. During the thirty-

one years covered by our reports

these four asylums have received

from the city and State $298,-

196 54.

2. St. Joseph's Orphaii Asylum.,

on Eighty-ninth Street and Ave-

nue A, was founded in 1858, chiefly

for German children, and is under

the charge of the School Sisters of

Notre Dame. At the last report it

had 180 children. Its annual ex-

penses are about $14,000. It re-

ceived of the public money in 1877,

from all sources, $1,100, and its

gross receipts from the city and

State since its foundation (twenty

years) have been $61,498 55.

3. St. Vmceiit de Paul's Orphan

Asylu7u, in West Thirty-ninth Street,

was founded in 1858, and gives

preference to children of French

descent. It has 87 inmates, who

are supported chiefly by the contri-

butions of French Catholics and

cared for by the Marianite sisters

of the Holy Cross. Its expendi-

tures amount to about $10,000 a

year, and it has a mortgage debt of

$54,000. Its receipts of public

money last year were $1,500 from

the excise fund. Its gross receipts

of public money since its founda-

tion (twenty years) have been $19,-

174 04.

4. St. Stephen's Home, under the

Sisters of Charity, in East Twenty-



Private Charities and Public Money. 27

eighth Street, was founded in 1868

for the relief of destitute boys and

girls between the ages of two and

thirteen. It had 141 inmates at

the date of the last report. Its an-

nual expenses are between $7,500

and $8,000. In 1877 it received

$3,220 from the public funds, and

its gross receipts from city and

State since the commencement have

been $14,202 89.

5. The Fou7idling Asylum of the

Sisters of Charity, established in

1869, is one of the noblest of

our Catholic benefactions. Institu-

tions of this kind do a double ser-

vice to the community, for they not

only relieve a class of destitute

children who have peculiar claims

upon our compassion, but they ac-

complish untold good in the pre-

vention of the crimes of infanticide

and abandonment. Mr. Brooks

paid a high tribute to the useful-

ness of foundling asylums in the

course of the debate in the Consti-

tutional Convention from which we

have already quoted. A beginning
had then been made towards the

establishment of such an asylum in

connection with the (Protestant)

Nursery and Child’s Hospital; but

the reception of foundlings has al-

ways been a small and subordinate

part of the operations of that insti-

tution, while the sisters’ asylum

attained from the first the most

extensive proportions. Begun in

East Twelfth Street, “almost im-

mediately its many cribs were filled

by babies of well-nigh every race,

and presenting different conditions

of health and suffering—some with
marks of violence upon their little

bodies, others evidently under the

influence of drugs to such an ex-

tent that but the merest semblance

of life remained in them, and others

bearing with them contagion of va-

rious kinds.” Before the Sisters of

Ciiarity undertook this work the

foundlings of New York were con-

signed to the care of the pauper

women in the Blackwell’s Island

Almshouse, most of whom were

old, infirm, filthy in their habits, and

broken down by a long life of hard-

ships or vice. A visiting physician
appointed to that institution was

shocked at learning from these wo-

men that “ only one foundling had

lived in many months.” The sis-

ters had great difflculties to con-

tend with, and at one time their

funds were reduced to fifty-two

cents
;
but the Legislature came to

their aid by granting them the

same allowances made to Protes-

tant institutions of the same class
;

a society of ladies was formed to

raise money for them by subscrip-

tion, and the city gave them land

for the present asylum on Sixty-

eighth Street, which was opened in

1863. The buildings as they now

stand cost over $300,000
;
others

are to be put up whenever the sis-

ters obtain the necessary funds.

The society of ladies already men-

tioned devotes itself especially to

collections for this object. The

asylum not only takes care of

abandoned children, but it em-

braces a refuge and reformatory

for unfortunate mothers, receiving

from 250 to 300 wretched women

every year. Besides the infants in

the asylum proper, there are many

others whom the sisters are obliged

to place out at nurse for want of

room
;
in the supervision of the

nurses the sisters are aided by the

visitors of the Society of St. Vin-

cent de Paul. The number of

foundlings in the institution at the

date of the last report was 1,783.

By the act of 1872 the supervi-

sors of the city and county of New

York are required to pay to the

managers of the Foundling Asy-



28 -Private Charities and Public Money,

lum, for each infant maintained by

them, the same sum granted by the

act of 1865 to the (Protestant) In-

fants' Asylum for the same service.

This sum is not to exceed the ave-

rage cost of the maintenance of

children of like ages in the muni-

cipal Nursery and Infants’ Hospital

under the charge of the Commis-

sioners of Charities and Correction.

The grants to the Catholic and

the Protestant institution are made

in identical terms and with the

same conditions, the payments in

both cases being strictly propor-

tioned to the number of inmates,

and made to correspond with the

lowest cost of keeping children in

the public institutions. Under the

law the Foundling Asylum received

$242,776 54 in 1877, and its gross

receipts from city and State since

the beginning have been ‘$1,252,-

713 7I’

6. St. Vincent's Home for Boys.,

in Warren Street, was founded in

1870, and somewhat resembles in

its general plan the Newsboys’

Lodging-Houses conducted by our

Protestant friends. It gives food

and shelter, besides a careful mo-

ral training, to homeless lads, and

extends charity to a great num-

ber of out-door applicants besides.

There are about 220 inmates.

Those who are able pay five cents

for a meal and a night’s lodging;

the destitute are received free.

The annual expenses are about

$10,000; the institution received

$1,600 from the city in 1877. Gross

receipts of public money from the

beginning, $5,375.

7. St. Vince7it de Paul's Indus-

trial School for girls, in West For-

ty-second Street, was founded in

1856. It is under the direction of

the Sisters of Charity, and compri-

ses not only a school where girls

over twelve years of age are taught

trades, etc., but also a home for

the destitute. It has about 160

inmates, and in 1877 received $1,-

200 from the city. Gross receipts

of public money from the begin-

ning (twenty-two years), $8,860, or

about five cents a week for each

girl in the Home.

8. Asylum and Schools of the Sis-

ters of St. Dominic.—The Sisters
of St. . Dominic have parochial

schools attached to three of the

Germaii churches, and maintain

besides, in Second Street, an asy-

lum with about seventy-five in-

mates, and an Industrial School

where three hundred and twenty-

five children are clothed, fed, and

taught trades. They moreover

feed about fifty poor persons daily.

They received in 1877 from the

excise funds $5,787 28, and no

other public money. The grants

to these sisters previous to 1872

were made in such form that the

per-capita allowances from the edu-

cation fund, on account of their

various free day-schools, are not

distinguishable from the grants to

the asylum and Industrial School.

Gross receipts of public money for

all purposes since the foundation

(i860), $64,751 94. Ofthisamount

$17,030 37 came from the school

fund.

9. St. Joseph's Industrial Home.,

on Madison Avenue and Eighty-

first Street, is the only Catholic

institution except the Orphan Asy-

lum and the Foundling Asylum

which obtained its land from the

city. It was founded in 1869 forthe

protection of destitute young girls

(the daughters of deceased or dis-

abled soldiers having a preference),

and for the reception of homeless

little children committed to it by

the police courts. It is under the

charge of tlie Sisters of Mercy.

The number of inmates in October,



Private Charities and Public Money. 29

1878, was 596. During the previ-

ous year nearly 1,000 destitute

children were sent to the asylum

by the magistrates, not for petty

crimes but because they had no

home. These committed children,

including some transferred from

Randall’s Island, were paid for out

of the excise fund, the amount for

the year being $39,052 43; other

allowances from the public trea-

sury, $9,946 51. The State made

three appropriations towards the

cost of the building, viz.
:
$30,000

in 1867, $25,000 in 1868 on condi-

tion that an equal amount should

be raised by private contributions,

and $50,000 in 1869 with the same

proviso. Gross receipts of public

money from the beginning includ-

ing these three donations, $161,-

502 81.

II. REFORMATORIES.

10. The Catholic Protectory .—T h is
is the third of the “ great charities,”

and the most extensive of any class,

Catholic or non- Catholic, within the

limits of this review. It was found-

ed in 1863 for the purpose of re-

forming juvenile delinquents and

educating vagrant children, the

statutes conferring upon it the

same powers and responsibilities

that belong by law to the House

of Refuge, Juvenile Asylum, and

Female Guardian Society. We
have already seen that Catholic

charity has contributed over a mil-

lion of dollars to the cost of this

institution, and that the voluntary

offerings of benevolent persons pay

annually a large proportion of its

running expenses. The following

courteous letter was addressed to

the rector of the Protectory by

the superintendent of the Five

Points House of Industry;

Five Points House of Industry,

May 28, 1878.
Dear Sir: I desire again in this for-

mal manner to tender my sincere thanks

for your courtesy shown to Mr. Camp

and myself on our visit to your institu-

tion yesterday. The visit, as we said,

was one wholly for information which

might be useful to us in our work. I

was both surprised and delighted with

what I saw, and you are certainly doing

a most excellent work in an admirable

manner. You have the right ideas

in regard to fitting these children for

usefulness, and are fortunate in being

able to put them in such a practical

shape. I think no candid person can

take in such a knowledge of your gene-

ral work as we did without commending

it. I shall always be glad to say a word

of commendation whenever an opportu-

nity offers for the thoroughly good work

you are doing for the poor Catholic

children.

Sincerely yours,

William F. Barnard.

To Rev. Brother Adrian,

New York Protectory.

The number of inmates at the

date of the last report was 2,034

The allowance from the public

treasury for the support of the

children is $110 each per annum,

that to the House of Refuge being

the same, while the Juvenile Asy-

lum received last year $122 50.

The Protectory obtained thus from

the city in the year 1877-8, $227,-

853 93, and from the Commission-

ers of Charities and Correction $8,-

125 98, besides a special donation

of $50,000 from the Legislature.

Gross receipts of public money

from the beginning, including do-

nations to the building fund (tliere

have been no grants of land), $2,-

030,454 47 -

II. The House of the Good Shep-

herd, at the foot of Eighty-ninth

Street, East River, was founded in

1857, by the religious order whose

name it bears, for the relief and

reformation of fallen women. In

1878 it had 464 inmates’, including

penitent women, and young girls

and children entrusted to the in-

stitution as a measure of precau-



30 • Private Charities and Public Money,

tion, these classes being kept sepa-

rate. Its annual expenditures are

about $80,000. In 1877 it received

from the city $8,946 47, and its

gross receipts of public money from

the commencement have been

$406,552 60.

12. The AssoL lation for Befriend-
ing Children ana Young Girls is a

society of benevolent ladies who

sustain the House of the Holy

Family, in Second Avenue, for the

shelter and reformation of unfor-

tunate children who are either vi-

cious or exposed to bad influences

It was founded in 1869 ; expends

about $12,000 a year, mostly ob-

tained by voluntary offerings
;
sup-

ports and educates about 100 girls;

and received from the public trea-

sury in 1877 $1,750. Gross re-

ceipts of public money from the

beginning, $16,450.

III. ASYLUMS FOR ADULTS.

13. The Institution of Mercy

^

in

Houston Streetj under the charge

of the Sisters of Mercy, was found-

ed in 1846. It comprises a House

of Protection for poor women out

of employment, and an asylum and

school for young girls, and the

sisters are also extensively engaged

in the visitation of the sick and the

distribution of general out-door

relief. It has about 250 inmates,

and expends nearly $20,000 a year.

In 1878 it received $1,000 of the

public money, and its gross receipts

from the city and State from the

beginning (thirty-one years), for all

branches of its work, have been $66,-

625 46.

14. St. Joseph's Home for the

Aged is an asylum for poor women,

conducted by the Sisters of Char-

ity, in West Fifteenth Street. It

was founded in 1868 and has 230

inmates, the destitute being receiv-

ed free. Its annual expenses are

about $30,000. It received $6,930

from the excise funds in 1877, and

its gross receipts of public money

from the beginning have been $27,-

305-

15. The Home for the Aged of
the Little Sisters of the Poor., in

East Seventieth Street, is an asy-

lum of a similar character, founded

in 1870. It is entirely free, and

receives only those who are over

sixty years of age and quite desti-

tute. It has 158 inmates, for

whose support the sisters in person

go begging from door to door
;

its

annual expenditures are about $13,-

000 a year
;

it received $3,040 from

the excise funds in 1877 ; and its

gross receipts of public money

from the beginning have been $14,-

671 02.

IV. HOSPITALS.

16. St. Vincent's Hospital^ in

Eleventh Street, was founded by

the Sisters of Charity in 1849, and

was the first institution of the kind

in this city depending on voluntary

contributions. The money for its

first outlay was advanced by the

late Vicar-General Starrs. In i860

it raised a fund of $45,000 by means

of a fair, and this enabled it to

purchase land and put up apart of

Its present buildings. It receives

persons of any creed, and allows

ministers of all denominations free

access to patients who wish to see

them. Inmates wlio are not Cath-

olics are not expected to attend

the religious services. There were

about eighty patients at the last re-

port. Those who have means pay

something for board and attend-

ance
;

the indigent are received

free. The annual expenditures are

about $40,000. The hospital re-

ceived $4,500 from the city in 1877.

Gross receipts of public money

from the beginning, $69,166 59.



Private Charities ajid Public Money. 3

17. St. Francis' Hospitah in Fifth

Street, is a free German institution

under the care of the Sisters of the

Poor of St. Francis, who add to

their duties in the hospital an ex-

tensive work of out-door relief. It

was founded in 1865; had 173 pa-

tients at the last report; received

{^4,243 50 from the city in 1877,

and has had of public money from

tlie beginning $92,033 73.

18. St. ElizabetJis Hospital., in

West Thirty-first Street, was found-

ed in 1870 under the Sisters of the

Third Order of St. Francis, has

room for about fifty patients, spends

$6,000 a year, and obtained $1,000

from the city in 1877. Gross re-

ceipts of public money from the

beginning, $4,700-

V. SPECIAL INSTITUTIONS.

1 9 . St. Joseph 's Institu tefor Dea

f

Mutes, at Fordham, is an establish-

ment under lay management, found-

ed in 1869. It lias received alto-

gether $10,554 03 from the public

funds.

VI. GENERAL RELIEF.

20. Hie Society of St. Vincent de

Paul, an association of laymen or-

ganized in nearly all tlie parishes

for the visitation and relief of the

poor, distributes $50,000 or $60,000

a year. It has been in operation

here since 1856, and has received

$43,172 50 from the public funds.

These are the only gifts and al-

lowances to Catholic charities of

which we find record.

PROTESTANT AND JEWISH CHAR-
ITIES.

I. ASYLUMS FOR CHILDREN.

I. The New York Oiphan Asy-
lum, on Eleventh Avenue near

Seventy-third Street, was founded

in 1806. It has been liberally en-

dowed by the benefactions of pri-

vate individuals, and has prosper-

ed by the increase in the value of

real estate. It is strictly Protes-

tant, and orphans are only inden-

tured to persons who are “ regular

attendants of a Protestant place

of worship and recommended by

their pastor." Its expenditures are

about $40,000 a year. It has ac-

commodation for 225 children. In

1877 it received $1,933 91 from

the city. Gross receipts of public

money since 1847, $52,204 51.

2. The Leake and Watts Orphan

House, at Blooraingdale, was found-

ed in 1831 under the will of Mr.

John G. Leake, and derives an

ample income from its endowment.

It is free to destitute full orphans,

of whom it has about 150. Ac-

cording to the language of the act

of incorporation, the children are

to be admitted without regard to

“the country or religious persua-

sion of their deceased parents.”

They attend the Protestant Epis-

copal Church service, however

;

the religious instruction is of course

Protestant; and the rector of Trin-

ity Church has been president of

the institution from its foundation.

It received from the city in 1877

$1,442 24. Gross receipts of pub-

lic money since 1847, $22,975 49.

3. The Colored Orphan Asylum,

One Hundred and Forty-third

Street, was founded in 1836. The

city gave it in 1842 twenty lots of

ground on Fifth Avenue, between

Forty-third and Forty-fourth Streets,

and with the proceeds of the sale

of this property, after the destruc-

tion of the asylum by a mob in

1863, the present site was purchas-

ed. Religious instruction is fur-

nished by ministers of various

Protestant denominations in turn.

The number of children at the last

report was 307, In 1877 the asy-



3^ Private Charities and Public Money.

lum received $11,287 82 from the

city. Receipts of public money

since 1847, $176,157 24, not in-

cluding arhounts paid by the Com-

missioners of Charities and Correc-

tion during the seven years ending

with 1873. (See note on a preced-

ing page.)

4. The Hebrew Orphan Asylum^

founded in 1859, is one of several

charities under the management of

the Hebrew Benevolent Society.

The land which it occupies on Sev-

enty-seventh Street and Third

Avenue was a gift from the corpora-

tion, and the city also contributed

$30,000 to the building fund. Be-

sides the main building, used for

boys, it has an industrial school

adjoining, and an asylum for girls

in Eighty-sixth Street. The num-

ber of children in the three estab-

lishments in 1878 was 301. The

charity is exclusively for Jews, and

the inmates receive a strictly Jew-

ish education. The funds of the

society are derived in large part

from the annual contributions of

its two thousand patrons and mem-

bers, but it also receives liberal aid

from the city, the payments from

this source in 1877 amounting to

$21,729 66. The expenditures for

the current year have been dis-

tributed by the managers of the

association as follows : Orphan Asy-

lum, $45,000 ; Industrial School,

$3,000; charity and relief, $15,-

000. Gross receipts of public

money (eighteen years), $155,-

147 37 -

• 5. The Protestant Half-Orphan

Asylum, in West Tenth Street,

founded in 1835, is intended ex-

plicitly for the education of desti-

tute children in Protestantism. It

is not wholly free; board must be

paid in advance at the rate of 75

cents a week. At the last report

the asylum had 200 children. It

received from the city in 1878

$2,157 86. Gross receipts of pub-

lic money since 1847, $62,389 94.

6. The Orphans' Hoine and Asy-

lum of the Protestant Episcopal

Church, Forty-ninth Street and Lex-

ington Avenue, founded in 1851,

has 158 inmates. It obtained from

the city in 1861 a twenty years’

lease of the land it occupies, at the

yearly rent of one dollar, and its

gross receipts of public money from

the beginning have been $28,047 61.

In this total are included a pay-

ment of $1,000 in 1865 to the Or-

phans’ Home,” and another of $1,-

395 79 the
“ Orphans’ Home

and Asylum,” by which titles we

suppose this institution to be

meant.

7. The Union Home and School,

on the Boulevard near One Hun-

dred and Fiftieth Street, was found-

ed in 1861 for the education and

support of the destitute children of

soldiers and sailors from this city.

It professes to permit “no secta-

rianism in the institution,” but to

allow the visits of clergymen of all

denominations. The infants are

probably encouraged to judge for

themselves on disputed points of

theology. It is unnecessary to say

that the 'spirit of such an asylum

must be radically anti-Catholic, and

its influence highly favorable to in-

differentism and infidelity. By act

of the Legislature, passed in 1873,

the managers are to receive $150

per annum for every child main-

tained in the Home, this being a

much larger per-capita allowance

than is made, so far as we know,

to any other establishment. The

institution is supported entirely

from the public funds. At the last

report it contained 187 children.

It received from the city in 1877

$26,528 44. Gross receipts from

the city and State since 1861,



Private Charities arid Public Money. 33

$25*2,371 54, not including amounts

paid by Westchester, Kings, and

other counties for children from

those parts of the State.

8. The Society for the Relief of

Destitute Children of Seamen is an

adjunct of the Sailors’ Snug Har-

bor on Staten Island, but under

independent management. It re-

ceived $i,oob from the city in 1877.

Gross receipts of public money

since 1847, $36,655 76.

9. The Childrens Aid Society is

the most extensive of the Protes-

tant organizations for the care of

cliildren, and also one of the. most

bitterly sectarian. It began oper-

ations in 1853, and now has twenty

industrial schools, twelve night-

schools, six lodging-houses, and a

summer home on Long Island. The

daily average attendance at the

schools last year was 3,477. The

most important part of the work of

the society is collecting poor and

vagrant children and sending them

to “ carefully-selected homes ” in

the West. Nearly 50,000 boys and

girls have thus been disposed of.

About 3,500 were shipped last year.

The Catholic World has hereto-

fore shown how this society operates

in destroying the faith of Catholic

children who are taken into its

schools, and removing the littleWest-

ern emigrants from all Catholic influ-

ences. Force is used in this process

of conversion
;
the last annual report

speaks with approval of the effect

of “ the action of the truant agents,

and the existence of the compul-

sory law (though mainly unexecut-

ed) in forcing street children into

our own night-schools, and into

half-sessions of our day industrial

schools.” In the same report the

secretary, Mr. Charles L. Brace,

congratulates the friends of the so-

ciety on the failure of the propos-

ed amendments to the constitution

which threatened the existence of

the industrial schools, and he add-

ed the following sentence, which

well illustrates the spirit of his en-

terprise : “ It was seen tliat the

previous amendments of the con-

stitution sufficiently protected our

public schools from pidestly or sec-

tarian interference." Now, the

amendments to which Mr. Brace

refers were two. The first prohi-

bits grants by the State, the second

prohibits grants by counties, cities,

towns, and villages, to any associa-

tion, corporation, or private under-

taking, except that provision may

be made for juvenile delinquents,

the blind, the deaf and dumb, and

the poor. Under these amend-

ments all allowances to Catholic

free schools have beentr.ut off, but

the school money is paid freely to

Mr. Brace’s schools, on the plea

that they afe for the “support of

the poor.” And when he says that

“priestly interference ” with the

schools has been prevented, he

means that measures have been

adopted to hinder Catholics from

conducting schools of their own.

What more open avowal could be

made of the character of his “ un-

sectarian ” establishments.? Not-

withstanding the constitutional

amendments, the Children’s Aid

Society received from the Board of

Education in 1878 $34,599 28, and

from the city $70,000. Gross re-

ceipts of public money from 1853'

to 1877, $979,499 69.

10.

The American Female Guar-

dian Society., founded in 1835,

institution somewhat similar in its.

character to the Children’s Aid So-

ciety. It has a House of Industry

and Home for the Friendless in^

East Thirtieth Street, where desti- -

tute women and children are re-

ceived
;
it conducts twelve industrial .

schools
;

it finds Protestant homes.



34 Private Charities and Public Money.

for children on the plan of the Chil-

dren’s Aid Society
;
and it does vari-

ous out-door missionary work. “Per-

sons applying for children must be

regular attendants at a Protestant

place of worship and recommend-

ed by their pastor.” In 1878 there

were 118 children in the Home

and 35 adults. The report fori

that year says that “ 1,945 children

have been in regular attendance
”

in the twelve industrial schools,

but the average or the number at

any one time is not given. The

number adopted out during the

year was 15 1. In 1877 the society

received $16,072 23 from the Board

of Education and $25,000 from the

State. Gross receipts of public

money since 1847, $359,542 06.

1 1 . Th^^Five Pomts House of In-

dustry^ in Worth Street, founded in

1850, embraces a home and school

for destitute children "and an asy-

lum for poor women. An impor-

tant part of its work is religious,

services being held twice a day

in the institution. The managers

make no secret of their efforts to

•convert Catholic children to Pro-

testantism. A large proportion of
the boys and girls are of Catholic

parentage, but none are ever placed

in Catholic homes. In 1878 the

whole number of inmates was 286

and the average attendance at the

school 354. The institution re-

ceived from the city in 1877 $6,-

5876 14. Gross receipts of public

money from the beginning, $124,-

.472 14.

12. The Five Points Mission^ in

Park Street, founded in 1850, is an

enterprise of the Ladies’ Home

Missionary Society of the Metho-

dist Episcopal Church, and is en-

tirely under the influence and con-

trol of the Methodist denomina-

tion. It maintains missionaries at

the Five Points, keeps up religious

services, finds situations for adults

and children, gives away food and

clothing, and has a school with an

average attendance of 430. In

nearly all associations of this class

the distribution of material relief is

only auxiliary to the spiritual work.

In 1877 the mission obtained $2,100

from the city. Gross receipts of

public money from tlie beginning,

$45,059 36. (See also Ladies’ Home
Missionary Society, No. 84.)

13. The Howard Mission and

Home for Little Wanderers^ in the

New Bowery, was founded in i86x
professedly for the purpose of giv-

ing shelter and material aid and
“ imparting intellectual, moral, and

religious instruction ” to children

and others. It also provides homes

for children, and in no case places

them with Catholic families. The

perversion of Catholic children to

Protestantism is one of its chief

objects. It obtained $2,265 25

from the city in 1877, and its gross

receipts of public money from the

beginning have been $22,490 50.

14. The Wilson Industrial School

andMission^ in St. Mark’s Place, was

organized in 1853, and comprises a

school and night-refuge for poor

girls, and a “ mission church ” with

its pastor and Bible-reader, Sun-

day-school, prayer-meetings, etc.,

its operations being largely of a

religious character. The average

number of girls in the school last

year was 184. Gross receipts of

public money from the beginning,

$4,839 II-

15. The Shepherd's Foldy in East

Sixteenth Street, and(i6) The Chil-

dreiis Fold) Boulevard and Ninety-

fourth Street, are Protestant Episco-

pal institutions which have had a

curious history. In 1869 the superin-

tendent of the Shepherd’s Fold was

the Rev. Edward Cowley. The

trustees having dispensed with his



Private Charities and Public Money. 35

services, he organized, with the aid

of seceders from the original insti-

tution, an opposition house, which

he called the Children’s Fold, both

asylums having the same object

—

namely, the care and education of

destitute and orphan children. In

1874 a mortgage on the real estate

of the Shepherd’s Fold was fore-

closed, the children were trans-

ferred to other institutions, and

the charity was abandoned. In

1877^ the trustees of the Children’s

Fold in their, turn resolved to get

rid of Mr. Cowley. He was accus-

ed of cruelty and mismanagement.

The State Board of Charities took

the matter up
;

there was an in-

vestigation and a public scandal
;

both parties went to law to secure

possession of the asylum, and mean-

while the managers of the Shelter-

ing Arms were requested to take

care of the children. By a law of

1874 the city was required to pay

$2 a week for every child maintain-

ed by the Children’s Fold. But by

a law of 1871 the Shepherd’s Fold

was entitled to draw from the pub-

lic treasury $5,000 a year, even if it

supported no children at all. Mr.

Cowley and his friends, ejected

from the Children’s Fold, now re-

vived this profitable institution

(March, 1877), and suits and coun-

ter suits followed to test the legality

of their action. At their annual

meeting held last March Mr. Cow-

ley stated that they had received

fifty children in two years, and ex-

pended $7,000, and he claims $5,000

from the city on account of the

operations of 1878. This amount

has not so far been paid
;
but while

the two Folds were at open warfare

they both drew from the public

treasury at the same time. The

original Shepherd’s Fold from 1869

to 1873 obtained $21,280, and the

Children’s Fold from 1869 to 1877

received $34,175 06.

17. The Sheltermg Arms., One

Hundred and Twenty-ninth Street

and Tenth Avenue, is a Protestant

Episcopal institution, founded in

1864 for the relief and education of

poor children, not orphans, who

are not provided for by other insti-

tutions. It is conducted by the

Protestant sisterhood of St. Mary.

It has about 135 children, and re-

ceived from the city in 1877 $2,520.

Gross receipts of public money

from the beginning, $21,972 95.

18. St. Barnabas House, in Mul-

berry Street, is a Protestant Epis-

copal institution, founded in 1865,

and comprising a temporary home

for women and children, a perma-

nent home for sixteen poor chil-

dren, and a day nursery. It is un-

der the management of a Protes-

tant sisterhood. All the inmates

are obliged to attend the Protes-

tant Episcopal service every day.

Gross receipts of public money

from the beginning, $9,355 21.

19. The JVursefy a 7id Child's

Hospital, Lexington Avenue and

Fifty-first Street, founded in 1854,

is the largest of the Protestant

charities for children, next to the

Children’s Aid Society. It em-

braces a Lying-in Asylum and a

home for children
;
payment being

expected for both classes of in-

mates, unless they are quite desti-

tute. At the last report there

were 586 children and 262 women

in the institution, including the

country branch on Staten Island.

During the year ending March i,

1878, the institution received $108,-

007 10. Gross receipts of public

money from the beginning, $668,-

334 10. The land which the nur-

sery occupies was a grant from

the city.



36 Private Charities and Public Money.

20. The New York Infant Asy-
lum, Sixty-first Street and Tenth

Avenue, founded in 1865, is an in-

stitution somewhat like the pre-

ceding. It comprises a home for

foundlings and other destitute chil-

dren, and a lying-in hospital. A
law of 1865 requires the city to pay

for every child maintained by the

asylum a sum not greater than the

average cost of each child in the

municipal asylums. This is the

same provision afterwards extend-

ed to the Foundling Asylum of the

Sisters of Charity. The number of

children and women is about 400.

Receipts from the city in 1877,

$44,165 43. Gross receipts of pub-

lic money from the beginning,

$160,208 86, nearly all of which

was paid during the past five years.

21. The Juvenile Guardian Society,

in St. Mark’s Place, a sort of mis-

sion and industrial school, was the

subject of an investigation under-

taken by the State Board of Chari-

ties in 1877, resulting in a most

damaging report and an applica-

tion to the courts for a forfeiture

of its charter, on account of misuse

of funds and general worthlessness.

From 1866 to 1873 it received $59,-

435 18 of the public money.

2 2 . The BoweryJuvenile Guardian

Society is debited with one grant of

$264 89.

23. The Wayside Industrial

Home, incorporated in 1869 for

the care, support, and proper train-

ing and education of destitute chil-

dren,” received $13,998 of the pub-

lic money during the four years

ending with 1872.

24. The Children's Educational

Relief Association, in East Broad-

way, was organized “to co-operate

with the Board of Public Instruc-

tion in advancing the cause of edu-

cation on a broad and unsectarian

basis,” and its particular business

is to aid truant officers and others

in getting poor children into the

irreligious common schools. It re-

ceived $1,164 from the city in

1876.

25. The Ladies' Educational Union,

which appears to be no longer in

existence, had received of the pub-

lic money, from 1865 to 1871, $41,-

873 98-

26. The Industrial School of the

Protestant Reformed Dutch Church

received $5,000 from the city in

1868.

27. The Fourth Ward Society for
the Relief of Poor Children is de-

bited with a gift of $980.

II. REFORMATORIES.

28. The House of Refuge, under

the management of the Society for

the Reformation of Juvenile Delin-

quents, is the chief Protestant re-

formatory, corresponding to the

Catholic Protectory and the West-

ern House of Refuge at Rochester.

Juvenile delinquents under sixteen

years of age are received on com-

mitment by a magistrate. There

has been an understanding, and

for a short time there was a law,

that the children of Catholic pa-

rents should be sent to the Protec-

tory, but this is not faithfully ob-

served
;

for example, out of 625

committed to the House of Refuge

in 1878 no fewer than 317 were of

Irish parentage, and it is probable

that lialf the inmates of the asylum

are of Catholic birth. The reli-

gious instruction and worship, how-

ever, are exclusively Protestant.

Priests are not allowed to visit the

Catholic children, unless they are

specially asked for in case of sick-

ness. A formal application, made
by the Catholic Union in 1875, for

the admission of a priest to act as

chaplain to the Catholic children

and to say Mass for them, etc., was



37Private Charities a7id Public Money,

refused. A majority of the inmates
are not criminals, but idle and

neglected children. Of the com-

mitments in 1878, only 49 per cent,

were for crimes of all sorts, great

and small, and the rest were for

vagrancy, truancy, and disorderly

conduct. The number of children

in the institution January i, 1879,

was 903. The House of Refuge

was built almost wholly at the pub-

lic expense, and all its expenses are

paid from the public treasury. It

received from the city the land

which it now occupies on Randall’s

Island, and lands which it formerly

occupied on Madison Square and

on Twenty-third Street. Its reve-

nues, apart from proceeds of the

labor of the inmates, are derived

from the State comptroller, the Board

of Education, and the license tax

on theatres, and amount in the ag-

gregate to $110 per annum for each

child, or the same sum allowed to

the Catholic Protectory. It re-

ceives nothing from private chari-

ty. It obtained last year $68,500

from the State, $11,843 4^ from

the Board of Education, and $22,-

457 56 from theatre licenses ; total,

$102,801 04. Gross receipts of

public money since 1847, $1,552,-

196 58.

29.

The Juvenile Asylum, found-

ed in 1.853, takes charge of children

committed by police magistrates

for vagrancy and petty offences,

and children of bad habits placed

in the asylum by their parents or

friends. Those who have no homes

it sends to the West. It is of course

strictly Protestant, although a large

^
proportion of its wards are of Ca-

tholic parentage. The institution

comprises the asylum proper near

High Bridge, a House of Recep-

tion in Thirteenth Street, and a

Western Agency at Bloomington,

Illinois. In January, 1879, there

were 781 children in the Asylum

and House of Reception, and dur-

ing the previous year 141 had been

sent to Illinois. The receipts from

the city and Board of Education in

1878 were $95,146 92; daily aver-

age number of inmates, 775 ; per-

capita allowance, $122 50. Gross

receipts of public money from the

beginning to 1877 (twenty-five

years), $1,442,392 87.

30. The {^Protesta?it) House of

Mercy^ at Bloomingdale, founded in

1854, is a Protestant Episcopal re-

formatory for fallen women and

wayward girls. It is under the

management of the Protestant sis-

terhood of St. Mary, and its reli-

gious instruction and services are

those of the denomination under

whose auspices it is conducted. In

1877 it had 70 inmates. The city

and State have made several lib-

eral grants in its aid—$15,000 in
1863, $25,000 in 1867, $10,000 in

1872. It received $2,253 93 from

the city in 1877. Gross receipts of

public money (twenty-four years),

$91,893 10.

31. The New York Magdale?t Be-

nevolent Society, founded in 1851,

has an asylum for fallen women

in Eiglity-eighth Street, and does

some out- door missionary work, em-

ploying “a competent and respec-

table agent, who shall be an autho-

rized minister of some Evangelical

church.” The number of inmates

of the asylum in May, 1878, was 57.

Allowances from the city during

the previous year, $2,620. Gross

receipts of public money (twenty-

seven years), $42,406 17.

32. The Home for Fallen ami

Friendless Girls, in Fourth Street,

had 26 inmates in 1877, and re-

ceived that year $2,977 49 from the

city. Gross receipts from the city

and State between 1870 and 1877,

$15,446 83.



38 Private Charities and Public Money.

33. The Midnight Missiofi, in

Greene Street, a Protestant Epis-

copal charity, offers a temporary

shelter to fallen women, and sends

them to homes, friends, or public

institutions. If received from the

city in 1874, 1876, and 1877 a total

of $2,404 60.

34. The Women's Prison Associa-

tion conducts the “ Isaac T. Hop-

per Home,” in Seco^id Avenue, for

the help and reformation of dis-

charged female prisoners. Gross

receipts of public money (1859 to'

1877), $11,121.

35. The Home for Discharged

Prisoners (possibly the same as the

institution mentioned above) re-

ceived from the city $500 in 1847

and $1,000 in 1854.

36. The Gilbert Library and Aid

Fund for prisoners received $1,000

from the city in 1877.

37. The Natio7tal Temperance

Society obtained $2,000 from the

State in 1871 for the establishment

of an Industrial Temperance Home

in this city.

38. The Inebriate Reform Socie-

ty received allowances from the

city in 1860-1—2
;

total, $1,250.

III. ASYLUMS FOR ADULTS.

39. The Colored Home^ in East

Sixty-fifth Street, founded in 1839,

embraces an almshouse and a hos-

pital. In the former department

it had Hst year 59 inmates and in

the latter 127. The prevailing re-

ligious influence is that of the Me-

thodist denomination. The city

makes it an allowance of $91 25

per annum for each person sup-

ported, and the society has little

other income. It received from

the city in 1877 $21,729 66. The

gross receipts of public money

since 1847, not including seven

years’ per-capita payments by the

Commissioners of Charities and

Correction (see note on a preced-

ing page), have been $121,342 20.

40. The Ladies' Union Aid So-

ciety of the Methodist Episcopal

Church has a home in Forty-sec-

ond Street for aged and infirm

members of that denomination.

Applicants for admission must have

been members of the Methodist

Episcopal Church in good stand-

ing for ten years, and nominated

by the congregation to which they

belong. The annual report for

1878 does not mention the number

of inmates; but the Hand-Book

of the Board of United Charities

for 1877 gives the average num-

ber as 95. The society received

$2,375 from the city in 1877.

Gross receipts of public money

since its foundation in 1850, $38,-

032 28.

41. The Chapin Home^ in East

Sixty-sixth Street, is an asylum

founded in 1869 for aged and in-

firm Universalists, only members

of. the Universalist Church being

eligible as trustees. An admission

fee of $300 is required. Num-

ber of inmates in 1878, 44. The

city gave a perpetual lease of the

ground which the institution occu-

pies (fourteen lots), and both city

and State have made liberal dona-

tions in money. Gross receipts

from the public funds (nine years),

$38,036 16.

42. St. Luke's Home for Lndi-

gent Christian Females., Madison

Avenue and Eighty-ninth Street,

founded in 1852, is a Protestant

Episcopal institution, and is only

open to communicants of that de-

nomination. An entrance fee of

$200 is required. Number of in-

mates in 1877, 62. Allowance

from the city that year, $1,260.

Gross receipts of public money

since the foundation, $21,820.

43. The Home for Old Me7i and



Private Charities and Public Money. 39

Aged Couples^ in Hudson Street, is

a Protestant Episcopal institution

founded in 1872, and only open to

members of the Episcopal Church.

An admission fee of $250 is requir-

ed. The average number of in-

mates is about 20. Gross receipts

of public money, $2,040.

44. The Sama 7'itan Ho7tie foi‘ the

Agedf in West Twenty- second Street,

was founded in 1866 as an asylum

for indigent women. One of its

circulars announces that it is to be

“ absolutely free from all sectarian

bias, and open in its direction and

its objects to persons of all Protes-

tant denominations,” and that its

Board of Managers “ shall repre-

sent indiscriminately our common

Protestant Christianity in all its

forms.” An admission fee of $250

is required. Number of inmates,

about 40. Gross receipts of pub-

lic money, $7,350.

45. The Associatio7i for the Re-

lief of Respectable Aged Indigent

Females, founded in 1814, has a

home in East Twentieth Street.

Admission fee, $80. The mana-

gers are required by the rules to

see that “ the asylum is duly sup--

plied with the preaching of the

Gospel, and any mirtister properly

authorized as a preacher of the

Gospel by any Evangelical deno-

mination of Christians shall be

cordially received. . . . No inmate

in the asylum to be permitted to

introduce any preacher of the Gos-

pel, or to invite their friends to give

religious instruction, without the

consent of the cliurch committee.”

Gross receipts of public money

since 1847, $10,647 36.

46. The Home for Aged and

Infirm Hebrews, Eiglity-seventh

Street and Avenue A, founded in

1848, has about seventy inmates.

Gross receipts of public money,

$4,403*

47. The NighlRefuge Associa-

tion, Avenue D and Tentli Street,
opened in 1877 a temporary shel-

ter where it can furnish lodging to

400 men and 100 women. It re-

ceived $10,000 from the city in

1876 and $5,000 in 1877.

48. The Ladies' Christian Union

maintains a Young Women’s Home

in Washington Square, where work-

ing-girls and others can obtain

cheap board and improving soci-

ety. Religious influences are set

forth among the cliief advanta-

ges of the institution
;

there are

morning and evening devotions,

Bible-classes, etc. The society re-

ceived $3,000 from the city in 1870

and $3,000 in 1871.

49. The Young IVo^nan’s Aid As-

sociation, in Bond Street, a board-

ing-house for the same class of per-

sons, obtained $1,895 from the

city in 1876-7.

50. The Feinale Christian Home,

in East Fifteenth Street, is an es-

tablishment where from thirty to

forty working-women obtain board

at rather low rates. It received

$1,700 from the city during the

years 1876-7.

51. The Peabody Home for aged

and indigent women. Thirty-third

Street and Lexington Avenue, with

accommodations for fifteen per-

sons, received $375 from tlie city

in 1876 and tlie same amount in

1877.

52. The Mariners' Family Asy-

lum and Industrial Society, on Sta-

ten Island, is an institution found-

ed for the support, shelter, and re-

ligious (Protestant) instruction of

the female relatives of seamen,

missionary work entering largely

into its plan of operations. It ob-

tained $16,000 Irom the Legisla-

ture at the start (1848-9), and its

gross receipts of public money have

been $27,966 13.



40 Private Charities and Public Money.

IV. HOSPITALS,

The religious influence at the

non-Catholic hospitals varies ac-

cording to the rules of each insti-

tution. In some the visits of priests

and sisters, if not forbidden, are

obstructed and discountenanced.

In others the management is indif-

ferent to all religion.

53. The New York Hospital^ in
Fifteentli Street, with a limited

number of charity patients, and the

Insane Asylum at Bloom in gdale, at

which the amount received for
%

board of inmates nearly, or perhaps

quite, meets the current expendi-

tures, are under the management

of the same corporation. The hos-

pital cases are chiefly surgical. The

society has received from the city

and State since 1847, $331,750.

54. The Society for the Relief of

the Ruptured and Crippled^ founded

in 1863, has an institution on For-

ty-second Street and Lexington

Avenue, where a small number of

patients are treated, but its principal

work is among the out-door poor.

It received $27,607 10 from the

city in 1877. Gross receipts of

public money (eighteen years),

$199,087 06.

55. The Woman's Hospital^ in

Forty-ninth Street, was founded

in 1858 for the treatment of dis-

eases peculiar to women. In No-

vember, 1878, it had 98 patients.

There are 24 free beds. Protes-

tant service is held in the hospital

every Sunday, and religious visits

are paid by a regular missionary,

and by three clergymen in turn,

one Methodist, one Presbyterian,

and one Episcopalian. Patients,

however, are allowed to see any

clergyman they desire “in extreme

cases.” The city gave the land

for the institution (a whole block

between Fourth and Lexington

Avenues), and the city and State

have paid to the hospital (twenty

years) $147,325 04.

56. The Lying-in Asylum for des-

titute married women, in Marion

Street, founded in 1823, has accom-

modations for twenty patients, but

the ladies connected with it extend

their aid to the out-door poor also.

It has received of the public money

since 1847 $23,437 49.

57. The New York Infirmary for
Women and Children, in Livingston

Place, founded in 1853, has accom-

modations for thirty-four inmates,

and attends also to dispensary and

out-door patients. Gross receipts

of public money from the begin-

$54,526 27.

58. The Women s Infirmary, for-

merly at Washington Heights, a

small homoeopathic institution, re-

ceived $3,500 from the State in

1866, and $5,500 from the city in

1865-6
;
total, $9,000.

59. The Medical College and Hos-

pital for Women, Thirty-seventh

Street and Lexington Avenue, has

received $61,894 47.

60. The Hahnemann Hospital,

Sixty-seventh Street and Fourth

Avenue, obtained from the city a

perpetual lease of the ten lots of

land it occupies, and has received

of the public money since its foun-

dation in 1871 $39,000.

61. The Bond Street Homoeopathic

Hospital received $9,615 30.

62. The Homoeopathic Surgical

Hospital received $1,500.

63. St, Luke's Hospital, Fifty-

fourth Street, is a Protestant Epis-

copal institution, served by the Sis-

ters of St. Mary. Patients are re-

ceived without regard to religious

belief, but St. Luke’s Hospital, like

most of the other charities of the

Episcopal Church, honestly avows

the denominational character of its

management—an example of frank-



Private Charities and Public Money. 41

ness and common sense which many

professedly “ imsectarian ” estab-

lishments might profitably imitate.

The last annual report says : “ Cor-

pus sanare., animam salvare— ‘ to cure
the body, to save the soul

’—crystal-
lizes in words the founder’s thouglit.

The very building embodies his

idea. Its chapel stands, not in a

remote corner, but as the centre

from which the wards radiate.”

The superintendent is always a

clergyman of the Episcopal Church.

The average number of patients in

1878 was 139. We have already
told the circumstances under which

the hospital obtained its land. It

received $7,602 from the city in

1877, and its gross receipts of pub-

lic money from the beginning have

been $30,020 73.

64. The Aloiint Sinai Hospital^ a

Jewish institution, on Lexington

Avenue and Sixty-sixth Street,

founded in 1852, received a per-

petual lease of its land from the

city at a nominal rent. Tlie num-

ber of patients in November (1877)

was 109. The institution received

$4,248 from the city in 1877.

Gross receipts of public money

from the beginning, $46,229 60.

65. The Ger7nan Hospital., found-

ed in 1861, obtained from the city

a fifty years’ lease, at a dollar a

year, of the greater part of the block

which it occupies on Lexington

and Fourth Avenues, Seventy-sixth

and Seventy-seventh Streets. It

has accommodation for about fifty

free patients, and maintains also a

dispensary in St. Mark’s Place.

It obtained $2,567 85 from the city

in 1877. Gross receipts of public

money from the beginning, not in-

cluding allowances to the dispen-

sary before the two institutions

were consolidated, $16,890 37.

66. St. Mary's Hospitalfor Chil-

dren^ a Protestant Episcopal char-

ity in West Thirty-fourth Street,

under the Sisters of St. Mary,

founded in 1870, and having twen-

ty-six inmates in November, 1878,

received $1,500 from the citv in

1866-7.
•

67. The Home for Incurables,

Fordham, founded in 1866, is a

Protestant Episcopal charity, in

which, as usual with this denomina-

tion, the ministrations of the Episco-

pal Church have an important part.

One-third of the beds are free.

Number of inmates in 1877, 58.

Gross receipts of public money,

to,446 45 -

68. The House of Rest for Con-

sumptives., at Tremont, founded in

1869, is likewise a Protestant E{)is-

copal institution. Number of in-

mates in 1877, 20. Gross receipts

of public money, $5,317 56.

Donations and allowances liave

been made to a number of hos-

pitals for the treatment of panic u-

cal forms of disease. AVe presume

that most of them exert no re-

ligious influence
;
but we give tlieir

titles and the gross amount of pub-

lic money they have received up to

and including 1877 :

69. Ophthalmic Hospital, $83,942 06.

70. Eye and Ear l7ifirmary,%cp],^~]^ 15.

71. Ophthalmic and Aural Institute,

$16,315 01.

72. Manhattan Eye and Ear Hospital,

$2,560.

73. Ne7U York State Hospital for Dis-

eases of the Nervous System, $8,oco.

74. Orthopccdic Hospital, $5,000.

75. Cancer Hospital, $1,287 24.

76. Infirmary of the New York College

of Dentistry, $3,500.

77. Metropolitan Throat Hospital, $1,-

736 60.

78. West Side Throat Infirmary, $i,-

103 80.

V. SPECIAL INSTITUTIONS.

In the education of the deaf and

dumb and the blind it is of course



42 . Private Charities and Public Money.

necessary that religion should have

as prominent a part as in the train-

ing of children who are in posses-

sion of all their faculties. Religion

is an essential element, also, in the

teaching of the insane and idiotic,

a large proportion of those afflict-

ed with mental disorders being

quite capable of receiving instruc-

tion in spiritual things. For all

these classes of unfortunate per-

sons there is only one small Catho-

lic institution. (See No. 19.)

79.

The Institution for the Deaf

and Dumb., Washington Heights, re-

ceives free pupils from all parts of

the State, and takes pay-pupils at

the charge of $300 a year. It is

entitled to draw from the public

treasury §300 a year for each child

committed to it by the State or

county authorities. The city grant-

ed the land which it formerly oc-

cupied on Fiftieth Street and Fifth

Avenue. The course of study, ac-

cording to the last annual report

(1878), does “ not omit that religious

instruction which, while entirely un-

sectarian in its character, is yet ne-

cessary to fit our pupils to embrace

intelligently the various forms of

faith which, however they may differ

in details, unite in enjoining love

and obedience to a common Father,

and in most instances in fostering

reliance upon a common Saviour.”

In November, 1878, the number of

pupils was 485 ; only five were sup-

ported at the cost of their friends.

The institution received during

tlie previous year $90,035 01 from,

the State comptroller, $20,384 70

from the city of New York, $21,-

2 t 6 98 from the other counties of

this State, and $18,343 67 from the

State of New Jersey; total, $149,-

980 36. Gross receipts from the

city and State of New York (not

including the counties) from 1847

to 1877, $2,210,054 96.

80. The Institution for the Im-

proved Instructio7i of Deaf Mutes.,

founded in 1867, obtained from the

city a grant of twelve lots of ground

on Lexington Avenue, Sixty-sev-

enth and Sixty-eighth Streets. It

takes State and county pupils on

the same terms as the preceding

asylum. It lias about 100 inmates.

Gross receipts of money from the

State and city, $139,180 71.

81. The Church Mission to Deaf

Muteshsisa Home for Aged and In-

firm persons of that class in East

Thirteenth Street, with eight in-

mates. It is a Protestant Episco-

pal institution, of which Bishop

Potter is president. Gross receipts

of public money (1860-77), $3,-

340 28.

82. The New York Institutionfor
the Blind., in Ninth Avenue, re-

ceives both State and private pupils,

and at the date of the last report

(1878) the number of inmates was

200. No information is given

about the character of the religious

instruction. During the previous

year the institution received $52,-

643 49 from the State of New York,

$7,283 82 from the State of New

Jersey, $5,078 25 from the city of

New York, and $1,921 50 from

Kings and Queens counties
;
total,

$66,927 06. Gross receipts from

the city and State of New York

(1847-77), $1,052,798 06. Dona-

tions to the amount of $8,250 have

also been made by the city to grad-

uates of this institution.

The insane and idiotic poor sup-

ported by the city are sent either

to the municipal institutions on

Randall’s, Ward’s, and Blackwell’s

Islands, or the State institutions

at Syracuse and Utica. Large

sums have been appropriated to

these asylums, but they do not

come within the scope of this ar-

ticle.



Private Charities and Public Money, 43

VI. GENERAL RELIEF.

831 The Ladies' Union Relief As-

sociation, founded in 1848, has of

late years paid particular attention

to the visitation of soldiers’ fami-

lies. Gross receipts of public

money, $80,807 06.

84. The Ladies' LLome Missionary

Society of the Methodist Episcopal

Church was organized “to sup-,

port one or more missionaries for

this city, who shall be appointed in

accordance with the requirements

of the discipline of the Methodist

Episcopal Church.” After paying

the allowance of the missionaries

“ the surplus funds are reserved for

objects of benevolence,” etc. The

society supports the Five Points

Mission-house, for children and

others. Besides the allowances of

$45,059 36 made to the Mission-

house specifically, the society has

received $42,856 14 ; total, $87,-

915 50. (See Five Points Mission,

No. 12.)

85. The New York Prisofi Asso-
ciation extends its operations over

the whole State. It occupies itself

with the reform of prison discipline

and the support and encourage-

ment of reformed convicts after

their discharge. It has received

from the city since 1847, besides

the allowances from the State,

136,581 p.
86. The United LLehrew Charities

comprise a partnership of most of

the principal Jewish benevolent as-

sociations for co-operation in the

relief of the poor of their own

creed. They have received $24,-

421.

87. The LLehrew Be?ievole7it Fuel

Association received $1,000 from

the city in 1877.

88. The Dowfi-town LLebrew La-

dies' Benevolent Society received

$1,000 90 from the city in 1877.

89. The Youfig Men's Christian

Association received $5,000 from

the city in 1867.

90, 91, 92, 93. Relief for the

Blind. The Blind Mechanics* As-

sociation has received from the

city and State $55,000 ; the Society

for the Relief of the Indigent and

Crippled Blind, $19,600; the So-

ciety for the Relief of the Desti-

tute Blind, $5,475 37; and the city

has made donations to the blind

amounting to $32,581 98. Total,

^112,657 35 <

94. The Association for Lmprov-

ing the Cofidition of the Poor, which

aims at the moral instruction of the

needy as well as their material wel-

fare, has received $19,300. This

organization founded the Chil-

dren’s Aid Society and the Juvenile

Asylum, which are described else-

where.

95. St. John's Guild, an associa-

tion begun in 1866 under Protes-

tant Episcopal auspices for the

general relief of the poor, received

$1,000 from the city in 1874, $21,-

367 in 1876, and $15,000 in 1877 ;
total, $37,367. The Society of St.

Vincent de Paul, wdiich is engaged

in a similar work, and, according to

the last report (1877), distributed

nearly twice as much money to the

poor as St. John’s Guild did, re-

ceived $1,000 in 1874, and has had

nothing since then.

96. The FemaleAssistanee Society,
an association for the relief of the

sick poor, which meets in tlie lec-

ture-room of the Reformed Church

on Fifth Avenue and Twenty-ninth

Street, has received $34,625.

97. The American Seamen's

Friend Society, instituted “ for the

spiritual and temporal welfare of

seamen,” has received $6,007 21.

98. The New York Seamen's So-
ciety received $30,000 from the

State in 1870, and $10,000 in 1872.



44 Private Charities and Public Money,

99. The New York City Mission^
in the Bible House, supports Pro-

testant missionaries among the poor

of the city, and distributes money,

food, and clotliing incidentally to

its religious work. It received

^10,000 from the city in 1876.

100. The German Mission receiv-

ed $5,000 from the city in 1870 and

$5,000 in 1871. There is a Ger-

man Mission House in Pearl Street,

and there is also a German Mis-

sion connected with the Protestant

Episcopal City Mission Society.

10 1. The Dorcas Society^ a Pro-

testant Episcopal association for

the relief of the poor, has received

102. The Protestant Episcopal

Sisterhood of St. Mary received

$8,500 from the city between 1869

and 1874.

103. The German Ladies' Aid So-

ciety devotes itself to the relief of

widows, orphans, and destitute sick

women of the German nationality.

It received $5,000 from the State

in 1871, and $8,334 from the city

in 1876-7
;

total, $13,334.

104. The Ladies Society for the

Support of Widows and Orphans (?)

received $500 from the city in

1874 and $3,272 90 in 1876; total,

$3^72 90 -

In the list of societies which

follow there are several which ap-

parently are concerned only in the

relief of material wants, and there

are several concerning which we

have little information. The fig-

ures represent the gross receipts of

public money up to the close of

1877:

105. Working-xuomeds Proteclivs Union,

I300.

106. Ladies' Protective Union, $200.

107. Women's Educational and Indus-

trial Society, $300.

108. Ladies' Depository, $3,000.

109. Ladies' Mission Society (?), $r,ooo.

no. Society for the Relief of Poor Wi-

dows and Childrett
(?), $500.

111. New York Volunteer Association,
$500.

1 12. Pree Training-School, $500.

1 13. Woman's Aid Society for Trainings

Yeung Girls, $5,250.

114. Diet KitcJieii, for supplying food

to the sick poor at their own homes,

$7,011 60.

1 15. Colored Mission, “for the reli-

gious, moral, and social elevation of the

colored people,” $1,132.

116. Seventy-ninth Street Mission, $600.

1 1 7. The Harlem Missionary Associa-

tion, $650.

118. Guild of St. Ignatius (Protestant

Episcopal), $400.

1 19. Ladies' Association of St. Paul's

Evangelical Lutheran Church, $400.

120. Seventeenth Ward Ragg-ed Mission,

$750.

121. West Side Relief Association, $5,-

550.

122 . Twelfth Ward West Side Rel.ef
Association, $1,000.

123. Twenty-fourth Ward West Side

Relief Association, $500.

124. Rose Hill Ladies' Relief Associa-

tion, $3,000.

125. West Farms Ladies' Employme :t

and Benevolent Association, $270.

126. The Bread-and-Btef House., $2,-

538.

127. Free DormitoryforWomen, $1,300.

To this list may be added dona-

tions to a number of charitable

funds, like that for the widows and

orphans of firemen, and also the

following gifts to National Benevo-

lent Associations, viz. : German So-

ciety, $14,787 ; French Benevolent

Society, $1,988; Swiss Benevolent

Association, $900 ; Irish Aid Soci-

ety, $300.

And now for the lesson of this
survey. It will be evident from

the statistics and explanations giv-

en in the preceding pages

—

I. That the twenty Catholic in-

stitutions aided by the city and

State are devoted, without a single

exception, to the relief of destitute

persons who would be a burden



Private Charities and Public Money.

upon the taxpayers or a danger to

the community if private charity

did not take care of them.

2. That these Catholic institu-

tions are vastly more extensive in

their operations than any other es-

tablishments of the kind in the

metropolis.

3. That the allowances to these

charities from the public treasury

have not been proportionate to the

allowances to Protestant institu-

tions for an equivalent service.

4. That all the large grants to Ca-

tholiccharities—the orphan asylums,
Protectory, Foundling Asylum, etc.

—are made under a general system
of law in the benefit of which Ca-

tholic, Protestant, and Hebrew now

share on exactly the same terms.

Formerly there were discrimina-

tions against the Catholics.

5. That Catholic individual char-

ity has borne by far the greater

part of the burden of supporting

these homes and asylums, so that

the policy of the State in aiding

and stimulating private benefac-

tions has resulted in the saving of

millions of dollars to the taxpayers.

6. That the Catholic charities

which ask help from the public

treasury are occupied wholly in the

care of the Catholic poor, and not

at all in converting Protestants.

On the other hand, it is evident

—

7. That the majority of the one

hundred and twenty-seven Protes-

tan t and other charities have receiv-

ed payments from the public trea-

45

sury far in excess of th.eir proper

share.

8. That large sums have been

granted to Protestant institutions

which have no claim at all upon

the taxpayers.

9. Tliat some of the Protestant

charities underprivate management

derive their entire revenue from

the public treasury, whereas no

Catholic institution has. been thus

favored.

10. That all the institutions in

which religious or moral influences

can be exercised at all are “secta-

rian ” in the true sense of that

word, many of them excluding Ca-

tholicism by their rules, and near-

ly all of them working against it in

practice.

11. That all denominations which

maintain asylums, etc., for those of

their own church are freely aided

by the State and city, Methodists,

Episcopalians, etc., etc., getting at

least as much consideration as

Catholics.

12. Finally, that a large number of

the Protestant institutions are active-

ly and primarily engaged in making

war upon the Catholic Church, using

charityas an auxiliary to the work of

proselytism, and especially stealing

thousands of our Catholic children

every year, so that the public

money is used in their case to build

up one creed at the expense of an-

other. This is a charge which can

be brought against no Catholic so-

ciety.



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iS



AN EXHIBITION OF MR. DEXTER A. HAWKINS.

Will it be credited that the old

story about a gift from the city of

New York to the Roman Catholic

Church of the land on which the

new cathedral stands has been

started again ? Only a year ago,

when it was revived—for the hun-
dredth time or so—in the Atlantic
Monthly^ it was so promptly and

thoroughly answered that the gen-

tleman responsible for the false

statement withdrew it in the next

number of the magazine. The

whole subject of grants of land and

money to Catholic and Protestant

charities was then discussed in The

Catholic World. The elaborate

articles of this magazine, with their

convincing array of figures, were

republished in a pamphlet* and

extensively circulated. The mat-

ter was generally noticed by the

secular press
;
and so public was

the exposure of the old slanders

and misrepresentations, so wide-

spread was the interest manifested

in the question, that it did seem

safe to predict that we should hear

no more of this particular anti-

popery invention for some years.

But, alas ! some lies are im-

mortal. The cathedral story is al-

ready taken up afresh by some of

the more violent Protestant organs

with as much energy and assurance

as if they had forgotten the cor-

respondence between Mr. Cook

and Mr. Hassard in the Atlantic

Monthly^ and the subsequent papers

* Private Charities
^
Public Lands, and Public

Money, Grants of land and gifts of money to Ca-

tholic and non-Catholic institutions in New York

compared. The Catholic Publication Society Co.

in The Catholic World. The

fiery bigot who has now renewed

the tale is Mr. Dexter A. Haw-

kins. He tells it with some ex-

traordinary variations. He says

:

“i. The church got possession of

a lease from the city at a nominal

annual rent.” [This is a rank in-

vention.] “ 2. When forfeited for

non-payment of this rent ” [it never

was forfeited] “ the city waived the

forfeitures, and, on payment by the

church of $83 32, converted the

lease into a fee.” [This is partly

an invention, partly a ridiculous

travesty.] 3. The city afterwards

“made an even exchange with the

church of a freehold strip [on Fif-

tieth Street] for a much smaller

leasehold strip on the block

above ” [it was precisely ten inches

narrower, and one was as much

freehold as the other]. 4. Finally,

Mr. Hawkins wishes us to under-

stand that the city accompanied

the gift of land by a gift of nearly

$33,000 in money.

Once more let us give the facts

of this notorious transaction, i.

The site of the cathedral was sold

by the city to a private purchaser

in 1799 for ;j^4o5, with the reserva-

tion of an annual quit-rent of four

bushels of wheat. The city has

•never had any title in the property

since that time. It passed through

various hands, and in 1828 was

sold under foreclosure of a mort-

gage given to the Eagle Fire Insur-

ance Company. The purchaser,

Francis Cooper, sold it the next

year to the trustees of the cathe-

dral and of St. Peter’s Church for

47



48 A n Exhibition of Mr. Dexter A . Hawkins.

about $5,500. In consequence of

an order of the Supreme Court in a

friendly partition suit between the

two churches, it was again sold at

public auction in 1852, and the

cathedral bought out the interest

of St. Peter’s for $59,500. 2. The

nominal quit-rent of four bushels

of wheat remained. The policy of

later times is always to get rid of

these vexatious and useless con-

ditions originally attached to old

deeds as an acknowledgment of

feudal tenure, and this was done

at the time of the last sale by

accepting a money payment the in-

terest of which would be equivalent

to the price of four bushels of

wheat. 3. When the streets were

opened it appeared that the cathe-

dral was left with a useless strip on

the north side of Fifty-first Street,

running from a point at Fifth Ave-

nue to a width of 4ft. Sin. on Fourth

Avenue, and the city had a simi-

larly useless strip, ten inches wider

than the other, on the north side

of Fiftieth Street. These were ex-

changed, to the equal advantage of

both parties. As neither strip was

of any value at all except to the

owner of the adjacent land, the

difference of ten inches really

does not seem to require discussion.

4. As for the pretence of a gift of

money, it appears from Mr. Haw-

kins’ statement (which we have not

thought it worth while to verify)

that when Madison Avenue was

opened through the cathedral pro-

perty the city paid, according to

law, $24,000 as the appraised value

of the land condemned for that

purpose. There was an assessment

of about $9,000 upon the cathedral,

for supposed benefit in having its

land cut in two, and this charge

was a partial offset against the

$24,000 ; but in harmony with

a well-established custom where

churches, etc., are concerned, this

assessment was remitted. Mr.

Hawkins actually adds the $9,000
to the $24,000, and so makes a gift

$33>ooo ! This is something

like estimating a man’s wealth by

adding his debts to his income.

With this promising beginning,

Mr. Dexter A. Hawkins sets off to

show that “ the Romish Church
”

is plundering the public right and

left. First, he says, it has obtain-

ed “ five and a half blocks of land

in the best part of the city, worth

$3,500,000.” The two blocks be-

longing to the cathedral, and worth,

according to him, $1,500,000 (not

counting the $33,000), we have al-

ready disposed of. The rest of the

estate consists of the Orphan Asy-

lum property, on Fifth Avenue

;

the land occupied by the St. Jo-

seph’s Industrial Home, on Madison

Avenue
;
and the site of the Found-

ling Asylum, on Lexington Avenue.

With a disingenuousness which we

cannot too severely reprobate, Mr.

Hawkins conceals the purpose of

these grants
;

he states that the

first was made to “ the church,”

which is not true, for it was made

to the Orphan Asylum Association,

and the condition of its use was

carefully stipulated
;
the second he

merely calls a present to the Sisters

of Mercy, and the third a gratuity

to the Sisters of Charity. Now, we

have shown—and Mr. Hawkins
must know, if he has any compre-

hension of the subject he is talking

about—that it has been the custom
of the city of New York for more

than fifty years to give the land

for the erection of charitable asy-

lums, etc., under the control of

churches, private individuals, or

societies
;
and ^hat while all re-

ligious denominations have thus

been helped in the care of their



An Exhibition of Mr. Dexter A. Hawkins. 49

own poor, the Catholics have re-

ceived a much smaller proportion

than their numbers and the extent

of their benevolent enterprises

would entitle them to.

Since the beginning of our histo-

ry just three grants of public land

have been made for Catholic asy-

lums in New York. Sixteen such

grants have been made for Protes-

tant, Jewish, or other non-Catho-

lic asylums under private control,

not countingthe municipal charities.

If land was given for the Catholic

Orphan Asylum, land was given

also for the Hebrew Orphan Asy-

lum, and for the (Protestant) Col-

ored Orphan Asylum, and leased,

for a dollar a year, to the Protes-

tant Episcopal Orphan Asylum.

If land was given for St. Joseph’s

Home for destitute children, land

was also given for the Baptist Old

Ladies’ Home, and the Chapin

(Universalist) Home, and the Deaf

and Dumb Institution, where the
pupils have a distinctly Protestant

education and attend Protestant

religious services every day. If

land was given for the Catholic

Foundling Asylum, so also was

land given for the Protestant Nur-

sery and Child’s Hospital, and to

the Society for the Reformation of

Juvenile Delinquents, which re-

fuses to allow a Catholic chaplain

to minister to the Catholic children

in its custody. About a third of

the inmates of the House of Re-

fuge are children of Catholic pa-

rents,*but they are forcibly trained

to be Protestants. Then we find

donations of land to two Protes-

tant churches, to a Jewish hospi-

tal, and to several other charitable

institutions, only two of which can

properly be called “ non-sectarian.”

We do not think it is of conse-
quence to compare the values of

the Catholic and non-Catholic do-

nations
;
but since Mf. Hawkins is

so much alarmed at the magnitude

of the grants to “ Romish ” chari-

ties, we may as well add a few

words on this branch of the sub-

ject. He sets down the total at

$3,500,000. To reach it he be-

gan, as we have seen, by counting

the value of the cathedral land,

which was not a gift but a pur-

chase in open market, at $1,500,000.

This we must strike out. Next he

sets down the value of the gift to

the Orphan Asylum as another

$1,500,000. But this is the esti-

mated present value. The only

figures, of course, that he has a

right to consider are those of the

value at the time the grant was

made, viz., in 1846. Land near

Fiftieth Street at that time was

not worth much. In 1852 the ca-

thedral block, next to the Orphan

Asylum and of the same size, was

sold at auction, and a half-interest

brought $59,500. If we put the

other property at the same price

(and it certainly was not worth any

more) we have $120,000 instead of

$1,500,000 as the value of the land

appropriated for the Orphans.

The grants to St. Joseph’s Home
and the Foundling Asylum are sup-

posed by Mr. Hawkins to be worth

respectively $200,000 and $300,000.

If we accept these figures his total

of $3,500,000 dwindles to the sum

of $620,000.

Now look at the other side of
the account. The land given to the

Colored Orphan Asylum in 1842

was on Fifth Avenue, the whole

width of the block between Forty-

third and Forty-fourth streets, and

250 feet deep, or about one-third as

large as the Catholic grant. We do
not know how many children it main-

tained then, but it now has about

300, while the Catliolic institution

has nearly i ,400. The grants for the



50 An Exhibition of Mr, Dexter A, Hawkins.

Jewish Asylum, consisting of 17 lots

on Third Avenue and Seventy-

seventh Street, were probably worth

nearly as much when they were made

in i860 and 1864 as the Fifth Avenue

grant was worth in 1846, and the

city added a money gift of $30,000

as a contribution to the building

fund. The number of children is

under 300. The grant to the Pro-

testant Episcopal Asylum (1861)

consists of 12 lots on Lexington

Avenue and Forty-ninth. Street;

there are about 150 inmates. The

Baptist Home, with 90 inmates, ob-

tained 10 lots on Sixty-seventh and

Sixty-eighth streets, near Fourth

Avenue, in 1870
;
the Chapin Home,

with about 50 inmates, received 14

lots on Sixty-sixth and Sixty-seventh

streets, near Lexington Avenue, in

1871 ; the Nursery and Child’s Hos-

pital obtained 15 lots on Fiftieth and

Fifty-first streets, near Lexington

Avenue, in 1857 and 1866, and a

large money donation from the

State
;
the Society for the Refor-

mation of Juvenile Delinquents ob-

tained its lands, its buildings, every-

thing it possesses, from the city or

State, and is wholly supported from

the public treasury. It has receiv-

ed from the city, in land, a whole

block on Twenty-third and Twenty-
fourth streets. Avenue A and First
Avenue, and thirty-six acres on Ran-

dall’s Island. And so we might go

through the whole list.

Suppressing the facts about the

sixteen Protestant and Jewish land-

grants, Mr. Hawkins then proceeds

to the grants of money. These he

treats in the same fashion. He pre-

sents a tabular statement for a series

of eleven years, showing “under

what guises or names the Romish

Church has drawn public money

from the city and from the State

treasuries.” To make up this table

he has deliberately passed over hun-

dreds of appropriations to Protes-

tant societies, although they must

have been right before his eyes in

the same public records from which

he assures us that he obtained his

figures
;
and he has also included

in his list of “ Romish ” institutions

at least one Presbyterian church,

several Protestant Episcopal free

schools, one Protestant Episcopal

asylum, one Protestant sisterhood,

at least one Lutheran school, a

German mission which is Protes-

tant, and a considerable number

of schools (drawing in the aggre-

gate many thousands of dollars)

which do not appear to be Catholic

schools, but are so imperfectly de-

scribed in Mr. Hawkins’ list that

it is impossible to identify them.

He has shown himself so recklessly

inaccurate in other instances that

the presumptions are not in his

favor. Until 1872 it was the prac-

tice, not only of the city but of the

State, to vote annual allowances to

all free schools in proportion to the

number of their pupils. No discri-

mination was made on account of

religion. In the city of New York

•our free schools are much more nu-

merous than those of any other de-

nomination, and here, consequently,

the Catholics received the largest

share of these appropriations. But

every other denomination obtained

its proportion. Episcopalians, Lu-

therans, Hebrews, all who chose to

open church schools, were impartial-

ly aided. In the rest of the State the

Protestant outnumbered the Catho-

lic free schools more than ten to

one; and anybody who v/ill take

the trouble to look at the report of

the State charities presented by the

comptroller to the Constitutional

Convention in 1867 will find there

page after page of appropriations

during the previous twenty years



An Exhibition of Mr. Dexter A. Hawkins. 51

to corporate academies, etc., not

one of which, we believe, was Ca-

tholic. All these, it should be ex-

plained, were “private ” institutions,

having no connection with the com-

mon-school system. Since 1872

such appropriations have been pro-

hibited by an amendment .to the

constitution, and the State and city

can no longer lend their aid except

to institutions for the relief of the

poor and the care of juvenile de-

linquents. Let us look for a mo-

ment at the school allowances in

New York City. Mr. Hawkins

makes most of his entries in dupli-

cate or triplicate, charges ten or

twelve Protestant schools to us,

and omits, all the other Protestant

schools. We have before us a
genuine list, prepared for our use

last year from the public records

at the City Hall, of all the pay-

ments to schools and charitable in-

stitutions. We find that it covers
grants to just thirty-six Catholic

schools and thirty-five Protestant

and Jewish private schools
;
among

them are German Reformed, Ger-

man Presbyterian, several German

Lutheran, Unitarian, Hebrew, Turn-

verein, German Workingmen’s, and

the following Protestant Episcopal

schools, viz., St. Chrysostom’s,

Trinity Church, Trinity Chapel,

St. John’s, St. Paul’s, St. Luke’s,

St. Ann’s, St. Mark’s, St. Bartholo-

mew’s, the Protestant Episcopal

Public School, and the Protet,;ant

Episcopal Mission School. Con-

siderable sums were also, and are

still, paid by the Board of Educa-

tion for the children in orphan

houses and other asylums, and

under the care of such institutions

as the Children’s Aid Society
;
and

of this money the Protestants have

always received the lion’s share.

Mr. Hawkins asserts that when

the Constitutional Amendments al-

ready referred to were pending the

Romish Church caused two “ pesti-

lent clauses” to be “ Jesuitically

introduced,” by means of which it^

was enabled “ to connect whole

broods of its institutions by a sort

of sectarian suction-hose with the

public treasury.” These were the

clauses allowing appropriations to

be made for the support of the

“poor” and of “juvenile delin-

quents”; and the trick, according

to him, consisted in classing desti-

tute children as the “ poor.” He

wishes to have the oversight re-

paired, and a new amendment look-

ing to that result was introduced

some time ago in the Legislature.

It will be a sufficient answer to this

Christian proposal to quote the

following passage from the report

for 1878 of that doughty foe of the

Pope of Rome, Mr. Charles L.

Brace, Secretary of the Children’s

Aid Society :

“The proposed amendment to the

constitution which threatened the exist-

ence of our Industrial Schools did not

pass the last Legislature—perhaps from
a conviction that these schools for poor

children were a necessary part of the

public-school system, and had therefore

a fair claim on their proportion of the

State School Fund. It was seen, too, that

the previous amendments of the consti-

tution sufficiently protected our public

schools from priestly or sectarian inter-

ference.”

But if Mr. Hawkins suppressed

part of the truth in treating of

the schools, he did still worse in

treating of the other charities.

A year ago The Catholic World
published a full statement of the

sums contributed by the State

and city, not merely for eleven

years but for thirty-one years (Jan.,

1847, to Jan., 1878), to the chari-

table foundations of every creed

—

Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and

infidel. The total number of Ca-



52 An Exhibition of Mr. Dexter A. Hawkins.

tholic charities aided in any way

from the public treasury was ex-

actly twenty. The total number of

• Protestant, Jewish, and other non-

Catholic charities similarly aided

during the same period was exact-

ly one hundred and twenty-seven.

It is fair to say that a small pro-

portion of these latter—perhaps
25 or 30—are concerned only in
the relief of material wants and

exercise no religious influence.

Our articles of last year gave so

full an account of them that the

reader could judge for himself of

their character and objects. Omit-

ting certain infirmaries, etc., we

have at least 100 distinctively Pro-

testant and Jewish charities, against

20 Catholic
;
and we also showed,

in the papers referred to, the fol-

lowing facts

:

1. That the 20 Catholic institu-

tions are devoted, without a single

exception, to the relief of destitute

persons who would be a burden

upon the taxpayers if private cha-

rity did not take care of them.

2. That many of the Protestant

charities have no claim at all upon

the taxpayers.

3. That all the Catholic chari-

ties are occupied in taking care of

the Catholic poor, and not at all

in converting Protestants.

4. That many of the Protestant

institutions use charity only as an

auxiliary to proselytism.

5. That the allowances to Ca-

tholic charities have in no case

been proportionate to the allow-

ances to Protestant charities for a

parallel service.

6. That Catholic individual cha-

rity has borne by far the greater

part of the burden of supporting

these homes and asylums, while

there are extensive Protestant

charities which derive their entire

revenue from the public treasury.

Mr. Hawkins indulges irt a vio-

lent tirade against two of the Ca-

tholic charities especially. These

are the Protectory and the Found-

ling Asylum, the most extensive of

our institutions. Of the Protectory

he says

:

“ Charity is the using of one’s own

means for the good of others. It is the

highest Christian virtue and the duty

especially of all churches
;
but to get

hold of and use the public money to

build up a sect under the pretence of

charity is hypocrisy.”

Very well; let us apply this test.

The Catholics bought the land for

this institution, and put up the

buildings mainly at their own cost.

For the first three years they re-

ceived no contributions of public

money towards the support of the

children committed to the Protecto-

ry by the magistrates. Then for a

while they received less than half as

much per head as was paid to Pro-

testant institutions of the same

class. Now the Protectory gets

the same allowance that is made

to the House of Refuge. The gen-

erosity of individual Catholics has

spent more than a million of dollars

on this charity in sixteen or sev-

enteen years, and gives about $40-

000 annually towards its current

expenses. The same work which

the Protectory does for Catholic

children is divided between two

Protestant institutions, the House

of Refuge and the Juvenile Asy-

lum. Both are engaged in the

forcible perversion of Catholic

children to Protestantism. Both

are supported wholly by the public

money. The House of Refuge

draws the same allowance as the

Protectory, viz., $110 per head per

annum. The allowance to the

Juvenile Asylum is $122 50. The

House of Refuge obtained from

the city its land and nearly the



An Exhibition of Mr, Dexter A. Hawkins, 53

entire cost of its buildings, and

during its whole existence it has

received only about $40,000 from

private charity.

The Foundling Asylum Mr.

Hawkins calls a “ church boarding-

house ”
;

the Sisters of Charity he

has the indecency to sneer at as

“ these * charitable sisters
’

”
;

the

children he refers to as “ so-called

foundlings”; and he makes the

charge that the institution has

“ grabbed ” the public money by

trickery, fraud, etc., etc. In answer

to all this abuse we repeat what

we said a year ago : “ By the act

of 1872 the supervisors of the city

and county of New York are re-

quired to pay to the managers of

the Foundling Asylum for each in-

fant maintained by them the same

sum granted by the act of 1865 to

the (Protestant) Infant Asylum for

the same service. This sum is not

to exceed the average cost of the

maintenance of children of like

ages in the municipal Nursery and

Infants’ Hospital under the charge

of the Commissioners of Charities

and Correction. The grants to the

Catholic and the Protestant institu-

tion are made in identical terms

and with the same conditions.”

But Mr. Hawkins suppresses

this important fact : he does not

allow his readers even to suspect

that there is a Protestant asylum

for foundlings. In point of fact

there are two Protestant institu-

tions which divide between them

the work corresponding to that of

the Catholic Foundling Asylum

—

namely, the Infant Asylum and the

Nursery and Child’s Hospital, the

latter of which received its land

from the city. Together they sup-

port about 1,200 inmates (a large

proportion of whom pay board)

and receive about $150,000 a year.

The Catholic asylum supports over

2,000 persons (hardly one of whom

pays anything) and draws about

$240,000 a year. Average allow-

ance to the Catholics, $120 a head;

average allowance to the Protes-

tants, $125 a head. Mr. Hawkins

quotes the statutes (1872, 1874,

1877) which fix the allowances to

the Foundling Asylum. The first

contains the provisions we have

just cited. The second specifies

the rate, 38 cents a day, and makes

an appropriation for certain past

deficiencies. Exactly the same

provisions, deficiencies and all, were

extended to the New York Infant

Asylum. The laws of 1877 (chap-

ters 43 and 90) allow $18 a month

to both institutions “for each and

every homeless and needy mother

with a nursing infant who shall re-

side at the asylum by request of its

officers and nurse her own infant”;

and Mr. Hawkins must have known

this, for the grant to the Foundling

Asylum is made in the following

terms : “ Which said sum shall be

raised and paid to the said Found-

ling Asylum of the Sisters of Chari-

ty in the city of New York in the
same manner, at the same time,

and by the same authorities and

officer in and at which, and by

whom, the sum paid to the New
York Infant Asylum, to which it is

or may be entitled as aforesaid,

shall or may be raised and paid.”

The precise terms of the grants to

the Nursery and Child’s Hospital

we have not thought it worth while

to investigate.

When the Constitutional Con-

vention assembled in 1867 an

anonymous document very much

like this production of Mr. Haw-

kins’ was laid on the desks of

the members and circulated all

over the State. It was intended

to show that the Catholics were



54 An Exhibition of Mr. Dexter A. Hawkins.

“ grabbing ” the money of the tax-

payers to build up their church,

and it presented a list of appropria-

tions made up' by the double fraud

of charging to Catholics what they

had not received and suppressing

what had been given to Protestants

and Jews. The character of this

disgraceful publication was exposed

by several of the leading members

of the convention—among others
by Mr. Ellis H. Roberts, editor of

the Utica Herald

;

by Mr. Cassidy,

editor of the Albany Atlas and

Argus

;

by Mr. Alvord (the ex-

Speaker), and by Mr. Erastus

Brooks, then editor of the Ex-

press^ and well known for his hos-

tility to the Catholic Church. All

these gentlemen denounced the list

as a falsehood. Mr. Hawkins has

made a list of precisely the same

sort, in precisely the same way, and

we refer him back to Messrs.

Brooks, Alvord, Roberts, and oth-

ers for the comment upon it.

As an introduction to his re-

marks upon charitable appropria-

tions Mr. Hawkins favors the uni-

verse with his opinions of the papal

Syllabus, accompanied by a number

of alleged citations from that docu-

ment. Heaven forbid that we

should waste time in controverting

such a farrago, but we have read

enough of it to discover that Mr.

Hawkins, if he has ever seen the

Syllabus, is wholly incapable of

understanding or translating it.

His pretended citations are so ludi-

crous a travesty of the text of

the Syllabus that it is impossible

to read them without laughing.

Sometimes he has so distorted the

sense that we are at a loss to dis-

cover what it is he thinks he is

translating. Sometimes he has

blundered through confounding

contradictory with contrary propo-

sitions. Sometimes he has given a

malicious twist to a proposition so

as to make it apply to a different

subject from that expressed in the

text. Upon tlie whole, however,

this introductory discourse is not

without its uses
;

for it establishes

beyond question the complete in-

ability of Mr. Hawkins to make an

accurate statement of facts or to

argue rationally from any assumed

premises.

Perhaps it is not his fault so

much as his misfortune that he has

stumbled into this mess. But what

shall we say of the Christian Advo-

cate^ which publishes and applauds

his essay, and of other religious

papers—the Christian Intelligencer^
the Advance—which join in the
chorus.? The editor of a church

paper is supposed to know some-

thing of current religious history; to

know at least how the charities of

its own sect are supported
;
and we

can hardly believe that the conduc-

tor of any denominational journal

in New York is ignorant of the ex-

posures made only a few months

ago, in the Atlantic Monthly and

The Catholic World, of the very

same falsehoods which are now

called back to life. And what are

we to think of the following re-

mark by the Christian Intelligencer :

“ Other ecclesiastical organizations

in this city are endowed with large

and remunerative tracts of real es-

tate, but they have been bequeath-

ed to them by persons who were

enrolled among their communi-

cants. The Romish Church by

political influence has robbed the

taxpayers of the city, the great

majority of whom are heartily op-

posed to the Papacy, of the great

property it holds.’’



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