cating with farmers, manufacturers, or families in the country,
who may have need of such for employment. When homeless boys are found
by our agents, we mean to get them homes in the families of respectable,
needy persons the city, and put them in the way of an honest living. We
design, in a word, to bring humane and kindly influences to bear on this
forsaken class--to preach in various modes the gospel of Christ to the
vagrant children of New York.

"Numbers of our citizens have long felt the evils we would remedy, but
few have the leisure or the means to devote themselves personally to
this work with the thoroughness which it requires. This society, as we
propose, shall be a medium through which all can, in their measure,
practically help the poor children of the city.

"We call upon all who recognize that these are the little ones of
Christ; all who believe that crime is best averted by sowing good
influences in childhood; all who are the friends of the helpless, to aid
us in our enterprise. We confidently hope this wide and practical
movement will have its full share of Christian liberality. And we
earnestly ask the contributions of those able to give, to help us in
carrying forward the work.
* * * * * * *
"March, 1858."

DENS OF MISERY AND CRIME.

In investigating closely the different parts of the city, with reference
to future movements for their benefit, I soon came to know certain
centres of crime and misery, until every lane and alley, with its filth
and wretchedness and vice, became familiar as the lanes of a country
homestead to its owner. There was the infamous German "Rag-pickers'
Den," in Pitt and Willett Streets--double rows of houses, flaunting with
dirty banners, and the yards heaped up with bones and refuse, where
cholera raged unchecked in its previous invasion. Here the wild life of
the children soon made them outcasts and thieves.

Then came the murderous blocks in Cherry and Water Streets, where so
many dark crimes were continually committed, and where the little girls
who flitted about with baskets and wrapped in old shawls became familiar
with vice before they were out of childhood.

There were the thieves' Lodging-houses' in the lower wards, where the
street-boys were trained by older pickpockets and burglars for their
nefarious callings; the low immigrant boarding-houses and vile cellars
of the First Ward, educating a youthful population for courses of guilt;
th