ty.

The agencies which we sought to found were the INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS, which
I shall now attempt to describe.

Each one of these humble charities has a history of its own--a history
known only to the poor--of sacrifice, patience, and labor.

Some of the most gifted women of New York, of high position and fortune,
as well as others of remarkable character and education, have poured
forth without stint their services of love in connection with these
ministrations of charity.

THE WILSON SCHOOL.

The School to which allusion has already been made on page 83, as
growing out of the Boys' Meeting in Sixth Street, and afterwards in
Avenue D, was the first of these Schools, and owes its origin especially
to a lady of great executive power, Mrs. Wilson, wife of the Rev. Dr.
Wilson. It has always been an exceedingly successful and efficient
School. It was formed in February, 1853, the writer assisting in its
organization, and was carried on outside of the Society whose history I
am sketching.

THE ROOKERIES OF THE FOURTH WARD--A REMEDY.

In visiting from lane to lane and house to house in our poorest
quarters, I soon came to know one district which seemed hopelessly given
over to vice and misery--the region radiating out from or near to
Franklin Square, especially such streets as Cherry, Water, Dover,
Roosevelt, and the neighboring lanes. Here were huge barracks--one said
to contain some 1,500 persons--underground cellars, crowded with people,
and old rickety houses always having "a double" on the rear lot, so as
more effectually to shut out light and air. Here were as many
liquor-shops as houses, and those worst dens of vice, the
"Dance-Saloons," where prostitution was in its most brazen form, and the
unfortunate sailors were continually robbed or murdered. Nowhere in the
city were so many murders committed, or was every species of crime so
rife. Never, however, in this villainous quarter, did I experience the
slightest annoyance in my visits, nor did any one of the ladies who
subsequently ransacked every den and hole where a child could shelter
itself. My own attention was early arrested by the number of wild ragged
little girls who were flitting about through these lanes; some with
basket and poker gathering rags, some apparently seeking chances of
stealing, and others doing errands for the dance-saloons and brothels,
or hanging about their doors. The police were constantly arre