USA > New York > New York and its institutions, 1609-1871. A library of information, pertaining to the great metropolis, past and present > Part 37
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COMMISSIONERS OF EMIGRATION.
of the Hospital, and the same power secures a cool current through all the sultry season. Adjoining is the cook-room with eighteen steam kettles and ranges, where the cooking for all the buildings is done. Above is the bakery with four ovens, with a capacity each of 300 loaves of bread, also the wash-room with sixty-three tubs, and machinery for washing and wringing the clothing. This Hospital has accommoda- tions for 350 patients, and often affords sleeping accommo- dations for the Refuge inmates.
The Refuge is a brick building three stories, with base- ment and three wings, and has accommodations for 450 per- sons. The first floor contains the steward's department, with store for Island supplies, matron's room, cutting-rooms, and sleeping departments. The upper floors are devoted to dor- mitories. This building is devoted, as its name indicates, to destitute cases, chiefly healthy women and advanced chil- dren.
The Nursery, or Home of the Children, is a three-story frame building with Mansard roof, 120 by 90 feet. In the basement are the dining, play, and bath-rooms. The first floor contains the matron's and the sleeping-rooms. On the second are the school-rooms, with every convenience. Their instruction is conducted by teachers supplied by the New York Board of Education. On the third floor is the Roman Catholic Chapel and its ante-rooms, dedicated in 1868, by Archbishop McClosky, assisted by a number of his clergy, in the presence of the Commissioners and other distinguished persons. It is a neat and commodious room with seating for 500 persons.
The Protestant Chapel occupies the second floor of a sepa- rate brick building, 25 by 125 feet, and in design and finish corresponds with the Catholic Chapel. Connected with it is a reading-room supplied with a large number of periodicals. The first floor of the edifice is used as a medical ward for women, and will accommodate forty-five patients.
The New Barracks consists of a plain brick edifice, with three stories and basement, with rear projection for boiler- rooms, bath-rooms, etc The building is 160 feet by 44, is heated with steam, and contains berths for 450 persons. The dining-hall is a separate edifice, 50 feet by 125, with tables for the accommodation of 1,200 persons at one time.
A three-story and basement brick, 25 by 125 feet, is the Lunatic Asylum. This is under the direction of the physi-
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NEW YORK AND ITS INSTITUTIONS.
cian-in-chief, and by him regularly attended. During 1869 there were 322 of this class under treatment, of whom 116 were discharged cured or improved ; 21, whose term had ex- pired, were transferred to the Blackwell's Island Lunatic Asylum, 31 to other wards for other maladies, and 16 died. At this writing it contains 86 insane women, and 64 men, one- half of whom are Irish ; and the others represent nearly all the countries of Europe. The present building is entirely in- sufficient for the accommodation of this large and rapidly in- creasing class, and the Commissioners have set apart $250,000 for the erection of a large and commodious Asylum.
Besides numerous other buildings, which we have not space to describe, we may simply state that the residences of the physicians, superintendent, and his deputy are all ample and well-furnished, in keeping with their wants and responsibili- ties.
Immigrants having paid their commutation fee are allowed to return, in all cases of sickness or destitution, for five years, and share without charge the treatment of the Hospital, and the comforts of the other Institutions. The farm is culti- vated with this emigrant help, and as many as possible are made useful on the premises. The buildings form a village, surrounded with sloping lawns, fruit and shade trees, gardens and fields of high cultivation. In pleasant weather women and girls may be seen sitting in groups of fifties in the shade of the buildings. A Catholic and a Protestant chaplain hold stated services attended by their respective adherents.
About fourteen thousand are annually cared for on the Island, the average family amounting to about twelve or four- teen hundred. As might be expected, the magnificence of this princely system is often imposed upon, both by the spendthrift and the miserly immigrant, who returns too fre- quently to be clothed and boarded through the winter season at the Refuge. Appropriate legislation only can check this growing abuse. We turn from the review of this interesting subject, feeling that the ample reception provided for our alien brethren is sufficiently worthy of our times, and of the great city and State whence it emanates.
THE NEW YORK INEBRIATE ASYLUM.
'NTEMPERANCE has been for ages the withering curse of the race in nearly every part of this world. It has feasted alike upon the innocency of childhood, the beauty of youth, the amiableness of woman, the talents of the great, and the experience of age. It has disgraced the palace and crown of the prince, the ermine of the judge, the sword of the chieftain, and the miter of the priest. The temperance reform, commenced nearly fifty years ago, has awakened the public conscience, exposed these frightful dan- gers, and called into existence a multitude of agencies seeking in various ways the removal of this deadly plague. But though multitudes have been saved, the great sea of intem- perance has been in no sense diminished, while the adultera- tion and drugging of ardent spirits in our day have greatly intensified the horrors of dissipation. Intemperance is a dis- ease often inherited from ancestors, and otherwise contracted through the criminal indulgence and perversion of the appe- tites. The habitual drunkard is a wreck, as completely as the idiot or the maniac, and merits confinement and treatment. Drunkenness, like insanity, yields promptly to treatment in its early stages, but after long indulgence becomes well-nigh incurable. During the last quarter of a century, many humane and thoughtful persons, appalled with the havoc of this gigantic evil, have inquired anxiously for some system of treatment by which the recovery of the inebriate might be secured. In 1854, the New York Legislature chartered the State Inebriate Asylum, which was located on a large farm at Binghamton, and has become, through able management, a great and successful institution. One has since sprung up on the Pacific slope, and others in different parts of the country. In their annual report of 1862, the Commissioners of Chari- ties and Corrections recommended to the Legislature the establishment of a similar institution in this city. As no. action was taken by that body in relation to it, the Commis- sioners, in their report of 1863, renewed the subject with great earnestness and ability. In these appeals they showed that multitudes of persons went from the dram-shop to the police-station, and from the police courts to the Workhouse,
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NEW YORK AND ITS INSTITUTIONS.
from whence, after a short stay, they returned to the dram- shop, to run the same round over and over again for years, until they at length died on their hands as paupers or crimi- nals, and were laid in the Potter's Field. In 1864, the Legisla- ture passed an act authorizing its establishment, and the Asylum was begun in 1866. The building stands on the east side of Ward's Island, on an elevated and beautiful site, which could scarcely be excelled. It was at first proposed to limit the size of the edifice to the accommodation of 150 inmates, but in view of the necessary outlay for the heating, lighting, washing, and cooking apparatus, it was finally decided to add two wings to the main structure, and thus provide accommoda- tions for 400 patients. The Asylum is a three-story brick, with a front of 474 feet and a depth of 50 feet, and cost, in its original construction, exclusive of furniture, $332,377.08. It is one of our best public buildings, and was erected for a noble purpose. Croton water is conducted to it through an iron pipe six inches in diameter, laid on the bed of the East River from One IIundred and Fourteenth street, which empties into a reservoir ten feet deep, and one hundred feet in diameter.
On the 21st of July, 1868, the Asylum was formally opened to the public, with appropriate services, and on the 31st of December the resident physician reported 339 admissions. During 1869, 1,490 were received, and during 1870, 1,270 more were admitted. The inmates are divided into several classes. The larger number thus far admitted have been transferred from the Workhouse, or some of the other institu- . tions, and have returned to their vices, for the most part, as soon as their terms of commitment have closed. There are also three classes of pay patients-one class paying five, another ten, another twelve or more dollars per week-which are furnished with rooms and board corresponding in style with the price paid. Of the 339 admitted during the first six months, but 52 were pay patients ; of the 1,490 in 1869, but 147 contributed anything toward their support ; and of the 1,270 admitted during the year just closed, but 165 were pay pa- tients, 30 of them being females. The rules of the Institu- tion were at first exceedingly mild, the patients were relieved from all irksome restraints, paroles very liberally granted, and every inmate supposed intent on reformation. But this excessive kindness was subject to such continual abuse, that
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THE NEW YORK INEBRIATE ASYLUM.
to save the Institution from utter demoralization a stricter discipline was very properly introduced.
The Asylum is furnished with an excellent library of solid standard volumes, with billiard-room, and other forms of amusement. It has an immense chapel, in which divine ser- vice is regularly conducted. As the inebriate patients have not filled the building, the Commissioners have temporarily assigned the eastern wing to a class of disabled, indigent sol- diers, citizens of New York, who are organized into squads, and perform such light labor as their wounds and infirmities. will permit.
Of the success of the New York Inebriate Asylum, it is- perhaps too early to speak. We could but notice, however, the great disparity between the faith of the Commissioners, in their appeals to the Legislature in 1862-63, for authority to found an asylum, and their report of the same Institution in 1869, when they "deemed it their duty to thus frankly state their views, that the streams of public beneficence be not unduly diverted from objects of great and permanent utility to those the benefits of which, in their opinion, are largely facti- tious and imaginary." The resident physician, in his very. thoughtful and carefully prepared report of the same year, de- clared his entire loss of faith in the " voluntary system " gen- erally adopted in these asylums, and introduced at the opening of the Institution on Ward's Island. Still, the undertaking is too important to suppose these gentlemen likely to relinquish their endeavors, or to admit the possibility of ultimate failure. This entire scheme for reforming the inebriate is yet in its early infancy, and must, like every other system, meet with much baffling and difficulty. We think a stricter discipline, and more positive self-denial and rigor, would be an improve- ment in every inebriate asylum. Children who grow up under wise but positive laws exhibit more self-control and self-denial all through life, than those who have lived under the voluntary system. Inebriates for the most part have grown up without restraint, the principles of which they must somewhere master, before they can attain to real manhood, and without which they must forever remain in their sunken, enslaved, and demented condition. . And while we regard facilities for amusement and pleasure desirable in an institu- tion, we still believe labor immensely more likely to contrib- ute to one's reformation ; and the more one has been addicted to softness and pleasure, in consequence of his wealth, the
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NEW YORK AND ITS INSTITUTIONS.
greater the necessity for arduous exercise, which shall harden his muscles, invigorate his intellect, and strengthen his will. Reformation, when one has been long and wofully corrupted, is not a holiday recreation, but a manly and deadly struggle, taxing to the utmost the finest faculties of the soul. Little can be expected from young men of wealth, who, while they voluntarily shut themselves for a time from the intoxicating bowl, live at ease, indulging every other appetite. Their reformation is not sufficiently deep and general to resist the shock of subsequent temptation. And no more can be hoped for those who enter an asylum simply to gratify the wishes of friends. These belong to that class who will also enter a billiard saloon and a beer garden when invited by an old companion. Still less can be expected from those floating human wrecks on the sea of life that drift once a month into the Workhouse, for their lewdness and habitual dissipation. Coming from the most abandoned classes in the community, utterly improvident and reckless, their involuntary abstinence for a brief period is likely to be followed by deeper dissipa- tion when opportunity offers. The New York Inebriate Asy- lum is not to be judged from its fruit in the treatment of these. To rescue many of them requires a miracle as great as the raising of Lazarus.
It is conceded that there is no medicine which acts specifi- cally in drunkenness. The physician can only assist nature in its work of repairing, by slow processes, the ravages dissi- pation has made in the system. The appetite must be con- quered by voluntary abstinence, which is greatly assisted by good society, means of culture, toil, and praver. The treat- ment in an institution of this kind is eminently moral, hence too much pains can hardly be taken in the selection of its offi- cers. The superintendent, physician, and chaplain are not dealing largely with matters of physical science, but with the perverseness of the human mind, requiring, besides a knowl- edge of the strange contradictions of human nature, a magnetic influence calculated to attract and mold. The success of an institution depends more upon the men to whom its manage- ment is committed than upon the technicalities of the system adopted within its walls, its convenience, or its location.
The principles, practices, and spirit of a genuine heart-piety, more than any or all other things combined, give success to an inebriate asylum; and .we have known few examples of genuine reformation among inebriates, without a moral regen-
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THE NEW YORK INEBRIATE ASYLUM.
eration. A change of life is difficult without a change of heart, but with this it becomes comparatively easy. Change the fountain, and the bitter water will cease to flow.
We are thankful that the attention of thoughtful men throughout the civilized world is being concentrated on this great problem: how to successfully treat and reform the inebriate. It is, indeed, a vital question, involving the hap- piness of the individual and the family, the wealth of the community and the strength of the State. A system based on truly scientific and moral principles will certainly be evolved sooner or later, and we trust that at no distant day the New York Inebriate Asylum will rank among the best of its kind in the world.
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CHAPTER VIII.
INSTITUTIONS OF RANDALL'S ISLAND.
- THE NEW YORK NURSERIES. (Randall's Island.)
ANDALL'S ISLAND takes its name from Jona- than Randall, who purchased it in 1784, and made it his home for nearly fifty years. Beginning opposite One Ilundred and Fifteenth street, and extending northward to near the Westchester line, it forms the last of that group of beautiful islands that adorns the East river, and from the uses to which they have been appropriated, form a sort of moral rampart to the great metropolis. Originally, like all its sister islands, it appeared like one of nature's failures, its surface being so largely covered with malarious swamps, and surmounted with hills of granite. It was transferred to the city of New York, in 1835, for the sum of $50,000. The sites for the present buildings, with their handsomely arranged grounds and charming gardens, have been prepared at the unavoidable outlay of vast sums. About thirty acres of the southern portion are under the control of the " Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents." and occupied by the House of Refuge, while the northern, and much larger portion, is controlled exclusively by the " Commissioners of Charities and Corrections," who have here located what they denominate the "Nurseries." These form the juvenile branch of the Almshouse department, the adults, except such as assist in taking care of the children, being provided for and retained on Blackwell's Island.
The Nurseries consist of three departments, viz. : The build- ings for the healthy children, the Infant Hospital, and the Idiot Asylum. There are six large buildings for the healthy children, several hundred feet apart, grouped together, though arranged on no special plan, near the centre of the island. They are constructed of brick, three stories high, some of which are furnished with outside corridors, are well arranged
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THE NEW YORK NURSERIES.
and kept in a very tidy and inviting condition. An assistant matron is placed in charge of each of these buildings, the whole being presided over by a warden and matron. A separate building contains the machinery for the washing, drying, etc. The inmates of these buildings are children over four years of age, abandoned by their parents, and taken by the police from the public streets, and children whose parents for the time are unable to support them. On arriving at the island they are placed in quarantine for several days, to guard against the spread of contagious diseases, where they are examined daily by a physician. If diseased they are sent to the hospital; if not they are distributed according to their age and sex among the other buildings. It is the aim of the Commissioneis to make the Nurseries places of but temporary sojourn, and to cause their distribution among families as early as practicable. To this end parents are notified that no child may claim to be retained longer than three months unless its board be paid. If not reclaimed by their friends at the expiration of that time, the Superintendent of Out- Door Poor may apprentice such as are of proper age, or, if too young, adopt them into families willing to take, and able to support and educate them. This wise regulation prevents the overcrowding of the buildings, and avoids the evils inci- dent to massing large numbers of children together through those tender years when the habits of life are being formed. No child in full possession of its faculties is retained after it completes its sixteenth year. The grounds adjourning the buildings are ample, which at certain hours are made vocal by the white-aproned boys who trip and frolic with infinite merriment. Their diet is ample and nutritious, comprising a greater variety than is common in public institutions. The children while here receive the same instruction imparted to those of a similar age in the city, teachers being supplied by the New York Board of Public Instruction. The numbers annually admitted to the Nurseries vary from 1,800 to 3,000, according to the severity of the season. A large farm stretches over the northern portion of the Island, cultivated mainly by men detailed from the Workhouse and Peniten- tiary, and which affords most of the vegetables for the Nur- series.
THE INFANT HOSPITAL.
FOR many years the practice of sending foundlings and other infants committed to the Department to the Almshouse prevailed, where they were placed in charge of the female inmates. The records show that the mortality of this unfortunate class during this period amounted to the appalling figure of eighty-five or ninety per cent., and it is even believed that excepting the few adopted ยท none survived the first year. In 1866, the Commissioners appointed a matron, and employed paid nurses to take ex- clusive charge of the infants, and although the mortality continued large there was a manifest change for the better. The next year wet nurses were transferred from the general hospitals to nourish them. Life by this means was so pro- longed, and the number so increased that it became necessary to convert several wards of the Almshouse into nurseries, and on the completion of the Inebriate Asylum, the infants were temporarily transferred to that building. The necessity of providing a large and well-arranged hospital, devoted wholly to this class, had long been felt. Such an edifice was begun in 1868, and a portion of it was made ready for the re- ception of the nurses and children on the 9th of August, 1869. The building stands on the western side of Randall's Island, facing northward, is constructed of brick and stone, in the most approved style of modern hospital architecture.
The plan consists of a long, three-story pavilion, with three large traverse sections, the eastern one not yet having been erected. The offices and private apartments for the physi- cians are located in the northern portion of the central trav- erse section, the latter being well arranged on the second floor. The edifice was erected under the supervision of the Medical Board, and contains every facility for light, heat, and ventilation. It is at present divided into eighteen wards, and has accommodations for 153 adults and 217 childrer, though 260 of the latter class have already been under treat- ment in it at one time. The completion of the section yet to be added will greatly increase the accommodations. Chil- dren are taken as foundlings, orphans, and are often attended by their indigent mothers. They are divided into three
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THE INFANT HOSPITAL.
classes : the " wec nursed," the " bottle-fed," and the " walk- ing-children." Unless reclaimed by their parents, they . continue in the Hospital until two or three years old, when they are placed in a nursery where one nurse can take charge and instruct ten or twelve of them. As many wet-nurses as possible are obtained, though the supply is never equal to the demand. 1,516 infants were under treatment during the year closing January 1, 1870, 710 of whom died. Since entering the new Hospital, the rate of mortality has been greatly lessened. During the five months of 1868 (from August to December inclusive), 383 deaths occurred, or 21.10 per cent. per month of the inmates. During the same period in 1869, 156 died, or 10.07 per cent. of the inmates, a de- crease of over one-half. The statistics of mortality during the whole year of 1870 were 58.99 per cent. of all found- lings received, and 15.06 of those received with their mothers. The chief physician, Dr. Dunster, believes that the annual mortality will be further reduced by the full development of the plans of the Commissioners. It is doubtful whether any better place for foundlings will be provided among the char- ities of New York.
The nursery population has several times been sadly over- taken with epidemics, now believed to have resulted, at least in part, from an inadequate supply of good water. This evil has now been obviated by the laying of more pipe, affording an abundant supply of pure Croton. The engine-house, con- taining, besides the heating and ventilating apparatus for the Hospital, the washing and drying apartments, is situated at some distance from the main building. A gas-house for the manufacture and supply of this illuminating agent to all the buildings stands in the rear of the engine-house. The grounds, which slope gracefully to the river, adorned with a row of chestnut, hickory, and oak trees, are being nicely graded, and will, no doubt, in time be highly ornamental. The roads and walks are being built in the most substantial manner, on stone foundations, varying from one to two feet in thickness, and macadamized.
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THE IDIOT ASYLUM.
HIS is, after all, the most curious and interesting In- stitution under the control of the Commissioners. Idiocy has existed in all ages and countries, but no effort appears to have been made for the improve- ment of this class until the seventeenth century, and no con- siderable progress made in their education until within the last fifty years. The present century has, however, witnessed the establishment of large institutions for their benefit in France, England, Switzerland, and in various parts of the United States: In 1855, the State of New York erected a fine Asy- lum at Syracuse, at the expense of nearly $100,000, with ac- commodations for one hundred and fifty pupils, which has since been generally well-filled. A large number of persons, representing every degree of imbecility, have annually been thrown on the care of the Commissioners of Charities and Cor- rections, for whom little was done, more than to supply their physical wants, until 1866, when, with grave doubts of its success as a means of mental development, a school, under the direction of Miss Dunphy, was established. It began with twenty pupils ; in 1867 it had increased to forty-two; in 1868 to over seventy, and at this writing to one hundred. The Asylum is a tasty three-story brick structure, with wings, well divided into school-rooms, dormitories, refectory, and other appropriate apartments. It contains at present, besides officers and teachers, 141 persons, whose ages vary from six to thirty years, and who represent nearly every phase of an enfeebled and disordered brair Here are boys of eight years whose enormous heads far outmeasure the Websters' and Clays', others of twenty-five with whiskers and mustaches, whose skulls are no larger than an ordinary infant of ten months. Some are congenital idiots, born to this enfeebled state, others have been reduced to it by par- oxysms, or other casualties. They are divided into two gen- eral classes, the hopelessly imbecile, and those capable of some improvement. The forty-one composing the first class at present show but transient gleams of thought or under- standing, and are lost for the most part in ceaseless inanity. .
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