The Bay State Monthly. Volume 2, No. 2, November, 1884

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE MIDDLESEX CANAL

BY LORIN L. DAME, A.M

The curious traveller may still trace with little difficulty the line of the old Middlesex canal, with here and there a break, from the basin at Charlestown to its junction with the Merrimac at Middlesex village. Like an accusing ghost, it never strays far from the Boston & Lowell Railroad, to which it owes its untimely end.

At Medford, the Woburn sewer runs along one portion of its bed, the Spot pond water-pipes another. The tow-path, at one point, marks the course of the defunct Mystic Valley Railroad; at others, it has been metamorphosed into sections of the highway; at others, it survives as a cow-path or woodland lane; at Wilmington, the stone sides of a lock have become the lateral walls of a dwelling-house cellar.

Judging the canal by the pecuniary recompense it brought its projectors, it must be admitted a dismal failure; yet its inception was none the less a comprehensive, far-reaching scheme, which seemed to assure a future of ample profits and great public usefulness. Inconsiderable as this work may appear compared with the modern achievements of engineering, it was, for the times, a gigantic undertaking, beset with difficulties scarcely conceivable to-day. Boston was a small town of about twenty thousand inhabitants; Medford, Woburn, and Chelmsford were insignificant villages; and Lowell was as yet unborn, while the valley of the Merrimac, northward into New Hampshire, supported a sparse agricultural population. But the outlook was encouraging. It was a period of rapid growth and marked improvements. The subject of closer communication with the interior early became a vital question. Turnpikes, controlled by corporations, were the principal avenues over which country produce, lumber, firewood, and building-stone found their way to the little metropolis. The cost of entertainment at the various country inns, the frequent tolls, and the inevitable wear and tear of teaming, enhanced very materially the price of all these articles. The Middlesex canal was the first step towards the solution of the problem of cheap transportation. The plan originated with the Hon. James Sullivan, who was for six years a judge of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, attorney-general from 1790 to 1807, and governor in 1807 and 1808, dying while holding the latter office.

A brief glance at the map of the New England States will bring out in bold relief the full significance of Sullivan's scheme. It will be seen that the Merrimac river, after pursuing a southerly course as far as Middlesex village, turns abruptly to the north-east. A canal from Charlestown mill-pond to this bend of the river, a distance of 27-1/4 miles, would open a continuous water-route of eighty miles to Concord, N.H. From this point, taking advantage of Lake Sunapee, a canal could easily be run in a north-westerly direction to the Connecticut at Windsor, Vt.; and thence, making use of intermediate streams, communication could be opened with the St. Lawrence. The speculative mind of Sullivan dwelt upon the pregnant results that must follow the connection of Boston with New Hampshire and possibly Vermont and Canada. He consulted his friend, Col. Baldwin, sheriff of Middlesex, who had a natural taste for engineering, and they came to the conclusion that the plan was feasible. Should the undertaking succeed between Concord and Boston, the gradual increase in population and traffic would in time warrant the completion of the programme. Even should communication never be established beyond Concord, the commercial advantages of opening to the market the undeveloped resources of upper New Hampshire would be a sufficient justification. Accordingly, James Sullivan, Loammi Baldwin, Jonathan Porter, Samuel Swan, and five members of the Hall family at Medford, petitioned the General Court for an act of incorporation. A charter was granted, bearing date of June 22, 1793, "incorporating James Sullivan, Esq., and others, by the name of the Proprietors of the Middlesex Canal," and on the same day was signed by His Excellency John Hancock, Governor of the Commonwealth. By this charter the proprietors were authorized to lay such assessments from time to time as might be required for the construction of the canal.

At their first meeting the proprietors intrusted the management of the corporation to a board of thirteen members, who were to choose a president and vice-presidents from their own number, the entire board subject to annual election. Boston capitalists subscribed freely, and Russell, Gore, Barrell, Craigie, and Brooks appear among the earliest directors. This board organized on the 11th of October by the choice of James Sullivan as president, and Col. Baldwin and John Brooks (afterwards Gov. Brooks) as vice-presidents. The first step was to make the necessary surveys between the Charlestown basin and the Merrimac at Chelmsford; but the science of engineering was in its infancy, and it was difficult to find a competent person to undertake the task. At length Samuel Thompson, of Woburn, was engaged to make a preliminary survey; but the directors, not wholly satisfied with his report, afterwards secured the services of Samuel Weston, an eminent English engineer, then employed in Pennsylvania on the Potomac canals. His report, made Aug. 2, 1794, was favorable; and it is interesting to compare his figures with those of Mr. Thompson. As calculated by Thompson, the ascent from Medford bridge to the Concord river, at Billerica, was found to be 68-1/2 ft.; the actual difference in level, as found by Weston, was 104 ft. By Thompson's survey there was a further ascent of 16-1/2 ft. to the Merrimac; when, in fact, the water at Billerica bridge is almost 25 ft. above the Merrimac at Chelmsford.

Col. Baldwin, who superintended the construction of the canal, removed the first turf, Sept. 10, 1794. The progress was slow and attended with many embarrassments. The purchase of land from more than one hundred proprietors demanded skilful diplomacy. Most of the lands used for the canal were acquired by voluntary sale, and conveyed in fee-simple to the corporation. Sixteen lots were taken under authority of the Court of Sessions; while for thirteen neither deed nor record could be found when the corporation came to an end. Some of the land was never paid for, as the owner refused to accept the sum awarded. The compensation ranged from about $150 an acre in Medford to $25 in Billerica. The numerous conveyances are all in Sullivan's handwriting.

Labor was not easily procured, probably from the scarcity of laborers, as the wages paid, $10 a month and board, were presumably as much as could be earned in manual labor elsewhere. "An order was sent to England for a levelling instrument made by S. & W. Jones, of London, and this was the only instrument used for engineering purposes after the first survey by Weston." Two routes were considered; the rejected route was forty years later selected for the Lowell Railroad. The canal, 30 ft. wide, 4 ft. deep, with 20 locks, 7 aqueducts, and crossed by 50 bridges, was, in 1802, sufficiently completed for the admission of water, and the following year was opened to public navigation from the Merrimac to the Charles. Its cost, about $500,000, of which one-third was for land damages, was but little more than the estimate. Commencing at Charlestown mill-pond, it passed through Medford, crossing the Mystic by a wooden aqueduct of 100 ft., to Horn pond in Woburn. Traversing Woburn and Wilmington it crossed the Shawshine by an aqueduct of 137 ft., and struck the Concord, from which it receives its water, at Billerica Mills. Entering the Concord by a stone guard-lock, it crossed, with a floating tow-path, and passed out on the northern side through another stone guard-lock; thence it descended 27 ft., in a course of 5-1/4 miles, through Chelmsford to the Merrimac, making its entire length 27-1/4 m.

The proprietors made Charlestown bridge the eastern terminus for their boats, but ultimately communication was opened with the markets and wharves upon the harbor, through Mill Creek, over a section of which Blackstone street now extends.

As the enterprise had the confidence of the business community, money for prosecuting the work had been procured with comparative ease. The stock was divided into 800 shares, and among the original stockholders appear the names of Ebenezer and Dudley Hall, Oliver Wendall, John Adams of Quincy, Peter C. Brooks of Medford, and Andrew Craigie of Cambridge. The stock had steadily advanced from $25 a share in the autumn of 1794 to $473 in 1803, the year the canal was opened, touching $500 in 1804. Then a decline set in, a few dollars at a time, till 1816, when its market value was $300 with few takers, although the canal was in successful operation, and, in 1814, the obstructions in the Merrimac had been surmounted, so that canal boats, locking into the river at Chelmsford, had been poled up stream as far as Concord.

Firewood and lumber always formed a very considerable item in the business of the canal. The navy-yard at Charlestown and the shipyards on the Mystic form any years relied upon the canal for the greater part of the timber used in shipbuilding; and work was sometimes seriously retarded by low water in the Merrimac, which interfered with transportation. The supply of oak and pine about Lake Winnipiseogee, and along the Merrimac and its tributaries, was thought to be practically inexhaustible. In the opinion of Daniel Webster, the value of this timber had been increased $5,000,000 by the canal. Granite from Tyngsborough, and agricultural products from a great extent of fertile country, found their way along this channel to Boston; while the return boats supplied taverns and country stores with their annual stock of goods. The receipts from tolls, rents, etc. were steadily increasing, amounting,

in 1812 to $12,600,

"  1813 "   16,800,

"  1814 "   25,700,

"  1815 "   29,200,

"  1816 "   32,600,

Yet, valuable, useful, and productive as the canal had proved itself, it had lost the confidence of the public, and, with a few exceptions, of the proprietors themselves. The reason for this state of sentiment can easily be shown. The general depression of business on account of the embargo and the war of 1812 had its effect upon the canal. In the deaths of Gov. Sullivan and Col. Baldwin, in the same year, 1808, the enterprise was deprived of the wise and energetic counsellors to whom it owed its existence.

The aqueducts and most of the locks, being built of wood, required large sums for annual repairs; the expenses arising from imperfections in the banks, and from the erection of toll-houses and public houses for the accommodation of the boatmen, were considerable; but the heaviest expenses were incurred in opening the Merrimac for navigation. From Concord, N.H., to the head of the canal the river has a fall of 123 ft., necessitating various locks and canals. The Middlesex Canal Corporation contributed to the building of the Wiccasee locks and canals, $12,000; Union locks and canals, $49,932; Hookset canal, $6,750; Bow canal and locks, $14,115, making a sum total of $82,797 to be paid from the income of the Middlesex canal.

The constant demand for money in excess of the incomes had proved demoralizing. Funds had been raised from time to time by lotteries. In the Columbian "Centinel & Massachusetts Federalist" of Aug. 15, 1804, appears an advertisement of the Amoskeag Canal Lottery, 6,000 tickets at $5, with an enumeration of prizes. The committee, consisting of Phillips Payson, Samuel Swan, Jr., and Loammi Baldwin, Jr., appealed to the public for support, assuring the subscribers that all who did not draw prizes would get the full value of their money in the reduced price of fuel.

In 1816 the Legislature of Massachusetts granted the proprietors of the canal, in consideration of its usefulness to the public, two townships of land in the district of Maine, near Moosehead lake. This State aid, however, proved of no immediate service, as purchasers could not be found for several years for property so remote. Appeals to capitalists, lotteries, and State aid proved insufficient; the main burden fell upon the stockholders. In accordance with the provisions of the charter, assessments had been levied, as occasion required, up to 1816, 99 in number, amounting to $670 per share; and the corporation was still staggering under a debt of $64,000. Of course, during all this time, no dividends could be declared.

Under these unpromising conditions a committee, consisting of Josiah Quincy, Joseph Hall, and Joseph Coolidge, Jr., was appointed to devise the appropriate remedy. "In the opinion of your committee," the report reads, "the real value of the property, at this moment, greatly exceeds the market value, and many years will not elapse before it will be considered among the best of all practicable monied investments. The Directors contemplate no further extension of the canal. The work is done, both the original and subsidiary canals.... Let the actual incomes of the canal be as great as they may, so long as they are consumed in payment of debts and interest on loans, the aspect of the whole is that of embarrassment and mortgage. The present rates of income, if continued, and there is every rational prospect, not only of its continuance, but of its great and rapid increase, will enable the corporation—when relieved of its present liabilities,—at once to commence a series of certain, regular, and satisfactory dividends." They accordingly recommended a final assessment of $80 per share, completely to extinguish all liabilities. This assessment, the 100th since the commencement, was levied in 1817, making a sum total of $600,000, extorted from the long-suffering stockholders. If to this sum the interest of the various assessments be added, computed to Feb. 1, 1819, the date of the first dividend, the actual cost of each share is found to have been $1,455.25.