?5G7f
 irs^. .■«.<.■■ . .* ■•'
^mt-^-^^'

 &>\'.-£-ii! <'■>:■
. v ■ •.■-:■■
II
fif 
 
 
 
 
< 
1
A FEW REMARKS
ABOUT
I
I
I
I
i
1
h.
'i
p
i
i
SICK  CHILDREN  IN NE¥ YORK,!
AND THE
NECESSITY OF A  HOSPITAL
I
I
FOR THEM.
fl
l
w
HP

I
BY  PHILOPEDOS,'
An Ex-Dispensary Doctor.
a
-X
vV
I
i
S
L$
           NEW YORK:

WM. C. BRYANT & CO, PRINTERS, 18 NASSAU STREET.
I

1852.
V-J/-\^vU---5) 
 
A  FEW REMARKS
ABOUT
SICK CHILDREN IN NE¥ YORK,
AND THE
NECESSITY OF A HOSPITAL
FOR THEM.
BY  PHILOPEDOS,
    An Ex-Dispensary Doctor.
                    O" 1 {"'< ■> ' ''■"- f.  .'j

                      *i;"''-Rr'l0l'bv'"
             NEW YORK:
WILLIAM 0. BRYANT <fc CO., PRINTERS, 18 NASSAU STREET
1852. 
VviS




\85& 
REMARKS.
   The population of the city of New York in the year 1850, was 515,392,
 and the number of deaths was one in thirty-three.  The same census gives
 one in sixty-seven as the proportion of the deaths to the living  population
in the other parts of the State.  This difference in the rate of mortalitv, in
 the city and country,  appears to indicate  the prevalence of more health,
 and a far better prospect of  longevity among the inhabitants of the rural
 parts of the State ;  and the  difference between the two is a matter of sur-
 prise, and, by many, can scarcely be credit* d.   It is, however, perfectly ac-
 curate, and, so far as the city is concerned,  receives  its corroboration from
 the report of the City  Inspector for that year.  This document  informs us
 that there were 15,377 deaths during that period, which is 1 in 33,52.  It
 also supplies another species of information of considerable importance, in
explanation of the difference,  and which can be obtained by referring to the
table containing  the ages of the deceased.   It  will there be  seen that
 8,052, or 61 per cent,  of  these deaths, were children under the age of  ten
years.   In the  year 1851 there were 22,024  deaths reported; of which
number 11,856, or 54 per cent., were children at the same ages.   During
the seven weeks of the present year (1852) ending on the 28th  of August,
there were reported  3,712 deaths, of  which number there were 2,480, or
66. 81 per cent, children under the age of  ten years.  On examining also
these records for a number of years past, the fact of  the immense mortali-
ty among  them, is  one of the most prominent  there mentioned ;  49 per
cent, being the average number for a period of sixteen years.  It is evident,
therefore, that the excess in the number of deaths for the city, is made  up
exclusively of young children, to an extent that is truly alarming.
  Not only is this mortality excessive, but it appears  also to have been up-
on the increase.  This will appear, by  comparing the number  of  deaths
with the population at the different census periods; thus, in 1835, the deaths
were as 1 in 46. 87 ; in 1840, 1 in 39. 74;  in 1845, 1 in 37. 55,  and in
1850, 1 in 33. 52. 
4
  The causes of this fatality among the younger portion of the population,
must be  referred  to the peculiar  condition in which people  live in cities,
acting especially upon such as are  most liable to  receive physical impres-
sions.  This condition is that of crowding a vast number of people in com-
paratively a small space, and the effect is the deterioration of  the air that
they breathe.
  The change thus produced is effected  both by the consumption of the
oxygen by respiration, and by the emanations from the bodies of the living;
both imparting a  poisonous influence to confined and  badly ventilated
residences.
  The first-mentioned change is a chemical one, and consists of  depriving
the air, by breathing, of  its life-imparting constituents, and leaving in its
place carbonic acid gas  and nitrogen, both poisons when taken into the
lungs.   The other alteration is an admixture with the  air of  the emana-
tions which arise  from  the bodies of the healthy  and diseased.  These
emanations escape with the insensible perspiration.   In a  state  of health
there is nothing peculiar in this fluid,  except that it possesses a slight ani-
mal odor ; but when collected and kept close in a warm place, it becomes
excessively offensive.  The perspiration, in disease,  has various odors, and
even colors, as red, saffron, black or blue ;  all of which shows that it is a
process of depuration or cleansing ; and that to the extent  of  twenty-eight
ounces in twenty-four hours.   It  cannot, therefore, be otherwise than in-
jurious to be breathing an atmosphere laden with substances thrown from
the body because they are injurious, and not  proper to be retained; thus
another poison is taken into the system  by breathing close  and  contami-
nated air.  Is  it any wonder that chitdren, who require every thing thev
receive into the body to be of the purest quality, should  be  the greatest
sufferers in excessively crowded habitations ?
  In a city like ours, the air, in over-crowded houses, must, from these
causes, become exceedingly impure.   In  summer, such a state  of living-
becomes almost insupportable, and in some of the poorer parts, the doors
windows and steps may be  seen  in the evening crowded with people en-
deavoring instinctively to obtain a little fresh air.
  As was  just remarked,  children suffer most from this crowded mode of
living, and it is the children of the extremely  poor that die in such fright-
ful numbers and swell so enormously our city bills of mortality.
  Many  persons are ignorant of the large number of people that are in one
house among the poor.  The average number in an ordinary sized house
is about fifty;  and it is by no means unusual to find six permanent  occu-
pants of one room,  and it  is known to have reached the number of twenty.
  All this is bad enough where the houses stand side by side  fronting the 
5
street with some  space  in the  rear ; but  it is inconceivably worse where
every available spot of ground is occupied by some kind of building, and
where double or treble the proper number are  crowded together with bare-
ly space enough among them to reach the different entrances.
   There are places known as  courts where the lot of ground is built on
three sides—that fronting the street being left open.  The air in these
places cannot be  otherwise than confined and consequently impure ; but it
cannot be compared with that which is found in other places, where every
inch of ground of what was  formerly the yard has been successively built
upon, leaving hardly  a breathing spot, with  the exception of the  alley used
in common, and  which, opens into the street.
   There are others which, although built more systematically, are  equally
bad for ventilation.   These houses are erected on the front, rear, and ends
of several lots, leaving a yard in common in the form  of a parallelogram
with a  group  of out houses  in the  centre;  the entrance to this yard, by
which access is had to the rear buildings, is through an arched way in the
front row.
   When you have fairly entered, you observe that the houses in both rows
face inwards, while the front  row also faces the street.   The rear row will
probably be built against a similar row, so that ventilation by means  of
opposite windows is impossible.  They are so small as not to allow of stairs
on the inside, but the ascent is made by means of stairs from the outside
leading to  a gallery  passing in front  of each story.   Each room  has the
number over the door and opens on the gallery, and there being no other
 opening except a small window at the side of the door, the air can only be
■ changed by its ascending  the chimney.  In  a hot  summer's night these
rooms are unendurably  stifling.  I have  been in  a court like this in the
 afternoon of a hot day, and have stationed  myself in  the upper gallery to
 take a view of the scene below.  The whole  yard literally swarmed with
children of every age, and numbers of people were  crowded at  the doors
 and windows of the row before me  to obtain the benefit of what  little fresh
 air there could be  found in  such a place.  No ordinary wind that blows
could ever reach the  enclosure, but  dead stagnation reigns from month to
 month without any mitigation.  The  confused hum peculiar to a large as-
 semblage  of people  proved how vast were the numbers confined in the
 place.
   In some places like this, hogs and cows are kept, and the moisture from
 the whole  enclosure is  offensive at  all times; but in rainy weather it is
 Unfit even for hogs to live in.  Sometimes the yard is rendered, by the filth
 and moisture,  almost impassable, and has been covered over with boards,
 preventing any evaporation,  while every tread presses up a green, offensive,
 muddy fluid between the boards. 
6
   There are numerous confined places known by the general name of courts;
this, however, will suffice to give an idea of the nature of such places, their
common condition being that of an absence of a sufficiency of air for the
requirements of the  body, rendering the  inhabitants predisposed to the
action of pestilential  influences in their most malignant form, when pesti-
lential diseases prevail.
   A more particular sketch, however, may  be  necessary  to give the reader
some idea of the needs of those who suffer most in such habitations, and for
whom all must feel some interest.
   Go with me, therefore, kind reader, on a visit to  some of my dispensary
patients.  The scenes will of necessity be for you but the pictures of the
imagination ; for me they will  be the strong reminiscences of the truthful
scenes of years now long past.
   Here is my memorandum.   In addition  to the name and number of the
street, it has this observation, " Chd. 3/. /"," which, translated into English,
means  "child, 3d floor, front."   Here  it  is: an old house, the  "3/./.,"
proves to be the upper floor of the building, next  to the roof.   There is no
plastering, and the sun's rays streaming upon it, produces a great intensity
of heat,  which ratifies the air beneath it, while from the construction of the
house, and from its situation, closely surrounded by others, there can be no
direct  passage  of air  from  without;  what little  arrives,  there comes
through the midst of a score or two of people below.  Both  these causes
so affect the air  as to make it impossible  to receive at each inspiration  a
sufficiency of oxygen to satisfy the hungry lungs ;  we feel that we are on
an allowance,  and are suffering lassitude and  even faintness,  and  that  if
such a state of prostration should continue, we could not retain vital energy
enough  to resist the invasion of disease.
 There are three little people sweltering in this air, for whom I am expected
to prescribe.   To direct any kind of medicine to be  given to them is posi-
tively absurd ; it is disheartening to visit such a place, and to be required to
relieve physical suffering when the first and indispensible pabulum of life
is wanting.  We mu-t leave them for the present, and endeavor, before our
next visit, to devise something that, professionally speaking, " will fulfil the
indication."
   Let us change the scene from the heat of our tropical summer to the in-
tensity of our winter's cold.  " 3 r. row &.," which means  " 3d house, rotten
row-basement."  Every  city  has its " rotten  row," and doubtless dozens of
them. It is a favorite  term, and a highly expressive one. The one I now refer
to, stood—if that term is a suitable one—precisely  where the building of the
Northern  Dispensary now stands.   It was  a row  of very old  houses which
cannot be better described than  it is by the  name that was  given to it. 
7
When it rained hard, the cellars were overflowed with water.  The numer-
ous crevices and openings caused but little difference in the winter's tem-
perature outside or inside of some inhabited parts of " Rotton Row."  One
of these is the cellar which we are now to visit.  There, upon a pile of shav-
ings gathered for fuel, portions of which adhere  in hard frozen lumps, lies
the mother  of  the child I am to prescribe for.   She ia  dead drunk.  One
of the children is  clambering over the mother, making vain attempts to
awake her.  The sick child,  a  neighbor informs me, has  been taken into
temporary charge by her, as it appeared to be perishing with  cold.  The
natural instinct to render assistance to the helpless, or perhaps the exercise
of  the Christian principal of benevolence,  has  been exerted to relieve this
little  child from present suffering.
   I have often met with self-sacrifice and instances of kindness towards
the sick and destitute,  on the  part  of those  no  less  destitute than the
objects of their solicitude;  watching and nursing  them at every interval
that could be spared from the duties required in their own families : while
it must be admitted that many instances.also of brutal selfishness are exhi-
bited—the direct effects  of poverty, ignorance  and  degradation.  Human
nature, however, is the same in every class, and if selfishness is presented to
us  with rough moroseness, that shocks the sensitive mind by one class, it is
at least  no worse  in its  effects than when influenced by the  conventional
usages of more refined  life.   Selfishness, wherever found, can produce no
other effects than unhappiness.  If mercy, in the language of the immortal
poet
                                    " Is twice blessed ;
                   Blessing him that gives, and him that takes,"

So may selfishness, that  scarce  can brook  another's wish, have its  twofold
curse;  but  worse, far worse for him who suffers it to blight the germs  of
kindness in his heart, than for him who is left by it in  neglect—perchance
in sorrow and in suffering.
   Let us visit  " Rotten  Row"  in summer.  We will enter again one  of
these dilapidated cellars.  Why, the floor is covered with water!   True, it
rained hard last night, and these places are generally so after a hard  rain :
the water is only about half an  inch in depth,  and you observe that bricks
are placed at convenient distances for stepping to the bedside, that the feet
may  not get wet.   It is of very little importance to know what  form of
disease it is  that we see in the bed, or  what  description  of person  lies
prostrated by it; whether the robust man or feeble woman—the aged, whose
day is  rapidly closing, or the young child, whose  morning has  but just
dawned—all present a hopeless task for him who  would relieve thein by
the resources of the medical art. 
8
   I once knew a pool of water, that was in an  area, burst  through,  the
 foundation of a  house, and empty itself into a room where people were
 sleeping, carrying with it a quantity of mud and sand ; it is even said that
 some have in this way been  drowned.  Besides the heavy rains that over-
 flow these places, the water not unfrequently gets  into them by the tide
 rising, and people living in them have barely escaped with their lives.  In
 one instance, on the extraordinary rise of  the tide in a cellar in Washington
 street, it disturbed thirteen people, four adults, and  nine children, during
 their sleep.*
   With or without excessive rains or unusually high tides, these places are
 always damp, and are thereby a continued source of various inflammatory
 diseases, rendered more complicated and unmanageable by the positive de-
 terioration of the air from want of ventilation ; indeed, the occupants of
 cellars are always sick in a never-ending rotation.   Sickness among  the
 poor is always great, and in these damp and badly-ventilated places is more
 protracted, besides being more fatal, especially among children, than above
 ground.   More than two-thirds suffer some lingering disease, existing among
 such as are almost constantly exposed to the  causes that are always in ac-
 tion in such places, as women and  children.  They  pass  most  of  their
 time, both day and night,  in the confined air of their  abodes,  while   the
 men pass the day at their usual out-door work, and  are under  " home in-
fluences" only at night.  In many of these places the floors are  rotten, and
 impart an odor peculiar to decaying wood,  while the whole has a chilly
 feeling, and yields a damp earthly odor, strongly suggestive of the odor of
 a vault.   It cannot,  therefore, be a subject for wonder that, in  proportion
 to the  number of inhabitants, the  demands for medical services should be
 much more numerous by the inhabitants  of cellars than by others.f
   Another memorandum indicates that I  have been desired to call at No.
 ■■----------street,  " cKd. f.  &.,"  which  means " child, front basement."
 Here is the house.   The door  is locked.   Knock.   No response.   Knock
 again.   Still  no notice is taken of us; it  is evident  that we can not gain
 admittance.  We will not go away yet.  I have  had  somo experience in
 these matters before.  Sick people are not in the  habit of  being removed

  * " One cellar was reported by the police to be occupied as a sleeping apartment
 by 39 persons !   In another the tide had risen so high that it was necessary to ap-
 proach  the bedside  of a patient by means of a  plank, which was laid from one stool
 to another; while the dead body of an infant was actually sailing about the room
 iu its coffin!"—{Official Report on the Cholera in Boston, 1849.)
  f The number of persons inhabiting cellars in the city of New York, who have no
 other room, according to a census taken by the Chief of the Police in March  I860
 was 18,466. 
9
when the doctor is sent for.  Yonder is a little window through which we
may look, and perhaps learn something of the state of  things within, and
of the reason wherefore we could not be admitted.  Let us look into  the
apartment.  Every thing is rather obscure, but as the eye becomes accus-
tomed to the gloom, objects gradually appear with more distinctness.  There
are evidently two children in that room; one lying on a bed, and the other
sitting on the floor amusing itself with some uncouth playthings.   Now the
condition of things is better understood.   The mother  has left these chil-
dren alone, while she has gone to earn a trifle by  a day's work.  This is
the reason also that a request,  of  which I took no  memorandum, was  left
that I would call at a designated hour, at which time she doubtless left her
work, and went home to see her little ones and meet the doctor.  My en-
gagements not permitting me  to  call at the time desired, she had  again
locked them in and had gone to finish her day's work.   We can see things
in the room a little more clearly; the little one on the bed has a highly
flushed cheek, and is, no doubt, burning with fever, while  there is no one
—nor will there be  for many hours—even to give it  a drink of water.  God
help you, my poor little creature, in your loneliness and suffering!
   Still  another memorandum  to visit a  cellar.  This one is  in a rear
building.  The house is one of those that has been built  on the rear of a
lot of ground, even  after it would appear that every spot on  it  had already
its house.  It is completely hemmed in, and as we descend, observe how
extremely dark it is.  In addition to the want of  ventilation so common
to all such places, there is a remarkable absence of  light.  From the posi-
tion of the room the rays of the sun have never reached it, and it appears
doomed to uninterrupted murkiness and gloom.  Notice the inmates, how
pale they are !  what a waxen,  cadaverous complexion these children have !
the very lips are  pale and the whole face is puffy and destitute of expres-
sion.   The father and one child died about a month since, and the entire
family appear to have been always sick.
   It  may appear  strange to  some readers to assert that the absence of
light  has had something to do with all this;  it is  at  least an important
ingredient in the subterranean  death-mixture.   I have known some posi-
tive effects of  the mere absence of light in the gloomy apartment of  the
hypochondriac, and abundantly proved to be from that cause.  I have read
how light—the sun's glorious light—was regarded as an emanation from
a god;  and Phoebus Apollo was worshipped as the dispenser of health and
happiness.   The fable  of Apollo slaying the serpent  Python,  is but  an
allegorical description of the scattering of the  noxious vapours that arose
after a flood, by the sun's rays.  I remember also reading that it was a
practice among some of the  old Romans, to denude themselves and bathe 
10
in the solar light on the house-top ; or, as Pliny says, to take a solaria, or
solar air-bath.
  Light, plenty of it, appears to exercise a great influence over the physio-
logical condition of all living  things, in the production  of greater vigor.
The effects are visible  to us in the blanching  and feebleness of  vegetable
sprouts that have  grown in the dark—in the contrast  between the upper
and under parte of fishes,  particularly such as swim close to the bottom ;
the under being white  and the upper part brown.   So with  the fur  of
quadrupeds, that which covers the under portions of the body is  of a more
delicate texture and of a whiter color than  the rest, where it is constantly
exposed to light.  In some of the  polar animals, the entire coat changes to
a white during the long night of winter.   I have also read that travellers
refer  to the long days of a Norwegian summer the unusual amount of
vigor they experience  during that  season.   Physicians also tell us that
sick people in the  dark portions of the wards of an hospital are likely to
remain longer sick than such as are more favorably situated with regard to
light—that  miners who pass  a large  portion  of their  time in the  dark
chambers of  the earth, suffer more from  the absence of light and  have
more  sickness  than  is  likely to  arise from  mere absence of ventilation
alone, and that the children of miners and also of such as inhabit  dark
courts and  cellars, are  apt to be deformed and ailing.  I have  myself
observed that the young inmates  of cellars are languid and feeble, with the
circulation slow, the skin cool and pale, and of a reptile feel.
   Go with me now, after the lapse of a fortnight, to the New York Hos-
pital, whither these children with their mother were sent.  I must repeat
the remark that this is no picture drawn by the imagination, but a simple
truth.  They begin to look as children should look.  The first tinges of the
ruddy hue of health have already appeared.   They are cheerful and  play-
ful.  What has brought about all this change ?   Not a particle of medicine
has been given, but they have been placed in a large, light, and well-ven-
tilated ward, while they have been  supplied with ordinary liealthy  nour-
ishment.
    We may form an idea from this sketch of the causes of some of the suf-
ferings of the poor, and learn also that those who have the least to do with
the production of these  causes  and with any arrangement necessary for
their physical comfort—such as  can have no thought whatever upon  the
 subject—are the principal  victims.
    It  is certainly  a  remarkable  fact, that those  who could have  had no
 agency whatever in  causing the  evils they suffer, should be  amono-  those
 that  are first and the  most grievously  punished.   We  have, however
 nothing to do with this as a subject for  discussion, but can only  consider 
11
the facts as they are presented to  us, and to observe  the  action of their
causes, that the knowledge thus acquired may be available for the preven-
tion and removal of the physical evils to which our race is  continually ex-
posed.  It may not, however, be out of place to remark that the laws con-
trolling our physical are  as imperative as those which govern  our moral
condition, with this difference, that the latter takes cognizance of  our indi-
vidual will, and as individuals we are liable to be  punished for voluntary
disobedience.   In the former the penalty reaches us whether the transgres-
sions  are voluntary or not;  the physical  penalty following a violation of the
physical law with more unremitting  certainty than chastening punishment
follows a violation of the moral  law.   The deprivation  of necessary food or
air, or any other violation of the law in question no sooner  exists, than a
certain penalty begins and affects all within  the reach of  the  law.  When
we see therefore the utterly helpless suffering from these causes, the respon-
sibility becomes the greater on the part  of those who have it in their power
to interfere for their relief.   If  the infliction of these sufferings is indepen-
dent  of their agency, so is also their relief.   Others must come to their as-
sistance, and, as far as it is in their power,  modify or change the circum-
stances which are continually in action to produce a certain result.
   Among the most prominent of the violations of these  laws  is excessive
crowding in all cities.  It is an evil never to be removed, but may be much
modified and controlled.   It has been remedied to a certain extent by pro-
viding, during the existence of severe pestilences, retreats for the  poor that
are in health  and hospitals for such as are  sick.  The  sick children of the
poor are so numerous—and with almost a never-ending  pestilence among
them—that it  is proposed to establish a permanent hospital as one of the
necessary  measures for their relief.
   For the children of the poor abundant provision is made for the peculiar
wants  attendant  upon their condition in life.  The  juvenile criminal is
sought that he may be reclaimed ere the habit of vice  shall render him in-
capable of moral renovation.   Schools are  freely opened for the reception
of all children, and in such numbers  that no one,  however poor, need grow
up to adult age ignorant  of the rudiments of knowledge;  and instruction,
extending even to literary  and scientific accomplishment, is offered to all.
Asylums for  the utterly destitute offer their protection  to multitudes of the
helpless offspring of the city pauper, while thousands of parentless children
are tenderly carried through that period of  life  when  their very  ignorance
of  a  parent's  care adds a touching  interest  to their claims for nurture, for
protection and for guidance.  Under all circumstances of ordinary destitu-
tion is the child cared for by some  special method  adapted to his needs,
with  the single exception of sickness. 
12
   No assylum exclusively devoted to his reception when sick exists in our
city, and for want of such how many and how multiform arc the instances
of suffering in our large population, no  one can  surmise.  The instances
above cited are  but isolated  cases, and can scarcely be regarded as any-
thing more than types of a few forms of destitution in sickness.
   It must  be evident to all who  will reflect upon the large amount of sick-
ness there is among the children of the  poor in our city, that hospital ac-
commodations for them are among its most urgent wants.   In  the dwell-
ings of the very poor there is almost always more or less absence of every-
thing necessary for the ordinary  relief of the sick, and especially  of the un-
remitting attention that is needed by them.  The necessity of constant
occupation  to obtain the means of existence, precludes the possibility, in  a
large number of instances, of devoting any time to the requirements of the
sick ; and it is from this want of attendance, next to want of pure air, that
children suffer most.   Often too, all the  care  and watchfulness bestowed
may be rendered useless by the absence of the most necessary accommoda-
tions.  This may be tolerated during health, but in sickness it is not only
distressing, but positively  injurious.   For those who have the  necessary
comforts for the  sick, or who have time that they may bestow upon their
families, when they most require it, dispensary attendance is sufficient for
their wants in sickness ; but when it is known that many children are abso-
lutely destitute  of all these—indispensable  as  they are—the necessity of
providing well-ventilated accommodations is  evident; a place where all the
wants of the sick may be supplied, and especially when personal  care must
form an essential part of the arrangement:—a need only to be supplied by
the establishment of a well-organized hospital.
   If it is thought by any that such children  as may require removal  from
their homes could be accommodated in the hospitals already established, it
will  be necessary to state that there are not hospitals enough for the ordi-
nory wants of our city, now containing more than half  a million of in-
habitants.  Among so large a number of people, many more hospitals than
now exist could be filled with distinct classes,  either of people or of diseases.
Where sickness among children exceeds to so great a degree sickness among
adults, as it is found  to do in New York, there will always be a sufficient
number of  applicants to fill any number of hospitals that will be established
for their exclusive use.
   The need, also, of  a special hospital for children, is evident when  it is
considered  that a large number is to be provided for, and that there should
be an adaptation to the wants  of a particular class of patients, who require
a  peculiar  mode of management,  and attendants adapted  exclusively  to
them. 
13
  Some of the principal cities of Europe have, for a number of years, had
hospitals  organized exclusively  for  children;  increased  experience  has
proved their  importance, and led to their  establishment more recently in
many others; so that, at the present  time, most of the larger cities have
hospitals expressly devoted to this class of patients.
  There can not be found a city in the world where a similar establishment
is needed more  than  in the city of New York.   For to the great number
of permanent poor residents always in a city, there is to be added the pe-
culiarity of an enormous transient population.  The children  of  the latter
suffer when sick, in  addition to the ordinary privations, all the distressing
evils of miserable, filthy lodgings, and of other temporary accommodations.
   After a careful consideration of the  truths here presented, surely no one
can hesitate to do what  is in his power to assist in the establishment and
support of a Child's Hospital in New York.
  In suggesting the title of " St. Nicholas' Hospital"  for the proposed
institution, the writer is more influenced by its appropriateness than by any
attachment to the name, which, in a native of New York,  might be par-
doned—blended as is this name with many pleasant reminiscences.
  Strange stories have been related to us in childhood of midnight visits at
the Holy Season ; and a poet of our own—Tarn eruditione claro, quam vir-
tute venerando—has sung to us  of one of  these visits, and told us of tiny
reindeer steeds with their tiny wain that bore gifts, kind gifts of affection,
during the hours of slumber.   These stories  are not the fragments of an
imaginary fairy tale, nor the distortion of some pagan superstitious rite ;
nor are the gifts the doings of wicked witchcraft: at such a  time
            " No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
            So hallowed and so gracious is the time."
Although a departure from the simplicity  of truth, the legend is of Chris-
tian origin,  and  came from  the workings of Christian benevolence.   The
benevolent character of the pious Bishop of Myra  shewed itself mostly  in
his tender care for children, and the traditionary history of his affection for
the young still lingers among us in the  secret and mysterious gifts of " Sint
Nicholaas goed heilig man." 
 
✓ 
J 
 
I 
 
NLM041400918