The society
fixes the price of blacking a pair of boots or shoes at ten cents, and
severely punishes those who work for a less sum. They are at liberty,
however, to receive any sum that may be given them in excess of this
price. They surround their calling with a great deal of mystery, and
those who profess to be members of the society flatly refuse to
communicate anything concerning its place of meeting, or its
transactions.

A large part of the earnings of the bootblacks is spent for tobacco and
liquors. These children are regular patrons of the Bowery Theatre and
the low-class concert halls. Their course of life leads to miserable
results. Upon reaching the age of seventeen or eighteen the bootblack
generally abandons his calling, and as he is unfit for any other
employment by reason of his laziness and want of skill, be becomes a
loafer, a bummer, or a criminal.

For the purpose of helping these and other outcasts, the Children's Aid
Society was organized nineteen years ago. Since then it has labored
actively among them, and has saved many from their wretched lives, and
has enabled them to become respectable and useful members of society.

The Children's Aid Society extends its labors to every class of poor and
needy children that can be reached, but makes the street children the
especial objects of its care. It conducts five lodging houses, in which
shelter and food are furnished at nominal prices to boys and girls, and
carries on nineteen day and eleven evening Industrial Schools in various
parts of the city. The success of the society is greatly, if not
chiefly, due to the labors and management of Charles Loring Brace, its
secretary, who has been the good genius of the New York street children
for nearly twenty years.

The best known, and one of the most interesting establishments of the
Children's Aid Society, is the _Newsboys' Lodging House_, in Park Place,
near Broadway. It was organized in March, 1854, and, after many hard
struggles, has now reached a position of assured success. It is not a
charity in any sense that could offend the self-respect and independence
of its inmates. Indeed, it relies for its success mainly in cultivating
these qualities in them. It is in charge of Mr. Charles O'Connor, who is
assisted in its management by his wife. Its hospitality is not confined
to newsboys. Bootblacks, street venders, and juvenile vagrants of all
kinds are welcomed, and every effort is made