rments, so much overpowered by the cold that they can scarcely strike
or utter a note. Sometimes a kind-hearted saloon-keeper will permit them
to warm themselves at his stove for a moment or two. These are the
bright periods in their dark lives, for as a general rule they are forced
to remain on the street from early morning until late at night.

A recent writer, well informed on the subject, says: "It is a cruelty to
encourage these children with a gift of money, for instead of such gifts
inuring to their benefit, they are extracted for the support of cruel and
selfish parents and taskmasters." This is true, but the gift is a
benefit to the child, nevertheless. These children have parents or
relatives engaged in the same business, who require them to bring in a
certain sum of money at the end of the day, and if they do not make up
the amount they are received with blows and curses, and are refused the
meagre suppers of which they are so much in need, or are turned into the
streets to pass the night. The poor little wretches come crowding into
the Five Points from nine o'clock until midnight, staggering under their
heavy harps, those who have not made up the required sum sobbing bitterly
in anticipation of the treatment in store for them. Give them a penny or
two, should they ask it, reader. You will not miss it. It will go to
the brutal parent or taskmaster, it is true, but it will give the little
monkey-faced minstrel a supper, and save him from a beating. It is more
to them than to you, and it will do you no harm for the recording angel
to write opposite the follies and sins of your life, that you cast one
gleam of sunshine into the heart of one of these children.

A number of Italian gentlemen resident in New York have generously
devoted themselves to the task of bettering the lot of these little ones,
and many of those who formerly lived on the streets are now in attendance
upon the Italian schools of the city. Yet great is the suffering amongst
those who have not been reached by these efforts. Only one or two years
ago there were several wretches living in the city who carried on a
regular business of importing children from Tuscany and Naples, and
putting them on the streets here as beggars, musicians, and thieves.
They half starved the little creatures, and forced them to steal as well
as beg, and converted the girls into outcasts at the earliest possible
age. The newspapers at length obtained informa