ere is no
machinery of charity to lift them out of the slime; and if any of their
wealthier neighbors, from motives of benevolence, visited the house, and
attempted to improve or educate the family, the effort would be resented
or misconstrued. The whole family become a kind of _pariahs_; they are
morally tabooed, and grow up in a vicious atmosphere of their own, and
really come out much worse than a similar family in the city. This
phenomenon is only a natural effect of the best virtues of the rural
community.

In a large town, on the other hand, there exist machinery and
organization through which benevolent and religious persons can approach
such families, and their good intentions not be suspected or resented.
The poor people themselves are not so independent, and accept advice or
warning more readily; they are not so stamped in public repute with a
bad name; less is known of them, and the children, under new influences,
break off from the vicious career of their parents, and grow up as
honest and industrious persons. Moreover, the existence of so much
charitable organization in the cities brings the best talent and
character of the fortunate classes to bear directly on the unfortunate,
far more than is the fact in villages.

CHAPTER V.

THE CAUSES OF CRIME.

OVERCROWDING.

The source of juvenile crime and misery in New York, which is the most
formidable, and, at the same time, one of the most difficult to remove,
is the _overcrowding_ of our population. The form of the city-site is
such--the majority of the dwellings being crowded into a narrow island
between two water-fronts--that space near the business-portion of the
city becomes of great value. These districts are necessarily sought for
by the laboring and mechanic classes, as they are near the places of
employment. They are avoided by the wealthy on account of the population
which has already occupied so much of them. The result is, that the poor
must live in certain wards; and as space is costly, the landlords supply
them with (comparatively) cheap dwellings, by building very high and
large houses, in which great numbers of people rent only rooms, instead
of dwellings.

Were New York a city radiating from a centre over an almost unlimited
space--as Philadelphia, for instance--the laborers or the mechanics
might take up their abode anywhere, and land would be compar