roper 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 t