Chapter 16: Waifs of the City Slums
Introduction
This chapter begins by describing the reasons why so many children are left on doorsteps or in the streets and what happens to them when someone finds a forsaken baby. It gives statistics saying that 333/508 (65.55%) of the babies recieved at Randall's Island Hospital one year died due to exposure and other child neglect types of causes. Later in the chapter it talks about "baby-farming" and its evils and how the law fights against it but unsuccessfully. The last depressing paragraph is about children being insured by three or so companies at ages beginning at 6 years old. The result is parents abusing their kids just to get the little bit of insurance money out of them from the company. The last paragraph ends on a lighter note saying that the Five Points Mission did what no legislature or city council could do and saved 60,000 children from the streets and if there are still parents claiming the child then they are aided by the Mission aswell.
Summary
Jacob Riis starts off with his explanation of why mothers leave their babies on rich people's doorsteps. They connect their misery to the rich people's success. In the author's opinion the mothers blame rich people for their poverty and so expect them to take care of their kids for them since they are unable to. Riis also accuses the mothers of murder since almost 90% of the babies who are left on doorsteps or in the streets die of exposure. If the baby is not abandoned then its chances of survival are much greater. Before a mother leaves their kid at Sister Irene's Asylum the nurse on guard asks her to nurse her own kid and another. She is not forced to though. Other babies (called pay-babies) who need to be nursed are nursed by mothers who get paid by the asylum and the money goes out to help thousands of families make ends meet.
Baby farming makes another part of this chapter. It is basically starving babies to death. It is required by law for baby farms to register but it may be easier to get someone who plans to murder another to register the time and place of the act then it would to get a baby farm registered. A person actually makes a profit by taking in 2-4 children who are outcasts or illegitimate; they feed them sour milk, and paregoric to keep them quiet until they die. The Board of Health signs the death certificate indicating the child died of inanition or exhaustion caused by a lack of nourishment. This is of course not true. The real reason of death was due to the paregoric which is medicine containing opium. The purpose of this stuff is to stop diarrhea and calm the stomach. Because the child has been fed sour milk and cannot get it out of their system due to the paregoric the baby dies of sour milk poisoning.
Child life insurance is another part of this chapter. The companies are partially restricted by the law on the minimum ages the child can be and still have life insurance but under some cases the children are killed by the family to collect the life insurance money they are worth. The premiums of 3 such companies varied from 5-25 cents per week and paid around $17. Jacob Riis says that there were more than a million of these child life insurance policies. But he also says right afterward that New York in his opinion is the most charitable city in the world and that nowhere else is there such an eager readiness to help. He goes on in the last part of the chapter to describe the charities and Nurseries that help tens of thousands of children in New York. Jacob Riis sings their praise and acknowledges that there is still much progress for the charities to make but they are undaunted by the massive task.
Baby farming makes another part of this chapter. It is basically starving babies to death. It is required by law for baby farms to register but it may be easier to get someone who plans to murder another to register the time and place of the act then it would to get a baby farm registered. A person actually makes a profit by taking in 2-4 children who are outcasts or illegitimate; they feed them sour milk, and paregoric to keep them quiet until they die. The Board of Health signs the death certificate indicating the child died of inanition or exhaustion caused by a lack of nourishment. This is of course not true. The real reason of death was due to the paregoric which is medicine containing opium. The purpose of this stuff is to stop diarrhea and calm the stomach. Because the child has been fed sour milk and cannot get it out of their system due to the paregoric the baby dies of sour milk poisoning.
Child life insurance is another part of this chapter. The companies are partially restricted by the law on the minimum ages the child can be and still have life insurance but under some cases the children are killed by the family to collect the life insurance money they are worth. The premiums of 3 such companies varied from 5-25 cents per week and paid around $17. Jacob Riis says that there were more than a million of these child life insurance policies. But he also says right afterward that New York in his opinion is the most charitable city in the world and that nowhere else is there such an eager readiness to help. He goes on in the last part of the chapter to describe the charities and Nurseries that help tens of thousands of children in New York. Jacob Riis sings their praise and acknowledges that there is still much progress for the charities to make but they are undaunted by the massive task.
Prayer time in the Nursery, Five Points House of Industry
Randall's Island where the Infant's Hospital was
Another cover for How The Other Half Lives displaying ch. 16's topic
Paregoric meant for positive health purposes
Bibliography
Riis, Jacob. How the Other Half Lives. New York: Penquin Books Ltd., 1890.
Riis, Jacob. How the Other Half Lives. New York: Penquin Books Ltd., 1890.