What was the procedure for spending a night at the DSLH?
A boy entering the DSLH had to go up to the third floor. There, near the
door, was a platform surrounded by a railing. Behind it stood or sat the
Superintendent or his assistant. The boy had to give his name, age, and occupation,
say whether he could read/write, and possibly answer other questions.
Then he paid six cents (or ten, if he wanted the fancier "private"
beds)
for his stay. If he wanted supper, he had to pay for that in advance as
well. He was required to wash up at first opportunity. A key was
given to him with a number on it, which corresponded both to a locker
and
to a bed. The locker was for his clothes.
"The boys troop in with a rush, as they usually do at about 6 o’clock" (The Journal, Feb. 16, 1896). A boy who came in was expected to attend that night's classes.
In Newsies, the registration area is moved to the first floor, the railing
is gone, and the boys keep their clothes on their bunks.
(As a side note, here is an interesting excerpt from one New York Times interview with seven newsboys/bootblacks on a street corner:
"Yes, I live in the Newsboys' Home," the blue cap
continued, putting away his brushes. "Supper is 6 cents, and breakfast
is 6; and lodging the same, if we get in before 9 o'clock. After 9 it
costs us 7 cents, and if we don't get in till after 10 it costs 11
cents. Dinner is 20 cents, but we generally eat somewheres outside. A
man can get a very good dinner now outside for 15 or 20 cents."
New York Times, Aug 17, 1879
Note, however, that this was in 1879, and I have not found
reference to either a 20-cent dinner or an escalating cost (with
respect to time) in any other report or article, so either this system
was tried out and abandoned, or the boy could have possibly been
referring to one of the non-CAS lodging houses.)
What about other costs?
Dinner was six cents. Unlike in Newsies, breakfast could also be got at the
DSLH, for another six cents.
What if a boy could not afford to stay?
The cost of lodgings would generally be deferred until the boy could
afford to pay back his debts. Sometimes, other boys pitched in to help
out one of their own.
How about general rules of behavior?
Riis reports that a "notice" over the door read: "Boys who swear and chew
tobacco cannot sleep here."
During the big holiday dinners (an average of nearly 1000 boys at Thanksgiving,
an average of 600 boys at Christmas), police were often recruited to help
keep order.
For special events, especially those with visitors, the boys
attending had to have washed up and were expected to sit quietly (if
the event was a speech or some other presentation) and behave
themselves. It was the Supt.'s job to keep order at these events,
such as at a 1901 banquet at the DSLH, in which a dozen boys got
rowdy concerning which of them would lead the singing. Supt. Heig
quickly put a stop to it.
Did things ever get out of hand?
Unfortunately, yes. A sample of the incidents:
On New Year's Day, 1897, two newsboys got into a
fight at the DSLH and one stabbed the other twice with a
penknife. The victim was taken to the hospital in what the NYT said
was a "serious condition," but I do not know what became of
him.
On June 3, 1900, two newsboys living at the DSLH quarreled in front
of the LH, and again one stabbed the other, this time in the back of
the neck. The victim was able to return to the DSLH after a trip to
the hospital.
In 1893, the night-clerk disappeared, after having been accused
of borrowing money from the boys and not returning it.
What were the rules for the morning?
How early the boys were wakened depended on where they worked. Some had
to get up as early as 2 a.m., others at 5.
Everybody had to be out by 7 a.m.
Was there a curfew?
After 9:30 p.m., no boys were admitted to the LH unless they had
obtained a pass earlier in the evening. These passes allowed the holder
to remain out until midnight. As going to the theater was a popular
pastime among newsboys, much use was made of the passes.
It is interesting to note that boys entering the LH were expected to
attend that night's classes, which were held from 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.
The 9:30 deadline for having a pass likely made it harder for a boy to
skip classes by merely showing up late.
No boy, even with a pass, was let in after midnight.
Any other obligations?
The boys had to help with the upkeep of the place. In the mornings, they
had to open the windows and throw the bedclothes back to air, and shake out
pillows and put them in the windows. Several boys had to help the cook at
breakfast and help serve it. A few (I don't know how they were chosen) stayed
in during the day to help with dishwashing, sweeping, dusting, making beds,
and mopping the gym.
Mondays were laundry day. The boys didn't have to do all the laundry, but
they had to help.
Windows were washed on Wednesdays.
A
visitor to this place [the DSLH] says that when she entered early one
morning she found two or three boys sweeping the dining room floor,
several more making beds and still others with mops and pails washing
the hall floors. A little later boys were found in the kitchen doing
kitchen work, and other boys were setting table.
--The Lima Times Democrat, Feb. 8, 1902
The New York Times joked in 1902 that after all this, newsboys would make
good husbands.
Was there an age restriction?
All boys had to be under eighteen, though I have seen newspaper articles listings lodgers' ages as nineteen.
Who wasn't let in to spend the night?
Boys who were discovered to be simple runaways, without a good reason for
being away from home. They were sent home when found out.
Girls. There was a separate girls' lodging house in another part of the
city. Even holiday dinners at the DSLH, which were open to all lodging newsboys
and any friends they wanted to invite, did not allow girls.
(Women were not forbidden to simply enter, of course. Many did, as visitors
to special events held at the DSLH. At least one teacher was a woman, and some of the
day-time students were girls. The official 1900 census shows that the cook, servant, and house-keeper,
all of whom were women, lived at the DSLH. And, last
but not least, there were the Superintendent's wife and children, who also lived there.)
Known trouble-makers. For instance, on one occasion in 1895 several boys, who had been
sent to the Society's Farm School, ran away from work. When they tried to
return to the DSLH, they were not allowed back in.
Note, however, that the DSLH would "[reject] no boy on account of color, nationality or religion" (The Journal, Feb. 16, 1896).
Were there really never any girls at the DSLH?
There are two curious incidents:
1. "Joe"
In spring of 1904 a boy calling himself "Joe" showed up at the DSLH. He told of the
cruel treatment he'd had at home, leading his to running away. The other boys teased
him for his voice, nicknaming him "Sis." Joe was soon sent, willingly, to the Farm
School, where he was popular and did well. But he "developed sudden fits of bashfulness,
and in this way the secret came out." (The Galveston Daily News, May 6, 1904.)
Joe was actually Josephine Beck, a fourteen-year-old girl who had run away from her home
in Newark, NJ
two weeks before. She was immediately made to change back into a dress and was escorted
by a CAS employee back to NYC via train, where she was was reunited with her mother.
She had run away from home in her brother's and father's clothes. Her tales of cruel
home life appear to have been a fabrication; her brother revealed afterwards that she
had said she thought running away to live on her own would be "fun."
According to Supt. Heig, she was the only girl who'd ever stayed at the DSLH, and only
then because they hadn't known "he" was a she.
2. "Narrow Mike"
I could not possibly improve upon Supt. Heig's telling of the story:
"He was a youngster of Irish parents [...] left an orphan [...] [He decided]
that if he was a girl he could sell more papers than a newsboy could. What does he do but
buy a cheap outfit at some woman's clothing place and for a couple of months used to
leave here in boy's clothes and then put on the girl's dress in the vestibule and sell
his papers dressed this way. It proved a success and it was several months before the other
boys reported it to me. 'Mike' is now a lawyer in an up state [sic] city and I don't
think I ought to mention his name."
Lincoln Evening News, July 7, 1910
In addition, a more minor incident occurred just before the 1902
Thanksgiving dinner. Supt. Heig identified and pulled seven
newsgirls--dressed as newsboys--from
the crowd waiting to get into the dining-room. "No girls are allowed in
the lodging house, of course, but the Superintendent told them to come
back later and he would give them their dinner." (New York Times, Nov. 28, 1902)
Were pets allowed?
It appears dogs were allowed, although not in large numbers. An illustration from Darkness and Daylight
shows a dog lying at the boys' feet while the boys play dominoes on
what appears to be the third floor. A visitor to the DSLH in 1900 (Brooklyn Eagle,
Dec. 24, 1900) reported being almost attacked by a vicious dog on the
second floor (fortunately, one of the boys grabbed hold of it).
At some point during Supt. Heig's tenure, the LH's resident dog was a Russian poodle owned by Heig. He was
known as the "Walking Mudgutter" due to "his habit of flopping into every street puddle
he can find," and according to Heig was a great listener to the boys' troubles. One
incident was recorded (no date found yet) in which William Johnston, publisher of
Printers' Ink, was accosted by the dog during a visit to the DSLH. Fortunately, the
leg that the dog chose to bite was a wooden one, prompting Johnson to laughingly tell
Heig, "Let him chew away. I can stand it if he can. But I'm afraid he'll have
indigestion. If he wants to eat that leg, I can get another."
In its Sept. 13, 1892 issue Harper's Young People reported that the current resident
dog was named Carlo
and had belonged to the previous Superintendent (which would have been O'Connor, although
there is some discrepancy there: the article states that the previous Supt. passed away
"two years ago," whereas O'Connor had passed away in 1887). The article also related an incident
in
which Carlo followed two newsboys named Tip and Whitey to the Windsor Theatre; this small adventure resulted
in a fistfight with the usher and the boys' subsequent arrest. (The boys escaped a hefty five-dollar
fine the next morning by swaying the judge with a tearful explanation of the fight, which been in staunch defense of the dog.)