Or this, from Prof. Agassiz, embodied in an editorial article of the Boston _Herald_ of October 20, 1871:
"Year after year the chief of police publishes his statistics of prostitution in this city, but how few of the citizens bestow more than a passing thought upon the misery that they represent! Although these figures are large enough to make every lover of humanity hang his head with feelings of sorrow and shame at the picture, we are assured that they represent but a little, as it were, of the actual licentiousness that prevails among all classes of society. Within a few months, a gentleman (Prof. Agassiz) whose scientific attainments have made his name a household word in all lands, has personally investigated the subject, and the result has filled him with dismay, when he sees the depths of degradation to which men and women have fallen; he has almost lost faith in the boasted civilization of the XIXth century. In the course of his inquiries, he has visited both the well-known 'houses of pleasure' and the 'private establishments' scattered all over the city. He states that he has a list of both, with the street and number, the number of inmates, and many other facts that would perfectly astonish the people if made public. He freely conversed with the inmates, and the life histories that were revealed were sad indeed. To his utter surprise, a large proportion of the 'soiled doves' _traced their fall to influences that met them in the public schools_, and although Boston is justly proud of its schools, it would seem from his story that they need a thorough purification."
Or are we driven to the conclusion that the "injury" complained of is like that which was chronicled so long ago, as suffered by Haman at the hands of Mordecai?
"A single sect gets $1,396,388.51, besides a large slice of the city's real estate." This, of course, refers to the cathedral lots. That this "large slice" was fairly obtained, in the customary way of business, more than half a century ago, and at a time when no "Tammany Ring" existed, and when this "same sect" had no regularly consecrated place of worship in this city, so insignificant were its numbers, is notoriously a matter of record--known, indeed, of all men who choose to know; and the statement made in the "report" has been so often refuted, that the repetition of it now is disgraceful, and is simply a lie "well stuck to." As to the other leases mentioned "at a nominal rental," what matters it to anybody but Haman so long as the property, however now increased in value for building sites or other material advantage to the "money-changers," is devoted, as the report in question expressly admits, to the cause of education--of the education of "the children whose poverty prevented them from attending the public schools for want of clothing, and in many cases even of food"--as we are told in the following extract from the last published _Report_ of the Board of Public Instruction (city of New York) for 1871 (page 14): "It will be seen from the preceding statement" (showing the average attendance at the schools under the jurisdiction of the Board to be, for 1871, 103,481, and in 1870, 103,824) "that the attendance at the public schools has not increased, which is readily explained by the fact that many benevolent and charitable institutions have entered the educational field. In these institutions the children whose poverty prevented them from attending the public schools for want of clothing, and in many cases even of food, are provided for."