Show SADDCST PI ACt in NtW IOlI 4 ITIS BEYOND THE noon THAI IS NEVER CLOSED THE rOCNBMNO ASYLUM WHEKEr EVERY DAY IIA5 ITS TRAGEDIES f t t t THE OLD STORY OF HUMAN FRAILTY I New YorkThe middosl place In the city Do you know where It Is Do you think that some tlmy perhaps per-haps In your life you have found 117 Can you shut your eyes to the pros nit New York man or woman and I look back to that day when you found some ono you loved down In the silent morgue and say yes you know the place well the saddest place In New York Or remember one corner In some green cemetery where all your love lies burled and say no the place Is here Or look at some deserted home whore ghosts of a lost faith walk always and say no this Is tho saddest place of all for hero there In no hope But It is not so The saddest place in all New York Is not a spot determined deter-mined by the personal Individual loss of mere life or love or faith If It were every grave would claim tho title ti-tle and every broken heart dispute it It Is ono little room in a large building build-ing up on Sixtyeighth street Two sweeplpg rows of broad stone steps lead from tho street to the wldo doors Of tho main entrance These doors are always locked But under tho stone staircase right In the center opening directly on the street Is a lit tie low door that Is always open and it is the entrance to the saddest placo In New York It Is framed In clinging Ivy vines the little low door Above it on each aide of the stone stops droop weeping willow trees Higher still there stands in a niche the statue of a woman wom-an holding a child close to her breast And every woman who seeks tho lit tlo low door under tho Ivy vines holds a child close to her breast but when she comes away her arms aro empty For this Is the New York Foundling Asylum Anyone may enter through the doorway door-way There Is no one to stop you or question you as to why you have come You stand in a small square room Thero Is no carpet on the floor no pictures on tho walls Two settees stand one on each side of the room And between them is a little white cradle It Is very dainty and inviting that cradle Tho tiny blanket blan-ket and coverlet are soft and spotless spot-less the little baby pillow has a lace edged case and thero Is a pretty muslin mus-lin canopy draped above it In bassinet bas-sinet fashion But the room is not empty Pacing I I up and down the floor Is a woman hardly past girlhood Sho does not look very strong Her long brown chiffon veil Is thrown back from her face It Is a sweet face the features well cut and refined but white and wet with tears Close In her arms so closo that the little face is pressed next her cheek she holds a baby I hushing It to sleep Last Look at Her Child After awhile she lays it down gently in the little white cradle and stops to listen but there Is no sound and the door still stands open She may come or go as she pleases And standing a minute over tho sleeping baby she looks Into Its face for the last time It Is her baby Sho has given it birth and nurtured it Its little body is I healthy and flushed with the rose tint of palpitant life It Is not as th6URl > death had given her no choice In the matter 1 She huts absolute choice lither she may tako tho baby again to her breast and face the world with It or else she may go through tho little low door find leave It forever behind her Standing In the corildor beyond the little room I watched this mother She stood rocking tho cradle for about five mlufitos llor subbing ceased Once sho stooped and kissed the little face on the pillow Then suddenly sho let tho brown chiffon veil fall over her face and turning from the cradle wont quietly out of tho door and down the street And she did not come back After she went out of sight the Sis tor of Charity who sits In tho little office next to tho room with tho cradle went In and took the baby In her I arms It was well dressed and about four weeks old The sister touched a bell and presently a nurse came and took the baby away to the reception recep-tion ward That was all It was a common case Only ono more mother who had deserted her child only one moro baby foundling in Greater New York The sister smoothed the coverlet on the cradle shook up the pillow and loft It ready for the next one Now and then a strange figure comes to the little room a lone troubled figure Out of place and Incongruous In-congruous the figure will not bother over the appeal of the cradle but will go straight to the sister In tho office tt p4 1 t i r i i ill Ii T w AA i i t a + 1 I I I fl f T i and hand over the burden It carries to her These are the fathers And the most helpless object In tho world Is a man with a weok old baby In his arms trying to find out what It wants They rarely want to give up all claim to the babies the fathers It Is only because tho mother Is dead or has run away from home that they come to the Foundllns at all All they want Is for some one to take the weak fumbling crying blind kitten bundle out of tholr arms and care for It so they can go to work But most of the mothers are of that other great class the unwedded as tho sisters call them When a woman walks Into tho little lit-tle room and lays a child In tho cradlo without a tear or tho least hesitancy hes-itancy and goes hurriedly away the sister smiles and shakes her head That was not tho mother A mother always lingers Sometimes when they stay too long and the struggle strug-gle Is a hard one we talk with them Tho great trouble to an unmarried girl with a child Is that sho cannot obtain employment and tho baby Is too young to be left So It they aro willing we tako them hero for a month or three months We keep a record of each foundling and of the family It is adopted by but we do not tell the mothers where they are If they come back and ask It would not be fair to the adopted parents And they find good homes these little waifs Thero is ono family one of the wealthiest and best known socially In New York whoso oldest son and holr is a waif from tho Foundlings No I cannot give tho name It la years ago One winter night the family fam-ily physician sent hero for a baby Uo only wanted the loan of It for a few vookn as the wlfo had given birth to her first child and It had died She watt dangerously 111 and delirious and they were afraid unless un-less she had a child to nurso and lovo the shock would kill her So wo picked out the littlest baby of all a pretty boy hardly n week old and he was taken away In a carriage to ono of tho handsomest homes uptown Even for a loaned baby It I must havo been a pleasant experience For three or four weeks ho was treated Just exactly as the baby would havo been that died and tho mother knew no difference Then when she was strong enough they told her the truth But the borrowed baby never came back I those weeks of suffering suf-fering when the clasp of Its little hands and the touch of Its yearning lips had been all that had held her from death sho had grown to love it as her own and she kept it He Is a boy at college now and will never know that he was a foundling waif Thero was a step In tho little room and the sister glanced out A plump rosychecked girl of about 19 stood there staring happily around her Sho held out a fivedollar bill I would to get my baby out sho explained Two mont I leave him by you Now I get money and pay for him and get him back Could Bring Him Back Gently and tenderly the sister told her It was too late to got her boy back that she had left It for good and no money could bring him back to her The big round childish eyes I brimmed with tears she sank down I on one of the settees and poured out In broken stumbling English her story on tho sisters shoulder Sho was a young Hungarian girl who had been betrothed in the old country when she was 14 She had come to America alone Ho was to follow soon and they would work hard and savo and be married sure he promised prom-ised they would bo married before tho baby should come But ho never came And after the baby was born she must go to work right away quick so a girl told her another girl who had left her baby in the handy little white cradle too of the big building on Slxtyelgbth street where you could leave a baby and she had brought her baby boy and left it Dut now Julius was good again and ho had come over and married her and she wanted back her baby And sobbing hysterically she went out of the low door carrying back to Julius the news that It was too late Sometimes years afterward a mother will return seeking trace cf the child whom she deserted Sho may havo married happily and be an honored loved wife and mother but In spite of all there will ring In her ears the last cry of the baby she forsook for-sook and the memory of tho little frail bonds that clung to her and abe back to the little door under tho Ivy to seek her nameless foundling But the answer is always the same It Is too late Sonic other woman has taken tak-en tho waif to her hungry breast and mothered it and named it and tho little white cradlo is as barren of hope to the real mother as though it were a little narrow unmarked grave |