Hatch's ledgers show that he gave the mission a lot of money--picking up a slew of expenses. At the same time, he must have leaned on his friends and business colleagues to do the same. In the publication are listed over 700 "Contributions in Cash" including the following:

    Maggie P. Cox, "per A. S .H." $25.00
    Friend, "per A. S .H." 15.00
    Friend, "per A. S .H." 10.00
    J. Lounsbury, "per A.S. H." 20.00
    Mr. Hutchinson " " 2.00
    M. Clark " " 2.00
    W.H. Dickinson " " 5.00
    Friend " " 1.00
    Willie and Bella " " 2.00
    E. E. Chase, "per A.S. H." 20.00

    During the year 1882, The Howard Mission reported revenues of $24,276.94 (nearly $500,000 in today's dollars) plus a vast load of in-kind gifts of food and clothing. That year, it engaged in the following activities:

Enter Jerry McAuley

Jerry McAuley started life as a truly bad man. Born in Ireland in 1839, his confession can be found in Tract 303 of the Liberty Prison Ministries:

    I was born in Ireland. Our family was broken up by sin, for my father was a counterfeiter and left home to escape the law, before I knew him. I was placed at a very early age in the family of my grandmother, who was a devout Catholic.

    I was never taught or sent to school, but left to have my own way; to roam about in idleness, doing mischief continually, and suffering from the cruel and harsh treatment of those who had the care of me.

    At the age of thirteen I was sent to this country, to the care of a married sister in New York City. Here I ran errands in the family, and assisted my brother-in-law in his business, and soon, by the practice of little tricks, became well-used to dishonesty, and was as great a rogue as one of my years could be. After a while I felt I could live by my own wits, and left my sister's home to take care of myself. I took board in a family in Water Street, where were two young men with whom I associated myself in business. I earned what I could, and stole the rest, to supply my daily wants.

    We had a boat, by means of which we boarded vessels in the night, stealing whatever we could lay our hands on. Here I began my career as a river thief. In the daytime we went up into the city and sold our ill-gotten goods, and with the proceeds dressed up, and then spent our time, as long as our money lasted, in the vile dens of Water Street, practicing all sorts of wickedness. Here I learned to be a prizefighter, and by degrees, rapid degrees, rose through all the grades of vice and crime, till I became a terror and a nuisance in the Fourth Ward.

    I was only nineteen years of age when I was arrested for highway robbery--a child in years, but a man in sin. I knew nothing of the criminal act which was charged to my account; but the rum sellers and inhabitants of the Fourth Ward hated me for all my evil ways and were glad to get rid of me. So they swore the robbery on me, and I couldn't help myself. I had no friends, no advocate at court (it is a bad thing, sinners, not to have an advocate at court), and without any just cause I was sentenced to fifteen years in State Prison. I burned with vengeance; but what could I do! I was handcuffed, and sent in the cars to Sing-Sing.

    McAuley underwent a religious conversion in Sing Sing. He was pardoned and set free half way through his sentence.

    One week, McAuley went on a bender, drinking himself to insensibility. That Sunday, he stumbled into the Howard Street Mission while the Sunday school children were singing and saw on the platform A.S. Hatch, to whom he had been recently introduced. McAuley:

    [Hatch]looked at me and recognized me with a friendly smile and nod. I felt ashamed to look him in the face. Just before the meeting closed I got up and slipped out of the door for fear he would come and speak to me. I did not want him to know that I had been going wrong. But he was too quick for me. He caught me in the passage outside the chapel door before I could get down the steps. He held out his hand, and, seeing my downcast looks, said, "What is the matter, Jerry?" I held back my hand and said, "I am not fit for you to speak to me." He said "Why, what is the trouble; tell me all about it?" I then said, "I have been in hell for three days," and I told him what had happened. He gave me a warm squeeze of the hand, and then, putting both his hands on my shoulders and looking me straight in the eye, with his own moist with sympathy, he said, "Don't give it up, Jerry; try again, and keep trying, and hold on to Jesus." His words and look and hearty grip strengthened and encouraged me wonderfully.

    Alfrederick Smith Hatch wrote:

    While Jerry was out of work, before he got steady employment, he used to come to me once in a while to see if I could put him on the track of something to do. One day I said to him, "Jerry, I have got a job for you if you will take it." His eyes brightened.

    "I'll take anything that's honest," he said.
   
    "Well, Jerry," I said," I have got a little yacht down in Gowanus Bay, that wants watching until I can sell it. Now I want you to go and live on it, and take good care of it, keep everything clean and in good order, and see that nobody runs off with anything, and I will pay you $-- a month and your grub."
   
"Will you trust me to do that?" he said, with an expression on his face that, between what was to him the comical side of anybody trusting him with valuable property, and the emotion which the idea of being trusted awakened when he had fairly taken it in, was a study. The unaccustomed luxury of feeling that he was trusted got the upper hand, and his eyes filled with tears.

    The bargain was struck, and the next day Jerry took up his quarters on the little vessel. The boat had a lot of silver-plated ware on board of no great value; but, as Jerry told me afterwards, he thought it was "all solid silver, and worth a mint of money." Knowing that Gowanus Bay was infested with river thieves, he was greatly oppressed with the responsibility, and used to lie awake nights with his revolver cocked, and jump up and creep out on deck at the slightest sound of the stealthy dipping of oars. He told me afterwards that he was haunted with the fear that something might be stolen from the boat, and that when it was missed I would think he had betrayed his trust, and he determined that if anybody got anything out of that boat, it should be over his dead body.

    "After you had trusted me, I couldn't stand it, you know, to have you think ill of me, and I would have died first," he said. Jerry often used to tell this story, portraying his anxieties and describing his night encounters with imaginary river thieves, with inimitable effect, and would say, "When I found I was trusted like that by a man who knew all about my past life, I began to respect myself and think, 'Jerry McAuley, there is a chance for you after all, and you will be somebody yet before you know it,' and it gave me a big boost."

    The yacht McAuley tended was Escort and Hatch's ledgers indicate he paid McAuley $139.00 during the months of July and August 1868 before she was sold for $2,500.00.
Jerry eventually found steady work and began to discover he had a higher calling. He wrote in his autobiography:

    One day I had a sort of trance or vision. I was singing at my work, and my mind became absorbed, and it seemed as if I was working for the Lord down in the Fourth Ward. I had a house, and people were coming in. There was a bath, and as they came in I washed and cleansed them outside, and the Lord cleansed them inside. They came at the first by small numbers, then by hundreds, and afterwards by thousands.

    Before I came out of this vision I was in tears. Then something said to me, "Would you do that for the Lord if he should call you? Would you do it for Jesus' sake?" And I answered, "Yes, Lord, open the way, and I will go." I felt that I could go down there where I had always lived. I was used to the filth and misery and drunkenness and I wasn't afraid of them. I felt sure I should be called to work for Jesus down there.

    A little while after that my health gave way, and I took a vacation. I went with my wife to Sea Cliff, to attend the camp meeting. All the time the thought of this work pressing upon me, and I prayed God to open the way for me to talk to the Christian people there about it. He gave me the opportunity. From there I went to Sing-Sing campground, and presented it, and afterwards to Ocean Grove. Many were interested in the proposed work, and gave me larger or smaller sums to help it along, until I held in trust four hundred and fifty dollars.

    Then the Lord opened the way for me to begin the work in a small way at 316 Water Street, next door to where John Allen's dance-house used to be, and where the meetings had been held in which I had first testified for Jesus after I had been brought back to him in the way I have related. The house had previously been a notorious dance house of the worst sort. At the time of the John Allen excitement as it was called, of which I have already spoken, my friend Mr. Hatch had bought the lease of the house; the dance-house people had been turned out with all their ungodly traps, and the building opened for a mission. Afterwards when the lease had run out and the owner wouldn't renew it. Mr. Hatch bought the property so that it might be kept for a mission. There were a good many around there who would have been glad to see it turned into a devil's mission again; but they were disappointed."

    At the time when the Lord put it into my heart to begin a mission, the house was occupied as a kind of side-station by the City Mission and Tract Society, to whom Mr. H. had given the use of it.
    I went to him one Sunday at the Howard Mission and told him about what I wanted to do, and about the four hundred and fifty dollars that I had raised. He seemed to discourage me a little at first. He said, "Jerry, if you start a mission you will have to give your time to it; you have got a good situation and good wages, where you are respected and trusted, which you will have to give up. Don't you think you can serve God and do good and earn your bread and butter at the same time right where you are?" I thought then, and I knew afterwards, that he was trying me to see how much I was in earnest. I told him my heart was set on working for the salvation of such as I used to be; that I was sure the Lord had put me up to it, and that I was willing to trust Him. He looked at me a minute, and then, putting his hand on my shoulder, and smiling as if convinced, he said, "Well, Jerry, there is the old house in Water Street; it belongs to me; you may have the use of that. I will speak to the City Mission people and get them to give it up; go ahead, and God bless you. I will help you all I can."

    The City Mission and Tract Society, at his suggestion, cheerfully consented to leave the house at our disposal. We went down there in October, 1872, laid out the four hundred and fifty dollars in cleaning and repairing the house, and opened the place as a resort for the forlorn wayfarers, sailors, and others who frequented the locality. We put up a sign, "Helping Hand for Men," which has been the guide-board to bring many a poor soul to the foot of the cross.

    Jerry McAuley's Helping Hand for Men became the very first rescue mission in the United States. During the first year of this useful work, 26,261 meals were furnished to hungry men, lodgings were given to 5,144, and a great deal of clothing was supplied.

    In the words of the Christian Hall of Fame biography of Jerry McAuley:

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