"New York and the Colored People" was the general topic tor discussion yesterday at the March conference on the evils of pauperism held in the assembly hall of the United Charities Building, 106 East Twenty-second Street. Introduced only by his non-committal subject on the programme, "My Colored Violin Teacher," David Mannes told the story of his first legitimate musical instruction, of his first direction on the right path of musical study, and of how, years later, he tried to pay his debt by inaugurating the Musical School Settlement for Negroes, now advancing through its first season with 150 pupils. Mr. Mannes, who is a brother-in-law of Walter Damrosch, is the director of the New York Music School Settlement, and the concert master of the New York Symphony Orchestra, but he was once a very poor boy, whose first handling of the violin had been guided only by an itinerant music teacher. It was then that he met Charles Douglas, and the story he told yesterday was the story of Charles Douglass.