The advocate and Topeka tribune. [volume], December 28, 1892, Page 10, Image 10

About The advocate and Topeka tribune. [volume] (Topeka, Kan.) 1892-1894

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10
EVI0TI0I3 I3T NEW YOSTS TENE
MENT HOUSES.
(Continued from page 8.)
great cosmopolitan and poverty-stricken
region of New York city. Ita record
eviction cases in 1880-91 was not aa large
blocks within bloefcs.-inside tenements at nt Fourth district, but th
orreart8nements.ua thev.are called.- vear he are considerably in ex
where the cheerins ravs of the sun never 0688 of 111066 Baown by ita crowded rival
penetrate, and where the howl of the whioh i0"58 For the twelve months
hunirrv wolf of Dovertv constantlv men- preceding October last, the figures were
aces the dirtv. semi-savage denizens who I distributed thus:
...... vi. a i.j. I October, 1391 ... .. 490 May. in 457
MUi iu uicwuuiuiiuuiYw. I November, 1891,. .. 635 JIM, 1892,
"MV .Tnvth Piin infarootinr wftrlr HflWIIlbV. 1K91.. 612 July. 1892.
7 , . ;r 7 ' JfT.i eis AuKut.i892 517
iiow we umer xiair .uives, ' rnree moruaiy. ikb 447 eeptemoer, i8'J2... 674
v j -j . I March. 1892 402
uunureu ana imiij iuuubuuu uau over 01 1 April, 1892 656 Tota', 6,100
human beings to tbe square mile is the
Among those 6,100 dispossess warrants
record of this New York's East End. or "sentences of death," as they have
The worst record of that other East End been called in Ireland, there were many
in old London scarce ever reached half cases of bitter destitution. There were
that figure. It has to be; the rent could I also some painful evidences of the terri
not be paid out of the sweaters' wages if bis greed of the landlords who charge
it were not so." It has to be; the rent the incredible rents they exact from the
must be paid! Therefore men and women tenants in their stifling hovels. I was
huddle together like rats in their holes, I told of a woman in James street who 00
and all for what? In order to payjoupied a room for which she paid $3
" Thirteen dollars a month for the flat on month rent She became ill, and owed
the sixth floor, with modern conveniences her landlord $1.50. He hastened to Jus
a sink and a pump in the hallway. By tice Goldfogle and obtained a dispossess
day they crowd together men, women warrant. There was no other alternative
and children, a dozen in a room made to for the justice. In the meantime the
hold a couple. Father, mcther, twelve I woman had applied to the commissioners
children, and six boarders in this apart-1 of charities and correction for relief. The
ment of three rooms. Thirteen I superintendent of out-door poor ordered
in a room lodgers, half of them at 5 1 a half ton of coal to be sent to her home.
cents a spot; asleep on bunks, on shelves, J The woman was about to store away the
on the floor anywhere, to be sheltered I coal when the landlord arrived with his
from the wind that finds its way through I warrant for the half month's rent. Here,
cracks and chinks with the only breath you, where are you going with that
of God's fresh air that ever enters." It coal?" he asked, as he blocked the
is in this district that with the year end- wo&n's way. She replied that she was
ing on September 30, 1892, the enormous going to put it in the cellar locker. "Oh,
number of 5,450 dispossess warrants were! no," he thundered, "you don't do any
issued from Judge btecklers court. I such thing. I have a warrant for your
These were distributed over the year as dispossession. Get out!" In vain the
foUows: I woman pleaded. He would not give ber
November, 1801.... boo June, i8u. m a day's grace. At last a happy thought
December. 1891.... 4 July, 1802 4M etrnck bar and fihA iwlrad "Will vnn
Jannry. 1892 4ro Anju'.i892 4M BlTUCK ner ana Bne asKea, win you
Kbrnrv. 1802 4oo Beptemoer, 1892. .. 460 take th coal in payment for my rent ? "
April, 1892 '. ! coo Total 5.450 He would, and he did, becauee the coal
Judge Steckler states that there has I was worth 12.75, and he consequently
been an abnormal growth of evictions in I gained $1.25 on the transaction. So he
his district in consequence of the recent I removed the coal, and the woman was
extraordinary immigration from Bussia. I allowed to remain. As soon as tbe month
Most of these unfortunates sek refuge in I was up, the rascally landlord got another
what was known as the old Eighth As-1 warrant, and threw the poor creature
sembly district, where the density of I into th street In another instance a
population is greatest, and the slaves of woman living in Ninth street appeared
the " sweater " are most numerous, in court to defend an ejectment suit She
"Hundreds of cases full of the most was a picture of dreary, dismal poverty.
pathetio disclosures are constantly crop-1 Her clothes were tattered, her shoes were
ping up in my court," said the justice. I "out at the heel," her features bore that
" I have made it a strict rule to carefully I unmistakable evidence of hunger's rav
investigate all landlord and tenant cases, I ages that cannot be concealed, and which
and where I find a worthy defendant I is unhappily too often witnessed on
rarely set the maohinery of law in motion I Gotham's East Side. In her armB she
without first making an effort to have the! carried a pinched-looking little baby.
landlord give a little further period of I There were neither shoes or stockings on
grace, I have rarely boen deceived by I its feet, and it was clad in the miserable
these poor people. Sometimes I find a I habilaments that tell of deep, desperate
'rounder' who makes it a point to move I penury. The couple looked as if they
from house to house and never pay rent I had been suddenly picked up by some
For these there is no sympathy. On the genii on the barren hills of Donegal, and
whole, however,the people who are proceeded J whisked through the air into the heart
against are without a cent they can call of New York. The landlord asked for a
their own. It is a mystery to me how I "dispossess warrant" He pressed his
they manage to drag on an existence. It I suit Yigorjus'y in epite of the kind-
happens, in the great majority of cases I hearted justice's appeal to his humanity,
which come to my court, that the de- He would not listen to suoh sentimental
fondants have been peculiarly ' unlucky; I rubbish as that when his business inter
they have been unable to secure employ- ests were involved. The facts were that
meet; they have been laid up with sick- this woman did not pay her rent, and he
ness; or perhaps the visitation of death wanted to let the apartments to some
to their households has depleted their re- one who would pay, and that was the
sources so that the payment of rent is an long and short of it , The woman tear
impossibility. With the landlords of fully repeated the story that is so sadly
such people I sometimes manage to rea- frequent in these civil courts. Her hus
son, and so obtain an extension of time, band was sick; she had not any means
Perhaps the granting of a week's grace of earning a living, and all she wanted
will give these poor people a chance to was a little time until "her man" would
get upon their feet, and resume their get well. The landlord would not allow
struggle agint a poverty that i$ as hope- the time. The justice turned upon him
less as it it cruel" and gave him such a rating as made the
The Fifth judicial district that looked spectator in the court applaud. Then he
after by Justice Goldfogle is the other t headed a subscription list; and in. t9,
minutes Court Officer McLarney had
collected $26, which he gave to the poor
woman. She paid her rent, $12, and
went away with blessings on her lips. It
was the sight of a life to see that baby
gorge itself in a little restaurant in the
neighborhood, just as soon as its half
starved mother could purchase some
thing to eat
But there were hundreds of cases like
these arising in the court every year, and
it would be manifestly impossible to take
up subscriptions for all of them. There
were scores of them also in the Seventh
judicial district which embraces another
peculiar element of New York's varied
population. It is in this district that the
big tenement house cigar factories
thrive. All along First avenue from
Seventieth to Eightieth streets, those
hives of sad eyed Hungarian toilers rear
their cornices six and seven stories above
the ground. The cigar manufacturers
own these tenements, and it might safely
be added that they own the tenants who
are packed into them. That is why the
public is shocked occasionally by the an
nouncement that scores of these
wretched tenement slaves are thrown
out on the cobblestones because they
will not accept a cut iu wages, or because
they dare to ask for anything like enough
to pay them for their work. List year
the spectacle of eighty of these hapless
families living for a week on the sidewalks
was the feature of New York's civilization
that made English visitors smile in deris
ion and remark, as one of them did in
the Brevoort House: "Well! Ireland is
not so badly off under its English land
lords after all There an evicted tenant
has a fund on which to draw, contributed
by Americans. Here the evicted one has
the workhousel" There was no ex
aggeration of the facts in that statement,
None of the tenement house cigar-mak
ers can shelter an evicted cigar-maker's
family. If such a thing should be done,
out that offending Samaritan would go!
In that district last year there were
3,800 dispossess warrants issued. They
averaged about 320 a month. Though
the region embraced by the Seventh
takes in the "diamond back" localities of
Fifth and Madison avenues, it is pretty
safe to say that none of the " dispossess
warrants" found their way into the brown
stone mansions that line these handsome
streets, but a good many of the " sen
tences of death " emanated from those
plutocratic palaces. It was in Justice
Clancy's court down in the Second dis
trict that a very sad case occurred.
Business interests are fast crowding the
poor out of this region, but still there
were 1,350 cases of eviction last year,
and one of the most pathetio of these
was that of a woman who gave birth to
baby the day after she was turned out
of her home. In the thinly peopled
First district there were 1.220 cases. In
the Third there were 2.100; Sixth, 3,400;
Eighth, 250; Ninth, 1.970; Tenth, 1,130;
and Eleventh 050, making a grand total
for the city for twelve months of 29,720,
being 5,825 more than were issued for
the year 1890, and 2,615 more than the
figures for the previous year. This total
of 29,720 cases would represent at the
fair average of five to a family a great
army of 118,600 human beings, outcasts
to all intents and purposes, and this in a
city where it is the boast of some of its
residents that there are living within a
radius of a comparatively few blocka on
and near Fifth avenue no less than 200
millionaires whone aggregate wealth
reaches the astounding total of $30,000,-
000,000! It is but the emphasis needed
prove that the warning truth of the
doctrine of inverse ratios is correct when
applied to humanity in New York city j
for here, indeed, the rich are growing
richer and the poor desperately poorer!
" What becomes of these people?" Dr.
McGlynn asks that question, and answers
it thus: "Where do all the pins go?
They are broken up, ground down, lost
in the general mass. Tha poor take in v
many of them, the asylums and institu
tions care for others." Ah, yes, good
doctor, but how many continue to drift
around on life's breakers? how many
give up the struggle against hope and
fate? how many become thieves and
criminals? how many take to the pave
ments and the bagnios? The answer
may be found in the police returns for
tbe year ended. There were 88,152 arrests,
of which 24,350 were females. Lodgings
were furnished a total of 126380 times,
the homeless lodgers being 68,854 males
and 54,426 females. Four hundred and
ninety-two " unknowns " were buried in
potter's field during the year, of whom
ninety-three were picked up in the rivers.
thirty-nine souarht death by poison, the
piBwji was usea oj sixty-one, tne rope
was chosen by thirty, gas asphyxiation
killed nineteen, chloroform was selected
by one unfortunate, four jumped from
buildings, and twenty stabbed or hacked
tnemselves to death. These figures tell
where some of the weary evicted ones
have gone. The rest are teraing in the
stale-beer dives, in the slums, in the
workhouses, m the penitentiaries, and
the lunatic asylums.
Justice Goldfogle does not assume the
parrot cry of the skeptical. He does not
say, "Drink did it." He ought to know,
for the worst of these cases pass through
his court What then, is it? It is the
struggle of the pitchfork against old
ocean repeated, with the odds intensified
in favor of the ocean. It is so with the
hapless ones of Gotham. The odds are
too much in favor of the landlords, who
can fix their rents to suit themselves.
The toilers must live somewhere, even if
one half of their lives is devoted to the
effort to pay their rent" The courts
must see that the rent is paid or that the
tenant goes into the street. What be
comes of the tenant afterward is nobody's 'I
business, unless the police have occasion (
to look after him or the morgue-keeper
fixes him in a deal box for interment in
the home of the desolate on Hurt's Island
potter s field.
New York, with all its noble charities.
has not one to take in hand the cases of '
deserving people who are yearly turned t
adrift from their homes. The depart
ment of charities and correction spends
about $1,000,000 a year on charity, while
the city pays over $5,000,000 to its
pampered police force. It is thus in
proportion with other departments.
Generous salaries are paid to every em
ploye of the city government, so that
this year we have a budget callinjfor
$33,725,555-84, and of this vast sum only
$2,170,000 has been alloted to the double
purpose of charity and correction. In
the face of this state of things. Justice
Goldfogle suggests a very practical idea.
The charities of the city might combine,
he thinks, and establish a' fund for the
relief of such cases as arise in the civil
courts where deserving people are liable
to be evicted who owe very small amounts.
A responsible man should be placed in
each court; and when the justice meets
with a case in which he sees direct evi
dence of deserving want it might be re
ferred to the representative of the chari
ties, who would investigate and report
back to the justice. He then might give
recommendation to the charities to nav
the amount required to keep the person
investigated in a home, or civs the land.
lord his decree if the circumstances
called for such course. It would be a
little step in the direction of relief before
the real reform comes. It would save
thousands of the luckless victims of
poverty frem being cast into the streets
in the biting colds of winter's snows. It
would prevent the recurrence of repug
nant spectacles like that displayed by
poor Mrs. Goddy. It might save many
nomeless young woman fromdemw-
tely bartering away her virtue to pro-
vide a home for a sick mother, a fret
some, emaciated sister, or a starving self.
Such sacrifices are horribly frequent aa
is shown by the records of the mirht
missions and refuges of the slums. The
exercise of a little practical philanthropy
in the line suggested would helD to ward
off, for a time at least, the inevitable
dead wagon" and ghastly pine box of