The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1876-01-14
NEW YORK, Jan. y, 1876.
NEW YEARS.

NEW YORK, Jan. y, 1876.
NEW YEARS.
The week before New Year was one of |
fogs and rains, as those the
English grJmble about. The last day
of the year closed in heavy rain, which
cleared in the evening, in the most amia-
bic way. Watchers that night were
startled by a sudden vehement din break
ing the soft air, but the next minute
smiled-''it is three quarters past eleven"
Every fire bell in the city was to be
struck at once at midnight, and the
church chimes were to begin a quarter
of an hour before. But the impatient
sons Of liberty had caught the first peal
as a signal to begin thsir own private
rejoicings in their own way, aud they
literally ''nade things hum" The
steamers sounded their whistles and fog
horns, and every fire, factory, and
church bell swung recklessly. 1t was
impossible to distinguish anything; the
air was full of loud humning, in which
broken notes of bells, fog-borns, screams,
and reports of rockets, were mixed like
mad,-for the coming-in of the hum
dredth year The morning was so love-
ly it was a mockery to call it a winters
day-for it smiled clear and soft as April.
CALLS AND CALLEKs-
Calls were made and received in
more economical way than for years
past. The attention of gentlemen was
largely paid to reducing their carriage
expenses, and most took the short cut
TO do this by going on foot. Men who
speut twenty-five dollars for carriage
hire last New Year, gleefully told how
they brought it down to eight dollars
for this. The pleasant mildness of the
day gave us the funny spectacle OF su-
perfine calls going their rounds in full
dress suits. As If a lady should parade
Broadway in a trained dress, with a lace
cape on her bosom.
THE HELPLESS POOR.
Vigorous efforts are made by the Be-
nevolent Societies to provide for the
helpless poor, before the cold, which we
are taught will strengthen as days begin
to lengthen. Soup-houses are set up in
different parts of the city, where hot,
nourishing meal is given for about six
cents and several decent free lodging
F.
deserving poor: leaving the station
houses to keep the professional tramps
and beggars. Two things are wanting to
make the life of the poor in New York
and elsewhere anything but intolerable
The first is decent lodgings, and provis-
ions at low rate. 1t is true that rents
and expenses in general are three times
as high here as they are in London;
fact which weighs heavily on the rich,
and is all but extinction to the poor.
High rents force the price of everything
up to correspond, in order to pay them.
Nor need any of your readers think this
is matter which does not concern them;
for the tendency of prices, of work and
produce, in other towns, tends to that of
the great centres. Servants measure
their wages, and merchants their gains,
by the prices in New York. There isn't
a village where this is read, that people
do not charge as near the regular rates
of the cities. as they dare. There is not
a town in the States that is not inter
ested. for its own sake, in the condition
of things here; because it tmust feel their
influence sooner or later. The Only
comfort of hard times, is that they must
bring living down for rich and poor.
The exorbitance of rents charged in ten
ement houses is frightful. 1t is fact
that the swarining, squalid tenements
on filthy streets bring in more rent than
uptown dwellings. Not an attic closet,
with half the LASS out of the panes,
grimy and decayed, but brings its four
dollars a month to the owner. And
there will be forty rooms in a building,
the most decent ones calling for ten dol
lars to fifteen dollars a month; this, in
the poorest class of tenements.
MR. BOWEN.
The fact that it has been made to ap-
pear that Mr.. Bowen's paper, The Inde-
penpent, was used, to some extent, to
further the Pacific railroad scheme, is
animadverted upon severely. 1t is as
tonishing how wise people are, after the
fact. At the time The Independent was
urging the building of the road, that
paper. like every other one in the United
States, believed not only in Jay Cooke,
but in the road Jay Cooke was sup
posed to be strong enough to carry the
enterprise to a successful end, and The
Independent is no more to be blamed
for assisting him, than are the depositors
who had their money in his bank for
losing it. | should like to go through
the safes of some of the papers that
abusing Mr.. Bowen, and see if couldn't
find some of those terrible bonds therein.
The most of them had some of that
pork. and | believe they all came hon.
estly by it. The fact is, Mr.. Bowen did
what every newspaper man did, he
worked for what he believed to be
good thing, and was paid for it only
what he should have been. 1t is queer
that it statesman, like a dozen could
mention, should have his expenses paid
for advocating a scheme. and newspa-
per should not. The fact that it failed
makes no difference. have known
quite number of very excellent schemes
that have failed. Jay Cooke has gone,
but the road will yet be built, and Mr..
Bowen will live to read his articles in its
advocacy, with much satisfaction and
right. Here let me say that those who
are abusing Mr.. Cooks are not doing tie
incest thing in nature. When he was
prosperous, and carrying on great en-
terprises, he was the most popular man
in America. 1t is only since he sue
cumbed to circumstances that would
have crushed any one, that he is count
/ Il would