The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1885-04-03
CHICAGO'S POOR.
PoLANDERS WHO LEFT RUSSIA FOR
THEIR cHILoREN'S SAKE.
'ShaIl They Remain Like Me-Know
Naught More Than the Beasts of the
FieIds'' the One Contin-
ual Cry.
tJanet Dale In Chicago News.l

[Janet Dale In Chicago Newsl
We have traversei Wesson street before.
We have penetrated many Of its wretched
homes together. You have brought aid to
those here who were starving, sick, and de.
spairing You knew all its phases q year
ago-its double row Of houses crowded to
overfiowing with human beings. The mar
row thoroughfare seems less filthy than then.
Creator cleanliness comes to 1t with greater
prosperity. There are fewer people along it
in need Of help than there were year ago.
Then the dogs were snarling and wrangling
over some fieshless bones, while now they sit
contentedly near their own doorsteps, or re-
main within near the fire with the children,
for hunger does not drive them forth this
winter to search for cast-away bits Of food
You have paused at this door before-you
have entered the house, but never that por-
tion Of it where we will now 60. Up the
old steps, along the narrow passage, and
then down another fight Of stairs even less
secure than the first At the foot we turn
our faces toward the street and notice n low,
black door in under tho stairs You think
no one can dwell within. You say no human
being would think Of living here; that this
is but the rough plank foundation to support
with manure to keep the frost from entering,
row here. Yet there are men
and women and little children
who call this place home. We push open
this little black door All within is dark
ness At our call a door far around to the
left, is opened, and faint streak Of light
from a rear window guides to where a
woman stands holding barefooted, fretting
baby. Its small toes are purple with the
cold, and the frosted skin is peeling off from
them. Two other children, also barefoot,
are in the room. There is no fire in the
small stove There is one wretcned bed, des-
titute of sheets, its only covering an oil
blanket or two. The woman stares inguir
ingly at us. She speaks no English or Ger
man. She is n Russian Pole. Generations of
repression, generations of suffering from
cold, hunger and brutal treatment, are
stamped on her face. When we speak to
her she runs quickly out and brings in a lad
TO act as interpreter. "Her name" says this
boy, "is Mariana Wynderche. They came
to America in July. Why did they comet
Because it is SO bad in Russia for the
Poles"
But could they live there and have less
than they have hereF l asked, in surprise.
For answer he turns to her and repeats my
words.
"Shs says" he answers, that may be
never will she be bettered by coming here,
but that her children will. There, she says,
her children could look for nothing better
than what their fathers and mothers have
borne. Here they have a chance. She says
she will send them to school that they may
learn. Her man is a molder, but he
md In tali rnh lut
Polish. So he picks rags, but the snow has
covered all the rags Sons days she says,
they have something to eat; some days
nothing. To-day they have NJ fire. To-
morrow, perhaps they may have, for her
man may find some cinders or bits Of wood.
She says it Is no worse than Russia, and by
and by the children will do better"
Meantime the two tiny, low rooms are
freless; there Is not q morsel of food in
them. Not soul whose shelter they are
has broken fast to-day. The two older
children utter no llment; only the babe
keeps up a ceaseless, fretful complaint
of its misery. 1t is but a little they ie-
quire to make life more than endura-
BILE, for with these folk q little goes a great
way. The woman is not stupid because she
weeps not nor makes complaint Hers il the
stolidity of endurance But she stoops with
q sudden gesture and kisses my hand as /
give her a coin. When we return to tho
light see something glistening upon it. Is
it bit of melted snowl
Down In the rear Of another number we
knocked loudly at another door. A woman
opens it She is clad in divers rags. One
foot IL encased In an old rubber; the other in
the portion Of a boot. Presently she ex-
plains to US through an interpreter that she
folni them in an ash hsap. There is no fire
here, either. Some half-charred pieces of
pine lay by the stove. These, too, she picked
out OF an ash heap.
"She say, oh! SO cold were they many
nights,' tells the interpreter. "Neither she
nor her two little girls could stay in the bed.
They must walk walk, all night to keep
from the death
The two pretty children look at him as he
tells the story. and the smaller one shivers in
remembrance of the last nights torture,
Even with our heavy wrap we are chilled
now, in the daytime, by the atmosphere Of
the room.
The woman is a widow, and her name Is
Eve Hohovitch. IL is the same story she
tells as the one before her.
Il came that my little girls could be bet
ter in their life than me- What had they
to hope forP She stretches out her hands
Her voice is even-keyed but harsh But her
gestures are as impassoned and expressive
as tragedienne's What has her existence
been but a tragedy
II would have the clothes and shoes that
they may go to school and learn" she con-
tinues. "Shall they remain like me-know
naught more than the beasts in the stable
now that / have got them to Americai
What Is it may do! Nothing but to feed
the pigs and dig in the earth. IL kept my
children in Russia not more would they
know, nor yet their children. I come here
and now cannot cover them that they may
go to the great schools; ! cannot keep the
hunger or the cold from themn
She differs from her neighbor inasmuch as
she chafes in the bonds Of her poverty. She
has none of the calm endurance which char
acterzes the other woman. Russian despot-
ism has been unable to crush entirely out Of
her the brave old spirit of Poland.
II would" she says. "that might find in
the springtime some place on ons OF the great
American farms where could take my little
girls with me. Where / could house them
and feed them and send them to school"
The one continual cry of these people, @Let
our children learn that they may be better
Off than usn II can work quite like man."
she declares; II can plant and hoe and rake;
/ can work In the grain-felds; / can
milk clean the stables and feed the pigs; but
] cannot sew, nor wash, nor do the nice
housework that Americans have / win
work very hard for little IL can find this
place and take my children"