River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1888-02-09

4
wondering how a manufactures could
proftably sell cigars at SIPS, 81 so,
and 50 a box asked yourself who
made them! Did the ridiculous figure
and the more ridiculous weed ever
seem to your fancy to cover some
strange or morbid chapter of indus
trial life!
In that swarming district of New
York city known as the east side are
long lows of high and narrow tenne-
ment houses. Four, five and six stor-
les of cheap edifice are biseeted by a
narrow hall and stairway from front
to rear, and each half is in turn BIZ
sected by filthy cross hall in the mid
die of the building. Each of these
four quarters is an apartment. In the
smaller tenoments these apartments
contain two, in the larger four, but in
the greater majority of cases three
small, i'll lighted, poorly ventilated,
low ceiled and foul smelling rooms.
The tenants are seldom Americans,
seldom members of our cousin races,
the Germans, Irish and English.
Nearly all come from the prolific
southeast of Europe, and are of more
or less SlayOnic origin. Iu this mix
ture of races are Polaks, Sloyaks, BO-
hemians, Hungarians, Czechs, Rou-
manians. black and white Russians,
Wallachs, Bulgarians and Croats. In
fact, the whole ethnography of that
part of Europe is condensed into few
thickly populated New York blocks.
They crowd the apartments more like
bees in a hive than humble beings in
home. Not one set of two rooms
contains less than five souls; many
contain eight or ten. The average
number of tenants to an apartment is
seven; to floor, 80, and to a dumb
bell" as these ant heaps are termed i,
10.
And these apartments are more than
dwelling places. They are the work
shops where the cheap cigar is manu-
featured and the foreigners are its
makers. The buildings are owned by
the manufacturers. The rent $50 to
$40 per month"; is payable in advance,
and is deducted by the landlord from
the amount due the tenant for his work.
1t is almost needless to remark that
dispossess proceedings are rare in the
trade, though not quite unknown, as
the columns of the daily papers have
sometimes shown. The mode of work
is simple. The tenant presents himself
at the warerooms of his employers,
receives say so pounds of tobacco and
goes back with his load to his apart
ment. For this he must return 81
pounds of cigars, the additional pound
representing the increase in the weight
of the tobacco from the absorption of
the water used in moistening it during
the making. AS matter of fact, the
increase is really third of pound
To make up the difference, the work
man utilities every particle of dust
and waste. He soaks the stems in hot
water till they are soft, and then pounds
them out into fiat shreds. Taught dis
honesty by his superiors, he applies it
for his own benefit, and sends out his
children to gather cigar stumps and
clippings, spent tea leaves and even
dead leaves from the trees in the
street. He returns 81 pounds of
cigars with perfect regularity, but is
always provided with cigars and smok-
ing tobacco which cost him nothing.
The tobacco is stored i'll his rooms
in broken boxes and dilapidated milk
cans. 1t is everywhere else in his
apartment, on the door, walls, and
ceiling, in the furniture, wearing ap-
parel, and even in the food. An out
slider who enters for the first time
sneezes just as if he had taken snuff.
And those who live and work in the
atmosphere! They all show the symp-
toms of gradual nicotine poisoning,
hollow eyes set in dark circles, a SAL
low brown skin, irritated and irritable
nerves, heart disease, dyspepsia and
consumption.
The man, his wife and children,
working IA hours day, earn from 81
to SIS week. Out of this is deducted
the rent and the fines for poor work
manship. The pittance that remains
must clothe, feed and pay the other
expenses of life. 1t seldom does. and
crime, beggary and vice are called
upon to aid in filing the family ex-
chequer.
The children are sent ont to beg
and many of them pilfer. At all
hours of the day and evening they can
be seen carrying the boards and boxes
and relics they have picked up on the
streets. vegetables they have purloined
from grocers and meats they have
begged in the markets. AS they
grow older their degradation becomes
darker and deeper. The girls, know
ing no better, enter lives of shame
In many instances they are sold out
right by their parents to men who en-.
joy the possession of a cook, house
keeper and wife without any cere.
mony of mar rage.
1t is hardly necessary to state that
morality, education, decency and re-
ligion are at low ebb in this terrible
district. In some of the s'dumbbells"
they scarcely seem to exist. And vet
in the very heart of this population is
an ever increasing agitation. Blind.
ignorant, fanatical and half hopeless.
it takes refuge in schemes of anar-
chism, communism and nihilism.
which it would be we'll for thinking
men to consider. -PhiLadeIphid Ne,cs.
Tt is often thought that wine. and
beer, and spirits give strength to a
man; that they make the muscles con.
tract with more force, and sustain the
action. l have put this matter to the