Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-03-30
TWO DAYS STARVING.
A Case Of Destitution Found by the
Police in Plenty's Midst.
DIRT AND sQUALOR THE FEATURES
The Police Inspector Fills Six Children Be-
fore They Are Washed.
FATHER MISSING AND MOTHER DRUNK

The necessity of having branch library,
o soup house, or an educational Institution
Of some kind to teach literature on the
Chatterton starvation principles, or Chris
tian resignation on ideas of full stomach,
was very fully demonstrated yesterday.
The Penn avenue police notified Inspector
McAleese yesterday morning that family
was suffering from destitution in building
known as the Eagles Nest" on Twentieth
street, near the alley below Penn avenue.
The Inspector telephoned for NJ. j. Dean
to accompany him for an inspection of the
case, and found within baseball throw of
fine residences, offices of millionaire manu-
facturers, and amid the haunts of prosper
Gus workingmen, mother and six children
could be left without food. The rarity of
Christian charity to innocent children, how
ever guilty their parents, was exemplifed
Dy the investigation made by Inspector Nc
Aleese about P. NJ. yesterday, His own
description of the scene will best show what
it was.
81 never saw anything SO repugnant in
my life" said he. "There is large buiid-
ing there with porches running along both
sides, at the corner of the alley, the rooms
numbered just as hotel would have its
rooms designated for the benefit of drowsy
guests. We stopped at No. IL and knocked
several times at the door, at last arousing
the inmates. The door was opened by an
S-year-old bog, who said his name was Mike,
and we entered, meeting the mother, Mrs.
Brown, who told us story but only too
well borne out by the surroundings.
A PICTURE OF WANT
"There were no chairs in the room, and a
trundle bed, the stats of which were impro-
vised from slabs, was covered with rags,
with pieces of carpet for coverlets. The
stove was being fed with barrel slaves,
which there were no means OF breaking,
and were stuck whole through one stovelid,
filling the room with smoke from under the
saucepan, which the insufficient fuel tried
vainly to boil. 1t was very pitiful; no mat
tress, the floor covered thick with dirt,
which formed carpet to deaden the sound
of our footsteps. The stencil was simply
terrible, and had to get the fresh air again
before could make the further necessary
inquiries.
II saw at once that the woman was more
or less under the influence of liquor, and
the odor of the lubricant with which she as
suaged her sorrows was scarcely less sicken-
ing than that of the apartment, which was
one of sheer dirt and neglect. She explained
that her husband, Richard Brown, mill
laborer and well-known throughout the
locality, had left her five weeks ago to-day,
since which she has subsisted by selling
what few things she had to keep her chill
dren from starvation. Neither she nor they
had eaten since Friday morning, so you see
they were having a practical Lenten cele-
bration.
ut would have made your heart bleed to
~ H. g. =
the children; chapped and raw from the
cold, they looked like raw beefsteak, and
while they gazed on us with open-eyed won
der they forgot to cry for the nourishment
they needed.
THE LITTLE UNwASHED.
GAS for the chill dren's dirt, they appeared
not to have been washed since July 4 last,
and you could have planted rice on the faces
Of every one of them and raised a rich crop
if they were left in their present condition.
It was the most horrible scene of dirt and
lestitutIon which has come under the view
of the police since the organization"
The Inspector and NJ. j. Dean adjourn ed
70 the nearest grocery store and invested in
!, peck of potatoes, four heads of cabbage,
several links of leberwurst and bologna for
consumption. some coal, a piece
If boiling beef about the size Of water pail
md some candy 1or the children.
'Did you buy any soap for the family"
"Well, come to think of it, no. We |
thought that bv filling the youngsters in
side we could wash them easier outside |
within a day or two, and besides we were
'ather afraid that Mrs. Brown might ex- |
change the soap for beer. The children will |
De handed over to M. J. Dean on Monday, |
md thank God they will have enough to eat |
n the meantime. I suppose the whole
amily will come under the care of the De-
,artment of Charities.
Chief Robert c. Elliot was asked what
disposition could be made of the family,
Ind he thought the woman would have to be
ent to the Poor Farm, while the children
would have to be placed in the Tannehill
treet asylum. There was no help for the
natter, the case existed and Just rs the city
lad to pay for the support OF 1873 patients in
he Dixmont Asylum, many of whom did
lot properly belong to Pittsburg, so these
hildren could not be allowed to 90 hungry
r dirty either. He did not think children
which could live through stencil and starva-
ion would be in danger of pneumonia from
bath.