Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-05-22

locality is the presence of number Of de-
cent families Perhaps they live there for
old associations sake, perhaps to be neal
| the place where the man of the family earns
his living. City men and women who work
| hard for little money seem not to care much
where are the four walls which shelter them
at night, but how decent people can allow
| their children to live amid such surround
| ings passes comprehension. The street is
the only playground of the little ones, in
| which respect the locality doesn't differ at
all from any other tenement house district
| but there are many streets which are not
infested by toughs and tramps, and in which
dens of vice do not abound Rents are very
high in Chinatown, for the emigrants from
China are willing to pay higher prices than
any other class of lessees. Most Of the
houses are too old to be fit to live in, and
the most profitable business in the neigh
borhood, next to rum selling, seems to be
done by the undertakers.
There are healthy looking children there
some races seem to thrive better in the
gutter than others in palaces-but even in
these early spring days, when everyone
should be rejoicing In the health giving air,
one may see pallid mothers, with infants
equally pallid, and safely predict score of
funerals at an early date. The poverty which
brushes into dumb despair
One half the human race,
seems to have got In some of its most suo-
cessful work among the Caucasian inhabi-
tants of Chinatown.
Funeral Is a Matter Of Course.
The people do not seem desperate nor bad;
they are merely hopeless Of ever being any
better off than they are now, and they don't
easily scare at the thought of sickness or
death. As to that, they seldom are ill
n,l- L., -, ha IOy,1~
struggle with bad air and insufficient food.
Babies born in the neighborhood generally
conclude to 60 back to heaven as soon as
possible, and their parents have learned to
regard funeral as q matter of course. How
the children who survive grow to decent
manhood and womanhood as some of them
do, can't be explained except through
recognition of the religious influences which
are brought to bear upon some of them, for
there is nothing bad which they do not sec
and hear, and childhood is quito as
curious and quick-witted in the slums as
anywhere else.
The only protection Is in the fact that the
youngsters are abed and asleep at the hours
in which the depraved classes are most
active. A good deal of mischief may be
learned, however, on the sidewalk in the
long summer evenings, while loafers of
both sexes are freeing their minds in Ian
guage peculiar to their tastes and social
status, and that it is learned may be quickly
observed by any passerby who will keep
his ears open.. On the other hand, the
make the most of their oppor-
tunities for innocent diversion.
The Little Ones Seem Happy.
"What are you doing, Johnny ?" I asked |
of small boy who sat on the curbstone and |
stirred the foul water of the gutter with his |
feet. 'Takin' BATH" was the reply, and |
the little fellow looked as happy as if he |
" ere wading along the beach at Coney |
Island. To see the scores of children try /
Ing to amuse themselves without anything
to do it with is to long for money enough |
10 send them all on an excursion some
where, no matter where, if only to an
abandoned field in the country, but whether
reached it is doubtful. Probably they
would wish themselves back home, with
cool curbstone to sit upon and dark stair
ways upon which to race up and down.
The redeeming feature Of child life in the
worst streets is that many of the half grown
boys and girls seem devoted to their
smaller brothers and sisters. Babes out for
IN airing are generally carried by their
listers instead of their mothers, and when
you see 2-year-old boy toddling about
here is almost sure to be an older boy
him to see that he does not come
20 harm. In short, there can be found more
of human nature in the
course of short walk in the slums above
described than any novelist ever succeeded
IN evolving from his own imagination.
,. - ...- . go JOHN HABBERToN.