The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-02-13
THE OTHER SIDE OF LIFE.
A Reporters Visit With the City Physician to
Rleodes OF Poverty.

1
and the doctors gray nag. his constant
/ friend for six years. started off at a lively
/ gait and after passing through dingy
! streets and alleys and over tracks and ruts
and stumps and switches, he stopped in
/ front of small house on North
/ Meade, where a woman is lying sick with
| consumption. Let rs walk in, F." said the
| doctor: and after knocking at the door n
I bright, fat. black-eyed little girl of 8 or :
/ opened the door The poor woman was
lying on the bed with younger child who
! sat up as the visitors entered, and bright
1 little fellow be was There was but one
/ room ot the house occupied, and that had
a miserable appearance. The furniture
I consisted of a cook stove, table, two
! chairs and bed which was not very well
! supplied with clothing. The little table
ware in the house was standing on the ia
/ bic, and seemingly it had not been washed
/ tor several days, fer the poor woman has
/ been so sick that she has not been out of
( bed for two weeks. The Humane people
of the city, ought to investigate her case
and give the poor woman helping hand.
! She looks, talks, and acts as if she had
! seen better days.
! The next place visited was the simple
abode of an Arabian family on South
Emporia avenue After climbing a fight
! of stairs the single room in which they
! live was reached and TO say that they
live" there is really all that can be said.
The room is probably 1Ox12 feet and not
an inch more and yet it contains three
beds, although there are but three persons
| in the family. The other furniture is
/ Ill =
stove, trunk, and two COM
mon chairs. The trunk is used
as a table and the only sigh of table ware
| that could be seen about was one plate
and two cups without saucers. The space
| in the room not taken up by the furniture
| herein mentioned was not sufficient TO
! admit OF the presence Of a table there.
Miserable as that room looked it contained
! two handsome jems of femininity, the
| wife Of the man who is the lord and master
OF the house and her eleven year old sister.
/ The wife is the patient and handsomer
patient has seldom found treatment at
the hands of Doctor st. John. She has
| thorough ORIENTAL cast of coun-
| tenance and eyes that are simply
marvelously bright and bewitching.
| Her face did not seem particularly
charming while she was swallowing the
| dose of quinine which the doctor gave her
i but her eyes rolled around in their sockets
! in such a manner as to show their remark
| able luster under the dim rays shed by
very common oil lamp. She was the very
pink of politeness too and notwithstand-
ing her burning fever she poured blessings
on the head of the doctor with peculiarly
! faa ha4f
| than if each blessing and smile was a -
! William. The fair patient is 2l-years-old
and is only over from the cradle Of the hui
man race about sixteen months.
! She was born in the city of Damascus
! and lived there all her life, but was never
| in Jerusalem, although it was only $50
miles distant. Her sister, as stated before,
| is only IL years old, but for all that she
made the trip from Damascus to Wichita
alone and only arrived here about eight
days ago. She is a very handsome little
girl, with beautiful olive complexion,
and dark eyes and hair. She is as fat as
roll of butter, aud it would tickle
a persen almost to death to hear her make
an effort to say good bye" which she
always does when the doctor departs.
The husband Of the family Is
peddler but he does not make much
and they are so poor that they
are contented with a single loaf of bread
without any side dishes, for a meal. They
are strangers, and Christians, and deserve
helping hand from the charitabiy in
cHned who are able to lend it.
The third house reached contained three
times more misery to the sxuare inch than
the Syrian's abode contained. 1t is in the
southern portion of the city, and, while it
looks reasonably good from the outside, it
| is a perfect howell in the inside When the
door was opened, by mere child, the doc
! tor and the reporter stepped into the front
room. The floor was carpeted, not with
the fabrics OF Brussels, but with the pro-
duct of sunny Kansas cornstalks-whic
were strewn all about the floor and heaped
up in piles, The room was lighted with
a common oil lamp without II chimney,
! which smoked so badly that even the light
/ could hardly be seen. The pair Of visitors
stepped, unannounced, into the next
room and it was a dismal looking place.
/ Another oil lamp without a chimney
( lighted that room and il smoked even
worse than the other lamp. In addition
/ to this there were three tall. straight men
with long. black hair in the room and each
was pulling furiously at black pipes, as
/ If they were determined to outsmoke the
/ lamp Two of the men were sitting on
! the floor Turkish fashion, while the third
! was sitting on an upturned soap box. \
woman and a child occupied a chair
and from the extreme corner IA voice
emenated like a voice from the grave.
/ There was bed there, or more properly
! speaking. a kind OF bunk. as there was
not a bedstead in the house. the old lady
J is II years old and is nearly dead from the
I grip. She must be gifted with terrible
strong constitution to survive IN the midst
/ of such dense smoke. The interior OF the
( house is as black as the interior OF a
smoke stack. 1t IS but justice to the men.
! who are the old lady's sons, to say that
( they are all crippled in some manner aud
/ not able to do much work. It is a typical
! "Arkansaw' family. although they never
/ saw that state They are natives Of
Ohio. but came to Kansas in 1853
! Mott street il New York could be
! searched ia vain for a more miserable
howell. Misery has everything about the
place sealed with his stamp, even to the
/ horses. II such they could Be called, VINO
fed. unsheltered, on coTnstalks in the
yard. The fuel in the house consists alto
Cether Of cornstalks. All three OF these
/ patients are cared for by the city. bat IL
/ the last mentioned case the county gives
( little help.
Dr.. -. John made himself at home IN
all three Of the places. and be il looked
upon by the inhabitants as the greatest
Z - - 49, a,5 Devar crozszs shefr