, 1892-01-09
POVERTY'S HOSTS.
THE GREAT ARMY OF uNFORTU-
MATES IN NEW YORK CITY.

~ 100000
ager of one OF the largest charity organ,
izations in the country it can be stated
that this winter will be an unusually
trying one for the unfortunate poor oil
New York.
The crowded sections of the tenement
districts are more crowded than aver
and an ever increasing stream of impov.
erished humanity from across the ocean
has poured into the east side for the
past six months. More than 10, 900 Rus,
sian Jews, says Superintendent William
Blake, of the city's outdoor poor depart
ment, nave been added to the tenement
population. Never in all his experience
has Superintendent Blake seen such des-
titution as exists now.
Up on Fourth avenue, at 10, are the
rooms of the New York Association for
Improving the Condition of the Poor.
All day long and far into the night
the applicants for aid climb the steps to
No. 10 and tall their tale of woe. The
deserving applicant is quickly recog-
nized and the impostor as quickly de-
tected by the keen eyed agents of tine
association.
A Press reporter has investigated
many of the most striking cases that
have come to the society recently and
has found the greater part of them to be
as stated to the society.
Thomas jackson had beer employed
for a number of years in a butcher shop,
but his employer having failed he lost
his position. He had a wife and ten
children. With a little money he had
saved up he went into business for him
self. The undertaking was unsuccess-
full, for his capital was too small. Two
of the girls in the family secured en-
ployment in a cigar factory, ten hour a
day work, at two dollars a week each,
thus making the weekly income for this
large family only four dollars per week.
After a time Jackson found employ
ment, though at only five dollars a week,
but then Unexpectedly the girls were
thrown out Of employment owing to the
dizziness of trade, and a little later the
father was X down with pneumonia.
Without friends or means of any kind
starvation was nigh. The agents of the
association for improving he condition
of the poor rendered assistance Just in
time to keep death away.
A few days ago the reporter found on
the top floor of the tenement 10 Mulberry
street a family that had applied to the
association for aid. The family con-
sisted of seven-husband, wife and five
children. James Milligan, the father,
was a hard working, sober man, kind to
his wife and children. and had been en-
ployed as driver for a business house for
two years, but had, unfortunately, with
twenty-five other employees, been laid off
from slackness of work. The wife and
mother had tramped the streets day after
day. seeking in vain for any kind of en-
ployment, and the only dependence and
support of the entire family wa the frail
young girl of fourteen, who could only
earn, even by the closest application, tho
small sun of $3.50 a week, on which
they tried to exist
Down in the slums in the rickety tene-
ment "a Hester street is a case of misery
almost beyond belief in a Christian city.
The family of John Norris lived there,
consisting of mother and four children,
an old grandfather and also a sister Of
the wife, some twenty-four years of age,
who was i'll with consumption and con
fined to her bed.
This family of eight was crowded to-
gether in the wretched rooms without
fuel or food. The children were all i'll
from breathing the poisoned air of the
poorly ventilated apartments. For days
the family had had nothing to eat but a
few crusts of bread, a little cheese and a
scrap of meat that a neighbor took from
her own poorly supplied table to give
the starving ones.
At 81 Cherry street was another most
deplorable case of poverty and suffering.
,hfho1A ThOpDaOn and hta xxyffa
and three children were found shivering
in a garnet room, through the roo of
which the pitiless winds whistled. The
room was barren of furniture, the par
ents slept on the floor, the elder chill
dren in boxes and the baby was swung
in an old shawl attached to the rafters
10y cords.
The father was a but had
been obliged to give up that calling be-
cause he wa suffering from consump-
ton, n was earning a ~precarious hv
ing by gathering roots and flowers in
the woods and selling them on the street.
But for the past few months the dread
disease of consumption had made such
ravages on him that he was unable to
go out at all. The mothers attention
was demanded by a dying child, SO that
tneSe parents, tnOuBn Wiling, WERE un'
able to provide either food OF fire for
their little ones.
The crying need of the Thompson
family was speedily relieved, and they
were moved from their miserable lodg.
ing to better quarters, and the attention
of the board of health was called to the
wretched, disease breeding tenement in
which they were found.
Thomas Mcclure, a hard working,
sober man, was suddenly taken i'll with
typhoid fever. He lived at 81 Mulberry
street, and had a wife and six children,
one of them a cripple. There was nc
fire or food in the house when the re-
porter visited the two little unfinished
rooms where the McGuires lived. The
father was dying and the mother wiring
ing her hands and weeping. The chill
aren had had nothing to eat for twenty.
four hours.
Timely assistance from the visitors of
the Association for Improving the Con.
dition of the Poo saved the husbands
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