The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1894-09-14
NEW YoRK,s DARK SIDE.

from Harper Magazine.
The visitors were in a foreign city.
The sho, signs were in foreign tongues;
in some streets all Hebrew. On chance
news-stands were displayed newspapers
in Russian, Bohemian, Arabic. Italian,
Hebrew. Polish, German-none In In
glish. The theater bills were in He
brew and other unreliable type. The
sidewalks and the streets swarmed
with noisy dealers in every sort of sec
ond-hand ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS that
had seen a better day, fish in shoals.
1t was not easy to make ones way
through the stands and push-carts and
the noisy dickering buyers and sellers,
who haggle& over trifies and chatfed
good-naturedly and were strictly in
tent on their own affairs. No part OF
the town is more crowded, or more IN
dustrious. If youth is the hope of the
country, the sight was encouraging,
for children were in the cutters, on
the house steps, at all the windows
The houses seemed bursting with hui
manity, and in nearly every room of the
packed tenements, whether the inmates
were sick or hungry, some sort of indus
try was carried on. In the damp base
ments were Junk dealers, rag-plckers,
goose-pickers. In one nolsome cellar,
off an alley, among those sorting rags,
was an old woman of eighty-two, who
could reply to questions only In jar
gon, too proud to beg, clinging TO life,
earning few cents day in this foul
occupation. But life is sweet even
with poverty and rheumatism and
eighty years. Did her dull eyes, turn
ing upward see the Carpathian Hills,
free girlhood in village drudgery and
village sports, then a romance of love,
children, hard work, discomfort, emf
grafton 10 a new world of promise?
And now a cellar by day, the occupa-
patton of cutting rags for carpets, and
at night in a corner in a close and
crowded room on a flock bed not fit
for a dog. And this was woman S
life
Picturesque foreign women going
about with shawls over their heads and
usually bit of bright color some
where, children at their games, hawk
ers loudly crying their stale wares, the
click of sewing machines heard through
broken window, everywhere ANNA
ton. life, exchange of rough or kindly
banter. Was it altogether so melan-
choly as it might seem? Not every
body was hopelessly poor, for here was
lawyers signs and doctors signs-doc-
tors in whom the inhabitants had con-
fidence because they charged all they
could get for their services-and thirty
ing pawnbrokers' shops. There were
parish schools also-perhaps others;
and off some dark alley, in room on
the ground floor, could he heard the
strident noise of education going on in
high voiced study and recitation. Nor
were amusements lacking-notices of
balls, dancing this evening, and ten
cent shows in palaces OF legerdemain
and deformity.
1t was a relenting day in March;
patches of blue sky overhead, and the
sun had some quality in its shining.
The children and the Gagged birds at
the open windows felt it-and there
were notes of music here and there
above the traffic and the clamor. Turn
ing down narrow alley, with gutter
in the center, attracted by festive
sounds, the visitor came into small
paved court with hydrant IN
the center. surrounded by tall tene-
ment-houses. in the windows of which
were stuffed the garments that would
no longer hold together to adorn the
person. Here an Italian girl and boy,
with a guitar ard violin, were
recalling la belle Napoli and
a couple OF pretty girls from the
court were footing it as merrlly as II 1t
| were the grape harvest. woman
| opened a lower room door and sharply
called to one of the dancing girls 10
| come in. when Edith and the doctor ap-
reared at the bottom of the alley; but
| her tone changed when she recognized
| the doctor, and she said, by way OF
apology, that she didn't like her
/ daughter 10 dance before strs myers.
| So the music and the dance went on,
even little dots OF girls and boys shut
| fling about in a stif-legged fashion,
with applause from all the windows,
and at last a largess OF pennies--as
many as five altogether-for the must
clans. And the sun fell lovingly upon
! the pretty scene.
But then there were the sweaters
| dens. and the private rooms where half
a dozen pale-faced tailors stitched and
| pressed fourteen and sometimes sixteen
! hours 2 day; sitting rooms smelling
OF the hot goose and steaming cloih;
rooms where they worked where the
cooking was done. where they ate and
late at night. when eyerpowered with
WEAKNESS. lay down 10 sleep. st-ug-
gle for life everywhere, and perhaps
no more discomfort and heart-burnlng
and certainly les enuui than n the
| raafas,.S on m. avenues