The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1895-07-16
GOOD BYE, THE BEND
NEW Works. WORST SlUM SOON TO
BE DEMOLISHED.

Mulberry Bends History OF Bloodshed
Tho Unsavory Record of Bandits Roost
Its Latest and Most Horrible Crime-a
Park Will Take Its Place.
The days OF the old Mulberry bend arr
numbered at last The Mulberry parl
will take its place shortly.
The bend is not now what il was, say. Il
years ago. So much has been said about il
that something has at last been done tc
make it passable to the eye at least. The
street Is clean, and one may venture into
any one of the numberless alleys in the
DOCK without need OF holding his nose.
The foul packs of men and women tramps
that used to herd in the courts at night
and sit in filthy double rows in the halls
and all the way up the stairs of the tene-
ments have been dispersed TO the work
house and the Jail 50 often that they have
at last sought quieter quarters, and the
majority of the stale beer dives have fol
lowed them out, some across Broadway 10
the Old Africa, others TO slums better hid
den. But the old houses remain
Beneath the shadow of an old tree, the
last Of the once famous Mulberry grove,
head IS years ago, on April 0, 1877, in one
of the many bloody fights that helped the
bend TO its bad name. His enemy left him
there dead. That was, as the name of the
dead man indicates, before the Italians
took the bend.
The alley went by the name of Molo-
ney's alley in those days, taking its name
from the old janitor who ran it as long as
he lived. Since he died, one Of the very
small remnants of his people left there, ten
years ago, it has never been known as any
thing else than Al Mulberry street The
banker across the way, Mr.. Barbero, owned
1t since, along with the city, and sold the
property TO the city
In those old days there was perhaps more
murder done in the bend-that is, record
ed murder-than nowadays, but il is certain
that there is more bloodletting now, and
very great deal OF 1t Is not official The
Italians have a way of settling their own
scores, OF filing them away for reference
that was unknown to their predecessors
They go on the principle of ''fix il my
self, and unless the victim dies the police
are likely never to hear Of it. Even if they
do it is the rarest thing that they have a
hand In the final fixing. They hear by and
by that another Italian has been stabbed,
and then they know that the thing has
been fixed and the slate wiped clean with
blood.
The stiletto is their favorite tool but
not always. In this alley, that widens
some distance in from the street passage
barely admitting one TO a gap Of six feet OF
more, a man was found lying dead one
morning at daybreak with his skull crush
ed in.
There Were reasons to believe that he
was thrown down by an injured husband
or chased off the roof into the deathtrap
III the darkness. So much the police guess
ed, on the basis Of what they learned, but
they never got any further. The mystery,
like many another of the bloody bend, re-
mains unsolved to this day
The intensity or dramatic action of the
intHgueS and tragedies of the slum ia in
nowise lessened by the fact that it is
woven around material SO unpromising a.
the pseudo households of these rear bar
racks, where drunkenness and vice in Their
coarsest, most brutal form are at home.
Rather the reverse is the case.
Here In this tenement, Go Mulberry
street, Tobias lie Longe, an old man, was
kicked TO death by his mistress, the wo-
man ne had betrayed, while her new lover,
8 foot italian, held him down. That
happened on Oct. 3, 1892, not yet year
after the long remembered christening in
the block around the corner at AZ Baxter
street.
NincenZo Riverito had come there, enticed
by the girl he had deserted when he re-
mernbered his wife in the old country and
went back TO get her. Rosa got herself n
new man, but she never forgot or forgave
the slight put upon her. She received the
unsuspecting Vinccnzo at the.christcnin2
with smile upon her lips and revolver
under her apron and secretly goaded her
lover TO avcnge her injury until he did the
murder when she pushed the weapon into
his hand.
And here at 50 is Bandits Boost, Sc
named in all seriousness after the Neapol |
itan bandit mountainecrs who found ref |
uge there when driven across the sea. They |
are gone now. The last one died in his |
boots, like most of his comrades. No par |
ticular record was ever kept of their fights. |
David O'Brien was Drained there with a |
paving stone by Belle Gollez in the day. |
of what might be called the border war; |
between the two races. Gollez was acquit |
ted on the plea of self defense That was |
IN 1876. In the following year the popul3 |
tion of the bend was further reduced by two, |
when Michael Morarity was knitted by |
Thomas Ryan and died. Into every place |
made vacant by an Iris Imam moved an ltal /
ian and a tramp, and when the transfer /
nation was completed the bend held two /
or three times as many tenants rs before
Bandits RooSt is trying 10 do what il
can 10 atone for its bad past in those last
days of its existence. For the moment. |
with its dark cellar ways and filthy stable
lanes, it has actually turned itself into
church. An altar has been erected at the
end of it. in honor of the feast of st. Rocco.
and made gaudy with soilod ribbons, col
ored paper and dozen tallow dips stuck
In bottle necks and tin oandlesticks.
The alley has done what it could TO hon
or the saints birthday. Ii has hung n
string of broken beer glasses across the
stable lane that leads past the altar, pre-
sumably TO reflect the light from the can
dies Two schooncrs flank the centerpiece
in the decoration, lending appropriate 10
cal color TO it.
out on the sidewalk here Francisco Ces- |:
sari was dubbed IL death. and Vito Nal
pete was stabbed To the heat in vendottas
for which Bandits Roost furnished both
the incentive and the material, and Mi
chael Deigatti, aged Il, was shot dead in
the middle OF the street by no one ever
knew which one of two bands peppering
each other across the street At : a. m
They were the champions or rival COM
in the old country villages, with
tends hundreds of years old, which they
had transplanted across the seas. and the
poor boy who had no concern with ii came
between their fire accidentally.
So one might go on 10 the end OF the
story and vet net get half OF it told. Gu