The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1896-10-08
rHE TROUBLESOME HUNS
Their Unsieht,y and Unruly Colo
MOS in Pennsylvania
Mining Towns That Are Like the siums
nj Our Great Cities -Lawiesspess
and Blcodshed on sunday
and Pay Day.

A recent number of the American
Magazine of Civics contains an interest
ing article on the Pennsylvania Huns
by w. +. Gibbons These troublesome
residents of the keystone state are not
genuine Magyars, not, strictly speak
ing, of the hungarian race, but Slavs.
like Russians and Poles. Their first
Introduction in Pennsylvania was the
work Of employing corporations, which
imported them to cheaper labor. The
law soon interposed barrier against
this importation, but the immigration
of Huns was not interrupted. The
wages they get in Pennsylvania, al
though too small for Americans to live
on, arc greater than they receive at
home, so they continue to arrive. Coal
miners meet them in New York and
offer them work in Pennsylvania
MIR. Gibbons cites the census tables,
showing that ut the latest enumeration
Pennsylvania contained 2i.gof Huns,
and the United States but 2.425. The
Pennsylvania Huns are mostly collected
In the comparatively small ans hracite
coal regions of the Wyordfng and
Schuyllkill valleys. A single county.
Lucerne, contained in 1890 as many
Huns as the entire state of Ohio. Since
1890. despite hard times and the return
of many immigrants to their own coun-
try, the number of Huns has largely in
creased.
The mining towns where these peo-
pie live are like the slums of our great
cities. The streets are tilietl with gar
bage. and riots, often resulting in huuii-
cides, are expected On the Sunday after
every pay day. Of course most of the
original inhabitants have left. They
did not stand upon the order of their
going, but got ont with dispatch. In some
towns only few voters E'tnain. The
murder of a Hun by one of his own race
creates no demand for justice in the
minds Of his surviving cuGntrynlen. If
the survivors be approached" says Mr..
Gibbons, land urged 10 call in the law
they will grunt eSpressivvly and re-
mark with more or less dis;inctness:
Dead Hungari no good" ladced, an
ordinary murder passes almost with
out comment
But these people are not incapable OF
learning some lessons in the school of
experience. They have been cheated
. and blackmailcd outiageously by dis
honest officials at the mines and by
English-spealing miners, but they have
gotten their eyes open al last and are
extremely alert. They have learned
the art of saloon keeping and they are
getting into politics. MIR. Gibbons says
that already in some comm dnitics there
Is '.the shadow Of the coming Hun
garian political boss" I'm every list
of honorary vice presidents ut tic great
political meetings prominent places are
given the men bearing sach names as
Arscnius Tsrnoicvitch or Kubo Zlotlor-
zinski." Huns have been made post
masters In some places and havesbeguu
to elect their own justices of the peace.
1t is noted as hopeful indication that
they have begun to leave the company
houses and the boarding houses and to
establish themselves Ia homes OF their
own. Some of them have grown rich
that is, rich for Huns
The second generation is not, in Mr..
Gibbons opinion, an improvement on
the FIRST lie states that the immi-
grants, with few exceptions, could read
their own language, but that their
children are taken from school and put
10 work before they have made much
progress in rudimentary education.
Few of them go 10 the public schools
and there is a slim attendance at the
parocllial schools These are the newt
able results of the great reduction of
wages in the coal and coke regions.
Almost every evil is productive Of
some good The Huns are better off in
pennsylvania than they were in their
own country. But it VIII strike the
general reader that Pennsylvania has
paid. is f,ayiag aud will long con-
time 10 pay heavy price for the
retirement OF the Huns condition
WASHINGTON Post