The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1896-11-20
MISERY IN HOBOKEN
Two Widows Weary of the
Struggle for Existence
Starving Together.
DISEASE BREEDING SPOT
Tenants Literally Suffering for the
Lack of Water in the
Crowded Building.

The attention of the Hoboken Board OF
Health is called to the condition of the
rear tenement at No. 20S Clinton street.
The house is a three-story tenement, with
a cellar. On each floor there are four
rooms. There are two families on each
floor, making six families in all, each oc-
cupying but two rooms. Such a condi-
ton of affairs alone is enough to make
the place unhealthy. The house was
owned by a man named Reene, and as
both he and his wife are dead the pro
perry is held in trust for their children
who are yet minors.
= Justice Rusch had the care of the house
and he collected the rent, but the house
doeAaFiaook as if there had been any re-
a E on 1t in twenty-five years. The
o4lg is down in many places ano
onnfy est is cracked and smoked.
ne stoop is a thing that must be tested
. before one dares te venture On it. The Gel
lar reeks in filth, and here street loafers
and idlers sleep at night.
In connection with the c~loseness in
which the people are huddled in the house
is the fact that there is no water in the
building. Some time ago the water was
shut off for some unknown reason, and
the tenants procured water from the kind
neighbors. But now the ~neighbors are
not allowed to give any water away be-
cause their landlords have put q stop TO
it. claiming their water bills have been
increased. AS one tenant said this MORN
ing to a News reporter:-"We can
hardly get enough water ito do our cock
ing with let alone TO do any Wasnlng..
This same woman sent a little girl with
a f~our-quart pail to a neighbor while the
reporter a there. The little girl came
back. saying the neighbor had refused
TO give her any water. A man named
Frank Duffy, when he works, lives with
the family on the top floor named ku-
boch. When Duffy is out of work he
takes up his abode in the cellar. He has
been living in the cellar for the past
three weeks sleeping on boards with a
horse blanket for a covering.
The building appears TO be considered
by the homeless as a free lodging house,
because it is no uncommon thing for a
tenant in going out or in at night to
stumble over some individual sleeping in
the hallway or on the stairs.
On the first floor the reporter found a
very distressing case of poverty. Living
there in squalor and in rags is Mrs. Fred
erick Bergman, an old gray haired
woman, seventy years OF age stricken
with dropsy and unable to help herself.
The old lady has pawned everything she
had of any value and If 1t was not TOT
the little assistance given by Mary Split
dren in the AlmshouSe at Snake Hill, old
Mrs. Spittberger would probahly have
died of starvation long ago. In her old
age and poverty her friends have tde-
serted her and she was left alone with
only the support of Mrs. Spittberger, who
pays her 81 a week for board. Mrs. Split
unable to work. Thus the two women
were our this morning without a cent
in the house. They implored the re-
porter to try and raise s. to pay their
nCnth'S rent for them. Mrs. Spittberger
has earned a living for the two by work
ing il a restaurant. When she became
sick she lost her place, and now has not
the clothes, she says, to make a re-
spectacle appearance to apply for an
other place. If relief does not come to
them soon the widows are likely to soon
Join Mrs Spittberger's children at Snake
The case is made more pitiable when
1t is known that Mrs. Bergman has a
son living in New York in a prosperous
condition, yet refuses to help his poor
old mother in her distress. He has been
made acquainted with his mothers con-
ddt1on, but has never gone near her. He
even refused to attend his fathers
funeral. Mrs. Bergman had another son,
Freddie, or the little fellow as she
likes to recall him. He shipped as a
age. When he started for his last trip
he told his mother that when he came
back he would never go to sea again.
The ship sailed and hat was the last
Six years ago Mrs. Bergman and her
husband lived in their coy little home
al NO. 10 Clinton street. Nj. Bergman
Company and had $500 in the bank. on
January 16. 1891, Mr.. Bergman met with
q serious accident while experimenting
some work at the coa pockets at the
Fourteenth street ferry house, Hoboken.
After a long illness, in which the $500
went rapidly for medicine and doctors
services, he died. Before his death Mr..
Bergmann told his wife that the Ferry
Company would take care of her for the
rest of her days.
When he died Mrs. Bergman had left
S2l5 Of the $500. This and all her furniture
and other possessions have long since
disappeared for the necessaries of life.
Some weeks & Mrs. Bergman sent a
letter to Mrs. Richard Stevens appealing
Tor aid. On election night Mrs. Stevens
sent a man to Mrs. Bergmann's house
with some money. BY mistake the man
got into the wrong apartment upstairs. A
Ratrlck Grant occupies these apartments.
he mad an election drunk on and when
MIS- stevens messenger offered the
money Grant became enraged and felt
lnsuited. He grabbed up a club and
drove the man down stairs, out of the
mouse and through the ward to the street.
curslng and swearing like a demon. The
man never went back to the house with
the money that would have meant SO
much to old Mrs. Bergmann.
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