The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1896-09-07
WOMEN CLEAN AN ALLEY.
Disguised With Slow Going Officials
at St. Louis.


ST. Louis, Sept 1.-THE new woman
has rushed in where the street commits
sioner fears to tread.
She has risen in her might and given
the municipal authorities an object les
As result there is one clean alley in
St Louis. The ladies who live in the
neighbOrhoOd know it is clean, for they
cleaned it themselves.
A more spick and span stretch of St
Louis pavement than that between
Randolph street and Scott avenue, and
between Jefferson and Ewing avenues.
IS not to be found in St. Louis.
But it wasn't that way until the new
est new woman got out her shovel and
her hoe and rolled up her sleeves and
went to work in the same way she rides
a bicycle-man fashion.
The ladies living on Randolph street
and Scott avenue, west of Jefferson ave-
nue., have been trying for months to
get the city authorities to clean the
alley.
Day by day the filth and refuse ac-
curnulated.
First the ladies told their husbands
about it. The husbands notified the
street department, but their protest was
not noticed. Then the ladies themselves
complained to the municipal authori
ties, but got nothing but honeyed words
and promises.
The stencil from the alley didn't mix
well with honeyed words, and the ladies
became more and more indignant.
They protested to the health depart
ment.
That didn't do any good. Then the
ladies got desperate.
They decided to set an example for
the big. strong men down at the city
hall.
And they did.
Saturday morning the women turned
man with an ash wagon drove
down the alley.
asked him what he would charge to
haul away the section of municipal rot
tenness back of her shed. He said 10
cents. and she closed the bargain.
That wasn't all A bright idea, struck
Mrs. Hamilton. She went around
among the neighbors.
The ladies got their heads together
and decided that they would just clean
street department wouldn't do it. Then
they would pay the man to haul away
the rubbish.
Ten minutes later there was a queer
The women piled out of the back
gates armed with shovels, hoes and
broons.
There were fully fifty of them when
the work commenced, and their num-
Der kept swelling all the time, until at
one stage of the game there were more
than 100 women and girls at work
And how they worked
the shovels in the approved fashion,
except that they didn't spit on their
hands or kill time by stopping to light
their pipes.
Everybody was good natured about it.
There was no profanity. but the ladies
were very much in earnest, neverthe-
less.
They first scraped the dirt together
with hoes and then shoveled it in little
piles in the center of the alley.
The man with the wagon did the
rest. He didn't do all the rest. though,
for the ladies helped him load his wa
gon like they were used to it.
At noon three little piles of rubbish
alone remained of all the dirt and filth
which had covered the alley for three
blocks a few hours before
The ladies who did the work were not
accustomed to hard labor. They are
ladies with families and servants of
their own, but they just wanted to show
the city officials that they would rather
spoil their white hands than live in an
afnOSnhaTa of filth