Middletown transcript., 1898-01-29
DESTITUTE AND STARVING.

DESTITUTE AND STARVING.
Starvation.
This is the word that has much signifc.
gance among one-half of the people Of
New Castle to-day.
Starvation!
A careful investigation of the situation
| in several hundred homes in New Castle,
during the past week has revealed a distress
sing and saddening condition of affair. So
distressing indeed is this condition. that it
clearly vies with the status ofthings. among
the poor striking spinners and weavers in
the town of New Bedford. Mass.
| This analogy of the condition Of the
families which depend upon the operation
of the Delaware Iron Works for their
daily bread, with the condition of the New
Bedford families, is not an exaggeration.
If anything, the comparison favors the
New Bedford situation. There the strikers
have work to do at the mills if they will
accept the cut made in their wages.
They and their families are starving be
cause they refuse to work under the reduc-
tion in their pay. In other words, they
have work to do if they see fit to do it. and
take the small compensation connected
with it.
Different, vastly different however, is the
situation in New Castle. Glad would sew
eral hundred men and boys of New Castle
be if their circumstances were even the
same as those of the New Bedford people.
Happy indeed would they feel, if like the
New Bedford men they had work to go to,
even under cutwage-rate.
Many homes in New Castle this morning
are filled with hope that work will come to
anxious husband, fathers, brothers and sons
ere long, at any price.
The cry in New Castle homes that exists
this morning and has been caused not by
strike, but by the closing of the main ave-
nue. for support.
This support was by no means extrava-
CANT, yet hundreds OF industries men and
boys peacefully and contenteply accepted
it.
When the chance to earn this support was
denied them they went peacefully to their
homes to wait. They haYe waited now
three or four weeks, and it now looks as if
they will either have to leave and search
employment elsewhere or starve.
To go elsewhere to search employment
some money is necessary, but the question
with them is where will they get,it.
For about thirty years the Delaware
Iron Works, has been the source from
which one-half Of the inhabitants of the
town get their living.
Two weeks previous to Christmas the
works shut down leaving the families of
eight hundred men without employment.
When the works will resume operation no
one at New Castle knows.
The woolen mills of New Castle are also
very slack, employing only one-half of the
usual force.
The people who are in need are 80 num-
erous that the families which are known to
be generous have as many as twenty un-
fortunates at their doors begging for some
thing to keep their souls and bodies to-
gether.
Many collections to relieve the suffering
ones have been raised but the people who
are able to give are outnumbered by the
ones in need and the funds raised would
not provide victuals for the hungry ones
for one day.
The situation is becoming alarm ~ as the
people are becoming desperate, and the in
habitants are in constant fear that the un-
fortunate ones will break into the stores and
dwellings and take provisions by force.
A man who is in position to know the
exact condition of affairs, when interview
ed, said, something will baYe to be done,
and very soon at that, to give food to
people of New Castle who are starving. He
said soup houses should be started, as there
are many people who are in destitute cir
cumstances who have never before known
such thing, and they cannot maintain the
courage to beg from door to door.
The amount of the bill which was allow
ed by the county to the trustee Of the poor
for that district for the last quarter would
not feed the people, who are starving, for
two weeks. James B. Toman, who is
trustee of the poor for that district, de-
serves great credit for the industrious way
he has worked and the splendid judgment |
he has used in distributing the funds.
Many charitable people who have friends
in New Castle that are needy, have been
taking provisions over to them to help to |
relieve their sufferings. Wilmington Sun |
of January 2Sth.