Industrial freedom. [volume] (Edison, Wash.) 1898-1???, 1898-08-06

- -" ''o' just as | find it in the St.
FLoUPIsHING. Louis Republic. The fore
man Of that paper, with
either Il sense of the eternal fitness of
things or to show the utter helplessness
and the criminal uselessness of latter
day preaching and no practising, filled
out the column with church notices.
The little fact that there will be no
summer suspension of services at some
OF the churches, miraculous as it may
seem, does not appear to relieve the
suffering or the starving humans in
the least:
Few persons in St. Louis are acqualnt-
ed with many of the appalling condi-
tions which exist in the very heart of
the city. Misery may mock at hun
dreds, famine run wild, foul diseases
play havoc, and utter starvation stare
whole families in the face. and yet in
the hurry Of the city their woes are lost
and the destitute are forgotten. Men
and women and children perish because
OF maladies never treated. and hunger
never satisfied, but their cases are not
often known until it is too late. Then
charity buries them and they are for
gotten.
In the midst of one of the most
pOpulous residence sections of the city
is territory known as Paupers Viii
| lage, where are congregated about u
score of destitute families. Upon va
| cant block, extending from Sarah
street to BOYLE avenue, and from Dun
can avenue to Forest Park boulevard
a small town of huts and shacks and tents
has been built, and there poverty
reigns supreme. Death stares them in
the face, and it is all they can do to
drive the wolf from the door, Every
few days someone dies. and Il new sha-
dow Is cast over the camp. but the pub
lie never comes to the aid of these dis
tressed people.
Most of the families live in tents.
others have erected small shacks of
brush, old lumber and dirt. The huts
are insecure, and at any moment are
apt to cave in. The water pours down
through the roofs, while the sun cannot
get inside to dry out the dampness, and
thus the novels go from month tomOnth.
They become dirty holes, where the
germs of disease are bred by the mil
lion to plague the weakened bodies of
the inhabitants.
Among these homes one is especially
miserable. John Bollman. his wife
! Rachel. and their son Wallace are up
on the verge of death. The husband is
down with malaria and unable to work:
the mother is stricken with heart dis
ease, and the 1l-year-old son is lying
upon his death bed. The afflicted
mother. unable even to go out to beg,
looks down in the face of her starving
child, realizing her helplessness, and
knowing that within few days death
will still his pulse. When seen yester-
day afternoon Bollman was too weak to
walk and he was nearly crazed with
hunger. He positively refused to go to
the City Hospital or the Poorhouse. He
said he would die first. and unless some
thing is done Immediately he cannot
live. The family had eaten the last
morse of bread that morning and
knew not where they would get food
for the night.
In all the homes the condition is not
SO bad. but misery turks at every door.
Mrs. Margaret Ames, whose husband
died few days ago, lives in an open
tent with three helpless children. She
cannot get work, and the whole family
is dependent upon the receipts of the
ll-year-old daughter who begs from
door to door. All the money had given
ont Yesterday and the children went to
bed last night without food to satisfy
their hunger.
All the camps were visited and every
one of the 30 inhabitants showed the
same pitiful spectacle of starvation.
Every home was forlorn, with not ray
of light to break the monotony of sor-
rowful existence. Not even the child
rem laughed and there was not ripple
of JOY in the whole village. 1t is truly
Il starving city. Every man, woman
and child is lean and lank, with sunker
eyes, and the mark of famine is inn
pressed on every face. Fathers and
mothers sigh as they look upon THEN
children growing up in want, and ours,
the fate which made them thus.
Not yet has the camp recovered from
the deed of Hannah Gaylor. They still
discuss the event with sadness and won
| der who next shall follow her example
1t was but a few days ago that thi
woman, utterly despairing of any fu
Iture hope, and unable to watch he