Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1901-06-14

The following appeared In the news
columns of a recent issue of one OF
New York's leading dailies:
It will be curious sight to the tene-
ment dwellers about lower Division
street when the Nalkins are cvicted
on Saturday.
Neighbors will gather to see the mis-
cradle household goods of the unhappy
family put upon the street. Six little
Malkins will stand about the dingy
bedding and the cracked stove, as SOL
diers rally about their tattered colors,
wondering why they are not allowed TO
live in houses like other people.
And a pallid man and woman, with
the burrows of sorrow on their faces,
will look across the bundles comprising
all they own in the world, across the
six tousled heads of their children and
into each others eyes, seeking there
the trust and pity which their fellows
have denied them.
There is another little Malkin, the
seventh, but he is comparatively well
off. He is in Beth Israel hospital with
sixty-six square inches of skin burned
from his back. But he has bread and
butter and cake and pie, and he has at
least the pity of the. doctors and kind
words from the nurses
He is at a careless age, this little
Maxim, and he was the innocent cause
of the undoing of his father, Louis II.
| Maxim, who lives with the rest OF his
family in three miserable rooms at
1923 Division street. Louis Maxim was
| Woodworking carter up to the last OF
February. He was sober, respectable,
| industrious and energetic. His wire
and family of seven stair stepping
children were we'll cared for.
On the evening of Feb. II the third
child, boy of s, went down into the
dark tenement cellar to get bucket
of coal. He took candle, and in some
manner his coat was ignited. He ran
shrieking upstairs, where he fell I'M
conscious on the floor. His back was
terribly burned from his shoulders to
his hips.
He was taken to Beth Israel hospi-
tai. where for a time it was thought
he would die. His father was called
upon to supply cuticle for the boys
back. Twenty-Five inches of skin from
Mr.. Malkin's right leg disabled him
for work.
He lost his position, lost his credit,
lost all but hope. He pawned every
thing he could pawn. The heroic ia
ther, still lame from the awful skin
stripping he had endured, was called
upon by the Beth Israel doctors for a
similar graft from his left leg.
He leaned YEARLY against a table In
his home-a pale apparition of hard
luck-and talked about it. Six child
rem, gaunt starvelings of the street
gazed at him with querulous eyes.
The mother, with the lines Of despair
in her face, heaved and toiled despair
ingly over washtub. A neighbor
through charity had sent in some
washing which must be finished by
nightfall.
And so she went, scrub, scrub, scrub
while her husband made ready for the
hospital, while her children walled OF
slept.
II cannot work anyway, I am sc
lame from the other operation. But Il
l don't 60 to the hospital and submit
to another grating this afternoon the
boy will die. l cannot bear that.
suppose that God will take care of u.s.
Then, lowering his voice: 1--WE will bt
put out Saturday, guess, but they
can't do any more than starve us tt
death. The poor mother can't take
care of them all alone"
Scrub, scrub, scrub! The woman!
ears had been open. She was cryins
now, and she bent her back to hel
burden with the envy of despair.
After l have recovered from thu
operation of today" Mr.. Maxim con
tinued, they are going to take anothe
grating twenty-five inches from m!
back. God knows what will become
Of u.s."
Scrub, scrub, scrub, went the arm'
monotonously. Then suddenly, will
: white averted face, the woman walked
suddenly past and cast herself fac'
!, downward on the bed in the next room
Poor woman" said the stricken
man YEARLY. Excuse me, now. She Il
broken hearted, and l must go ant
comfort her."
And so it has fallen out that tn
tenement jewellers Of Division stree
:, will be treated to curious but NO
unusual sight on Saturday.