The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-08-10
FIGHTS ARE MERE inetpEMva
IN THE SociAk LtFE.

fore they reach the block OF tenement
houses where the parents live the
mother and father, frightened vaguely
by the cries that link their boys name
with something, are on the street with
new line of fear set in the faces al
ready so careworn.
There is no breaking of news on the
street" The street" is bawling 1t
at them in a dozen dialects. on they
set, hurrying as fast as their trent
bling limbs will carry them toward the
river, and behine~and beside and in
front of them presses the eager
street" shouting and yelling the news,
Half way down the block their other
children come running toward them,
crying aloud in a blending of grief and
fear without stopping. the parents
take them by the hands and hurry on,
dumb tragic figures leading tawdry
| procession.
If the boy has been found when they
arrive at the pier and there are no po-
| lice or other officials there, the chances
are that they will see his body floating
| in the water, face down, tied to the
| pier with a rope. For tenement house
folk still hold the haunting conviction
that 1t is illegal to touch a body till
the coroner sees 1t. Standing on the
! string piece with a staring crowd
i around them, the parents then will
wait humbly and submissively for the
police or the coroner. When the po-
lice arrive and eager ones point them
out, they answer questions quietly. If
the woman sobs a little when replying,
| the chances are that she will apollo
| gize to the policeman for it.
Even after their child has been laid
on the pier they may not have the
| body. 1t generally is carried first TO
the station house, whittier the parents
follow 1t on foot. There, again, they
answer questions, quietly, uncomplain-
ingly. When at last they get their
dead, 1t is vast concourse, a con-
course of running, pushing, strug-
Cling, clamorous people that fill the
street from stoop line to stoop line. so
that often the body must be lifted high
over their heads to be brought into the
dwelling.
And before they have composed his
hands and begun to realize their loss,
the great tenement house world is
a-roar outside with something else. On
the roofs the banjos and the accord
ecns are sending out the strains of the
latest comic song; the voices of the
children that the boy played with only
a few hours ago float into his little
room, gay with London Bridge is
chums are fighting on the sidewalk
just below, cheered on by happy be-
holders.
As the night goes on the room be-
comes choking hot From all directions
come the sounds OF heavy, troubled
slumber. The fire escapes in the rear
tenement opposite, mounting up and
up from the gloom Of a mephtic rear
yard to the roof, seven stories above.
are filed with men and women and
children-a very chasm of sleep. The
dreamers mutter and groan and toss
Even In their temporary oblivion they
are tortured by life; the hand of the
heat presses heavily on them, the fetid
air poisons their lungs, the iron grid
ers Of their resting places goad them.
And they must awaken--men and wo-
men and little children-awaken again
In the morning for another day of heat
and pain.
None OF them sleeps so well or no
peacefully as the boy
Walter Sloane.