The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-07-20

they cook and eat and sleep and work-and
play. All three are men in middle life, no
one Of them has any other home and there
they live in loyal sympathy. Each Is an
artist OF ability and all should long ago
have been prosperous influential. rich and
useful but the fate of each has been
against him. They are often sick. are
sometimes cold and generally hungry, yet
are always happy with the strong assur-
ance that 1.-The soul is its own place" Yes
terday l met one Of them starting down
work. In his effort to appear presentable
before his patron he had on a combination
suit of clothes made uD of all the articles
Of decent dress they own among them
There is a common theory that people in
these so-called "slums' do not suffer i'm
proportion TO the cause for such suffering
as much as those in certain other walks of
life: but this Is equally fallacy. 1t is
just here that real suffering does exist; it
is, also, here that most real bravery Is
found. 1 remember once visiting a woman
whose boy had died that day in Bellevue
Hospital. She had been refused admission
10 see him the day before and now to-day
sat waiting for his body to be sent home
1 shall not soon forget the tremor Of her
strong, deep voice as. in her effort not to
seem weak in replying to my question:
Did she see him die?" she said, mo,
that's what's breakin me heart"
L remember another mother. who went
out each day to do homework leaving
her little girl of twelve to watch all day
little brother tot of five. While Maggie's
he escaped and went 10 play with other
children by the East river. All nour later
the report came struggling back that he
was drowned, and l went off to tell the
mother; to tell her, also, that the body
certainly would not be found. She did not
grow hysterical, but clutched herself with
one or two convulsive sobs and said:
Don't let them blame poor Maggie; she
amt only but child herself
LIFE IS STRENUOUS.
he 81
hours and the confinement in hard forms
of labor make the life of the people in this
district strenuous to a degree. One day
went to read the service at funeral for
which the hour appointed was $50 in the
evening. 1t was set for this late hour in
order that the daughter might be present
who could not be home from her work
sooner and who could not have holiday
on pain of losing her position. At the APP
| pointed time she came to attend the serv-
| ice, broken-hearted, straight from her day s
work. that work being, as l learned after
ward, that of comedy actress in Bow
! cry theater.
| one other day 1 went to visit a sick
| child. l found in the fiat a father a
mother and three children, the oldest be-
/ ing only seven years of age. The mother
was an invalid and for two years had lain
| in bed They lived in cheap pair of
rooms in the back attic of a five-story
| tenement. The room was poorly furnished
and the children evidently still more poorly
| fed. The housekeeping was being done by
| the oldest child and by the father between
! turns of work which he did here at home.
! This work kept him engaged through
| twelve hours out of every day and was of
! such nature as to be at least incongruous
with the surroundings. 1t was nothing
| other than the grinding out of certain lit
erary products, TO the encouragement OF
! whose muse this environment was certainly
| not conducive; for by occupation ne was a
| professional joke writer for a well-known
! comic paper.
! And so it goes 1t is in these quarters
| where, just because of the possibility of
| isolation, the hard pressure of necessity
and the fierce struggle for existence, hu-
man nature is most natural necessity is
| most severe and struggle is the most
| strenuous. To those who live among the
! jewellers in the tenements the most no.
| ticeable thing is, not that they are so bad,
| but, rather that they are so good; the
/ surprising thing is, not that in their lives
| there is so little, but, the contrary, so
| much; while the amusing thing is that the
| lines of demarkation that are popularity
drawn between the rich and the poor. the
| good and the bad. the happy and the I'M
| happy, are so ludicrously artificial that TO
| those who happen to know intimately both
| classes at the same time lit is TO laugh"