The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-09-13
FARMER MURPHY's REVENGE.
how Former Topeka Man Evened Up
With New York Landlord.

n. F. Murphy, a former Topeka
newspaper man who was better known
IS Farmer Murphy, has started things
In New York. Mr.. Murphy is New
York correspondent of the Chicago
Tribune and has just been evicted from
the fiat in which he has lived for two
years. because he has two children.
The New York American under the
following headlines prints story of
how Mr.. Murphy evened up with the
landlord:
mo room in this house for babies
Residents of aristocratic west side
apartment evicted because of children"
The article, including Mr.. Murphy's
caustic letter, follows:
''No. Madison avenue, New York, Sept
8, 1905. .......
present lease, namely, September 80,
1885, would respectfully ask you to
vacate your present apartment in the
house, No. 259 West Ninety-second
street city, as do not desire to renew
your lease for another year.
This is the notice that four indignant
tenants of the fashiona BILE brown stone
apartment house referred to, which is
near Riverside Drive, received from
Andrew Brose, as an evidence that he
has Joined the ranks of realty owners
who object to children.
Unlike some of the others in that
exclusive section who have evicted rich
families which include children Mr..
Brose did not notify those having dogs
and this brought to him yesterday a
severely caustic letter from Merle f.
Murphy, author and correspondent,
who was one of the four told to move
because he has two children.
The others include r. NJ. Olzenham,
an importer, who has two children;
S. A. Fisher, a real estate man. who
has one child, baby of one year, and
Olcott Payne, who has one child.
Jauitor Explains children
Six children therefore are the COM
bined cause of the eviction of the four
families.
-r- J. P. RapIey. the janitor of the
apartment house, which boasts of an
elevator and hallboy in uniform, did
not let the tenants remain in doubt as
to the cause of their eviction. He told
them plainly it was because they had
children.
Still skeptical. they sought fur
Their explanation of Mr.. Brose, but he
was dumb on all but the main point
He wanted the rooms they occupied
This brought from Mr. Murphy the
following letter, which, like the notice
he had received from Mr.. Brose, he
sent to him by special delivery:
ANDREW Brose, No. 1 Madison ave.:
Dear Sir-A few days ago you sent
me a curt note asking me to vacate
the apartments at No. 259 West
Ninety-second street, when my lease
expired at the end of the present
month. Inasmuch as I have resided
here for two years without the slight
est objection ever having been made
to my tenancy, I presumed to ask you
in a letter If you would assign a rea-
son for your move.
1.-The janitor had informed me il
was because there were two children
in the family and that all families
with children had been ordered to gel
out. 1 requested you to inform me in
case his statement was not true; in
fact, for myself, I would believe his
statement in preference to yours any
how.
He is Properly Ashamed
"Of course, I am properly ashamed
of the fact that my family include:
two decent normal children instead OF
litter of Pommeranian pups, and ]
do not at present see my way clear tc
dispose of them.
Following your policy to its logiea
conclusion, one ought, I suppose, te
make away with the children after
the manner of Disner, the Eleventh
avenue plumber, but l confess with
chagrin that 1 have not yet arrived al
that high state of civilization.
"No child of the half a dozen in the
house has made any undue noise, sc
far as I have heard
But even that cannot be the cause O.
complaint, for if it were what would b.
said about the colony of cats which TO
the past two years has held nightly rev
els in the back yard, raising a racke