The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-06-29
SCHOOL PANIC HITS ITALIANS.
THREE WILD MOBS or WCJEN
DEMAND THEIR CHILDREN.

The school panic spread 10 tne lIahah'
quarter yesterday and three O OF fren
zied women fought the police for over an
hour in the morning before the doors OF the
Mott street, Baxter street and Marion street
schools. The women tore at the police
mems faces and made ava PUSHES at the
locked doors of the schoolhouses, screaming;
"Gives us our childrenl The doctors are
numbering them!" A few men with knives
lowered on the edges Of the fighting herds OF
women and tried to slip in and steathily
jab at the broad backs Of the ops.
Within the closed doors Of the three schools
pupils and teachers were held in siege until
reserves from all the precincts round about
had been called and had elbowed the jams
from the sidewalks in front OF the SCHOOLS.
Then the pupils marched out to the tune
OF their class music, regularly and in order.
With the wisdom that il born Of the first
generation on this side Of the waters the
youngsters grinned in the faces OF their
distracted parents and went of to play
jaokstones and eat watermelon rind as IL
nothing serious had arisen to break the days
routine.
An Italian morning paper, the IL Pro-
crease Hdio-Americdno, published under the
caption "A Furious Demonstration OF
Women" a brief and very jldicious acoount
OF the riots at the East Side schools on
Wednesday. This news item seems to have
been entirely misunderstood by the readers,
who may have taken the expressions quoted
from the East Siders as representing the
ideas of the paper itself. Anyway, along
Mott, Hester and Prince streets. where
each gorged tenement house is as a village
Of Italy the leaven of II Progresses news
story began to work rapidly. Half an hour
before school time little Maria Bolodini
ran breathlessly into the presence Of Miss
Mae jackson, principal Of the school 1885,,
the old Marion street school. Her eyes were
big with the tidings she brought.
Look out, Mees Jackson. Lassa night da
mans tolda my pa evera kid getta da troat
cut. Read in da pape dis a morn. My
pa, my ma-he's yer mad. He's drink by
Tony Bacoigalupi's place an he's take da
knife, maybe so,"
Miss jackson held a consultation with the
teachers. Thu street was quiet outside. A
piano organ tangled at the corner. 1t was
decided to go ahead with the days work.
Hardly had the children filed into their
places and reached for their books when
from across the street out of Tony Bacci-
galupi's grog shop there wavered a man,
very unsteady on his legs. He leaned
against the school door and knocked loudly
with his fist. He knocked again. Then
suddenly he whirled with his back to the
door and screamed something in Italian,
both arms spread widely out and his eyes
wide open.
The street heard him for blocks. From
fire escapes. from bedroom windows and
front doors the shock heads Of women peered
out. The man against the school door
yelled again raucously: "Dateci i nostri
bambini!' cGive us our children y. Then
the rush began.
Slattern women, dragging frowzy chill
dren or carrying them in their arms,
appeared at the word Of the drunken man
against the school door and galloped
from all quarters upon the school. Within
ten minutes there was a mob Of over 800,
according to Edward Stapleton %janitor of
School 100.
aDateci i nostri bambini!" chanted the
man with his back to the door, and the horde
of women p ped in unison the same cry.
Stapleton, the %janitor, appeared for a min
ute at the side door and the man with the
brass voice made a slash at him with a sti-
letto. Stapleton shows where the dagger
parted the seam of his coat alone the pocket.
Policeman McGeorge, who has the La
fayette street beat, hurried to the Mu berry
street station house to say there was a riot
around the corner. Almost at the same
the precinct reserves. Riots at three schools
had been reported.
Before the reserves arrived at the scene
OF disturbance in Lafayette street Pietro
one of the upper windows and screamed:
go to your homes. My teacher is all
right. There are n o DOCTORS
He spoke in Italian. Thu shrieks of the
mob of women and the bass roar of the
drunk at the door drowned his voice. Then
came Policeman McGeorge, Sullivan, Myers,
Billerman, Donnelly and Bondeski from
the Mulberry street station house. They
had difficulty in working their way through
the throng McGeorge was hit on the back
of the neck with a bad beet and Myers had
one finger chewed by a woman, He swears
she was 80 years old but he says she could
bite yet.
Before the cops could reach the man at the
door who had been waving a stilletto at
them, he slipped under the arms Of the
women and disappeared. Just as they
reached the door the crowd behind them
suddenly crushed inward and a woman
with a child just in front Of Officer McGeorge
tainted. He pluoked the child from her
Policeman Sullivan made a neat ca tch and
scored a touchdown on the free curb across
the street. Then the doors we're opened
and the children marched out.
Al iSCDOOi l5U IN bdNUer street, near Grand,
not one OF the scholars knew the nature OF
the hubbub in the street until after the
police had cleared away the mob. Here the
quick wit OF two women did much to placate
the frenzied women in the street. Mrs.
Mary Dryer Is clerk of the school, and
though she does not speak Italian she has
through long acquaintance up and down
Baxter street gained the hearts Of every
mother in the double deckers." She is
fnown as "Missis Boss" among all the peo-
pie in the neighborhood.
Hardly had school been called when a
woman who lives in a tenement house on
Hester street, rang the school bell and called
for "Missis Boss" She old the kindly
clerk Of the sohool that every mother of the
sixty families in her house would be around
for her children before school had been in
session twenty minutes. The visitor wanted
her Luigi and her Margherita right then.
'Missis Boss" Jaw Miss Underhill, the
principal, and Luigi and Margherita were
dismissed.
Three women came next. They didn't
speak English. AS they stood parleying
with "Miesis Boss" there came around
the corner from the direction Of the Lafay-
cite street school a pbalanx Of amazons
on the double quick. They had come, |
screaming, to warn their neighbors that the
doctors were at work cutting threats OF
children in the school that minute.
'Missis Boss" held her ground on the
threshold of the school while the crowd