The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1908-02-02
GLIMPSE At THE
REAL BOHEMIAN
Distinctive Bohemia of New
York City
FOLLY DOES NOT REIGN
Life in the Cigar Factory District.
Examples of Heroism in
Poor Quarter of
the Town.
FOLLY DOES NOT REIGN

New York. February Though there
are two "Bohemias" in thes metropolis.
the great majority of the citizens, as
we'll as the visitods to the city know OF
but one-the gay Bohemia, the land
where nobody goes home.p This careless
region of gaiety, where all is glitter and
laughter and light and display, where the
popping of corks blends all night long
with the happy, tinkling music of the or
chestras, where there is no suggestion of
the stern and strenuous business life Of
the big city-this region naturally attracts
attention throughout the length and
breadth of the land. And all strangers
who come to the city wish to get a
glimpse of this Bohemia, the center OF
which is the Great White Way between
the two Flatirons
No visitors to the city on pleasure bent,
however, come To New Yorks second Be-
hemia, where there is no glitter and dis
play and little laughter, and life is any
thing but gay This is the cigar factory
district, on the middle East Side, re-
gion of crowded tenements extending
from the turbid shores of the East river
on Second avenue The people in the dis
trict are natives of Bohemia, but the long
hours of toll in the cigar factories and
the still longer hours of enforced idle
ness when hard times shut down those
factories have robbed them of many of
the care-free attributes which the word
Bohemia calls to mind Bohemianism in
this quarter, whatever 1t may mean on
Broadway, means toll, and, not infre-
quently, economic heroism.
One seldom sees newspaper stories or
the quarter, for the people guard their
many tragedies and their few comedies
most zealously, but the settlement work
ers and the public school teachers of the
district know incidents of heroic sacrifice
on which could be builded tales of exquis-
lite pathos. Such an incident has just been
concluded in a little wooden shanty in
the rear yard of one of the East Seventy
fourth street tenements.
A tired young woman, worn with the
burden of four small children and con-
sumptlve, epileptc husband, lives in the
shanty. Two months ago the board Of
health decreed that for the sake of her
health and that of her children, her hus-
band must live away from her. The
couple loved each other. and although
each realized that the parting was for the
best, it did not make their grief any
easier to bear.
The immediate pangs of their separa-
ton had not been assuaged before one
of the charitable associations that had
been assisting the mother to pay her rent,
issued the ultimatum that she must place
her children, except the youngest, an s.
months-old baby, in some asylum, or else
forfeit the financial assistance which she
was receiving from the organization.
This was the final drop that filled the
woman's cup of bitterness to overlooking
and all the mother love in her rebelled.
You can stop paying my rent" she said
to the agent of the society who presented
the proposition to her. Il love my chill
dren, and as long as I am able to bend
over a washtub, will not be parted from
them"
The charitable association Immediately
dropped her from its list. Since then the
woman has struggled along el<ing out
an existence for herself and her babies
by taking home whatever washing she
can obtain. Her husband Is staying in
Brooklyn with his family. who themselves
are in such Strengthened circumstances
that they can do nothing for the wife and
the four little ones in Manhattan. A fea-
ture of this case which is typical of tho
Bohemian district is that the brave young
mother has made no appeal to any other
which formerly assisted her stopped
paying her rent.
A few days ago. however, one of the |
teachers from the Jones Memorial |
School, which is maintained In the neigh |
borhood by the Children's Aid society, |
discovered the woman's predicament and |
aided her in her heroic fight to keep the |
children with her, by giving her small |
a hIltcl0r
shop.
This pathetic case is only one of hun
dreds in the Bohemian quarter. The peo-
Pile there bear the burdens with a stole
philosophy that places them in class
utterly distinct from the average tene-
ment jewellers. When they need charity,
they accept it, but they seldom seek it.
And when conditions improve so that they
feel that they can get along without out
side aid, they go Immediately to the peo-
pie or the organizations that have been
assisting them and tell them that this as
sistance is needed no longer.
Since the recent financial panic there
has been more need for charity in this
neighborhood than has ever been record
ed on the books of any of the charita-
BILE organizations. This is due to two dis
tinct cause.-the laying off of hands in the
cigar factories and the great influx of I'M
employed men from other cities. In form
or years when the men employed in the
cigar factories were dismissed, their
wives, who In many instances worked In
the same factories with them, were per-
mitted to keep their positions. But this
year both. men and women have been laid |
of, and the scarcity of work in the city |
has made it impossible for the men to get |
work as laborers.
As result of the great need for char |
table assistance in the neighborhood, q |
unique form of charity has been evolved |
by the workers in the Jones Memorial |
School Instead of giving money to the !
destitute families, the school supplies |
them with dollar orders" on neighbor-
hood grocery. Similar orders on butcher |
shops are also given them, and when they
are without fuel they receive an order for
hundred pounds of coal Owing to the
limited resources of the school, it is only
possible now to extend aid of this char
acter to about 30 families q month, out
of more than 200 families in the quarter
who really need such assistance.
Despite their dire straits, nearly all
the families manage to send their chill
dren to school. This eagerness on the
parents part to give their little ones an
education SO that they may escape the
sordid life OF the tenements when they
grow up has met with the hearty cooper
-. Ill. ,Afa,