The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1911-06-21
NEW YORK CITY'S GHETTO
1T is EVER CHANGING, YET
REMAINS THE SAME.
Greater Jewish City Than Ever Was
Known. Push-Cart Merchants of
East Side. Its Morals.

East Side. Its Morals.
An interesting picture of Jewisl
life in New York is presented in The
Boston Transcript by kellogg Dur
land, a settlement worker. who ha:
revisited the East Side and studied
anew it's conditions after an absence
of years.
For centuries, he writes, it has
been the custom of certain old world
governments to confine the Jewish
population to definite sections of the
cities where the Jewish population
has been large. These Jewish con-
fines have been known as Ghettos.
When the exodus of Jews from Rus
STA, from Poland, from Roumania,
and Hungary was at its height these
old world Hebrews took unto them
selves that section OF the lower East
Side of New York which lies east of
the BoWery clear down to the East
river. and in the course of time this
district became so we'll nigh univer-
sally Jewish that the word Ghetto
came to be applied to it. 1t was in
reality a veritable Ghetto, compare
BILE to the greatest Ghettos of the old
world, only vaster. 1t is still today
a greater city of Jews than the world
has ever known. Accustomed through
the centuries which have gone to be
forcibly confined within a given area,
transplanted to the new world, where
no such restrictions have ever exist
ed, these people have yet adhered
very largely to their Irrational habits.
Held together not only by the bonds
of orthodoxy, but by the scars of an
cient political bondase, they have
brought with them not only their
religion, their racial traits and GUS
toms, but the forms of life and hab-
it's which their previous existence
had imposed upon them. 1t would
seem a misnomer perhaps to charac-
terize any section of this wonderful
city as "unchangiLg," but the Ghetto
represents more nearly unchanging
New York than any other.
Street Merchants of the Ghetto.
In the perspective of 80 years, or
even 20 years the lower East Side
has completely altered. Immigrants
from Great Britain and Ireland and
from Germany, who at that time
practically possessed this section,
have departed. Their exodus depart
ed with the advent of the Jewish pop
ulation. Certain streets were, how
ever, retained by these nationaIities
until very recently, but now even this
old guard has given up and the sec
ton is altogether Jewish, with
slight fringe Of Italians. In other
words, the great orthodox Ghetto of
10 years ago is the self-same Ghetto
today, only more so. Here and there
a towering Office building has taken
the place of a tenement house or a
ram-shackle business building; GER
tain ma9nifi ent school houses. til,
largest in the world, have been erect
ed, but the drift of life through all
the old streets is just the same. Push
carts line the streets to the incon-
venience and decentralization of traf-
fic, whole blocks of them, solid, in
certain streets, and on these carts are
displayed every conceivable article
of necessity to human existence. At
the corner of Essex and Hester
streets is the same old Jewish labor
market, where loiter the workmen
waiting to be employed, carpenters
with their saws and hammers, lock-
smiths with their huge rings of keys,
plasterers, bricklayers, men of every
grade, representative of every trade
standing hour after hour, and from
time to time bargaining with a pros
pective employer over the price of
their time and labor. The peanut
stands, the old women peddling
strings of garlic and bags of onions,
the fruit vendors and the pickle mer-
chants with their pals of luscious
cucumbers, picked apples and toma-
toes, and down under the shadow of
the new bridge the fish women,
whose wares are exposed to all the
dust and dirt and filth that flies
through this miserably uncared-for
section of the city.
On almost every corner and scat
tered through many blocks are the
pavement soda water fountains,
where soda of many bright hues are
dispensed at one and two cents a
glass. The doorways are blocked by
fat old women, whose chief occupa-