The sun., 1919-08-27
ASH CART HOME OF
I !. THREE FOR MONTH
~ --
Evicted Newark Mother and
n Two Children Sleep in 1t
.l Even in Rain.
STREETS HOME BY DAY
Finally Mother Takes Them
in-18 Persons in 3
Rooms Now.

Carmine Castellano always has done
the best he could to make beth ends
meet and provide enough food and
their two sons, Frank and Thomas,
who are five and two years old respec-,
lively. but his wages as the owner and
driver Of dump cart in which he carted
ashes and dirt for the city of Newark
were not large enough to do it. A long
time ago Carmine and his wife had a
little furniture. ramshackle stuff worth
nothing. but still there was bed and a
table and a chair or two and enough
pots and pans to cook a meal in.
But a few months ago their rent was
raised, and both Frank and Thomas
became i'll and required medicine, which
Is expensive, and everything they bought
90 eat kept going up and up, and one by
one their pieces of furniture went to the
pawnshop. Every nickel they got that
way and every nickel that Castellano
made In wages went to the landlord
and the butcher, but even with the
best they could do they got three months
behind in their rent. That was a month
ego, and they were evicted from the
two rooms they had been occupying in
7.6 North Sixth street. 1t was the
easiest thing in the world to get them
out of the place, too. because by that
time they had nothing in the world
but one old, moth eaten blanket that
really wasn't worth anything.
So they put the old blanket and the
two children in Castellano's dump cart
and started away. They didn't know
where to go or what to do. They tried
TO ind rooms, but they didn't have
money enough to pay 4 month in ad-
vance, and they were unable to rent n
place All that first day they plodded
along the streets of Newark trying to
ind place to live. but they had no
success, and when night came they had
no place to go. 1t never occurred to
them to go to their relatives although
Il Is doubtful IL that would have done
them any good, because Mrs. Castel-
lano's mother has twelve other children
and only a three room apartment, and
all their other relatives were Just as
poor and as crowded as that. So Cas-
tellano drove his dump cart into an alley
near the stable where he Keeps his
horse, and Mrs Castellano and the two
babies climbed into 1t and went to
sleep on the floor of the cart while
Castellano slept in the stall with his
horse.
For the past month they have been
doing that. All day Mrs. Castellano and
her. two children merely wander about
the streets, or sit in the parks, and even
when it rained they have had no other
place to go. And every night when
Castellano finished his days work they
climbed into the cart and went to sleep,
protected only by an old carpet stretched
ever the top of the cart But the car
pet was full of holes and wasn't any
good, SO that when 1t rained-and II
rained a great deal during Augustine
mother and her two children always got
went Mrs Castellano. trying to pro-
tect the two boys. used to take on her
skirt and wrap 1t around them, but
even then they got wet, and very dirty
from the ashes that had been hauled in
the cart, and they were almost eaten
alive by the mosquitoes.
BY Sunday afternoon. after month
of this, Mrs. Castellano was very Ill and
both children were sick. Fortunately
that day she met one OF her relatives
who found out about them and told Mrs
Castellano's mother. who sent for then
at once. Since Sunday. then the Cas-
tellanos have been living in the apart
ment Of Mrs. Castellano's mother-eigh
teen persons In three rooms. And Mrs
CasteIlano will have another baby be
fore very long. so that 1t is really nee
essary for her and her husband and tw'
children to find some place to live.
They went before the Mayors Com
mittee on Rent Profiteering in Newarl
yesterday, after somebody had told then
about it, and the committee said tina
every effort would be made to find tn
Castellano family a place to live. Blu
they didn't hold out much hope, becaus
rents are high in Newark and apart
ments are scarce. Meanwhile Castel
lano and his family will remain at Mrs
Caatatlan0's mother