Women Rioters of New York.

Evening Post, Volume LXIV, Issue 47, 23 August 1902, Page 5 (Supplement)

Women Rioters of New York.

That there are basio temperamental differences between the women of AngloSaxon blood and the Jewess has been amply demonstrated in New York during the past few weeks (writes 'Flaneur" in the San Francisco Argonaut). While the English and the Irish and the American born of the poor of New York's East Side have grumbled much at the increased cost of meat, they have looked to the 4awß of the. land to right their wrongs. Not so tho women of the Slavic races and the Jewesses. In their veins flows hotter blood, and their knowledge of the laws of the land is extremely vaguo. The one crushing unescapable fact was that meat was too dear. And what was life without meat!-. And so they rose, three thousand strong, and rioted in the streets of Now York.

The city has not seen in many years so picturesque a spectacle. As one watched the surging, seething crowds of angered, gesticulating women in shawls and keiyshiefs, it was not difficult to imagine that they were the creatures of the Commune.

The initial riot was some time ago, but the trouble has continued with more or less virulence ev«v since. The first day of the riots there were more than six hundred arrests. The rioters Mere moßtly Jewesses. Their grievances were against butchers of theiv own race, who had increased the price of tho commonest meat to eighteen cents a pound. The women determined that unless meat were sold at a less price they would not buy, nor should any one else be permitted to buy. Early in the morning a knot of women were at every butchershop door. The first offender to meet their wrath was a woman at Juke Kalinski's place on Cherry-street. The woman purchased some meat, and immediately, was set upon by a score of shrieking, yelling females, her clothing torn off, and her meat taken away. Then Kalihski's shop was cleaned out, and the meat thrown in the gutter. Policemen who arrested the ringleaders were followed by a vindictive mob and pelted with lumps of the raw beef.

Other women arrested during the day were rescued by squealing, biting, scratching squads of female rioters. Towards night the -crowds grew. A big force of policemen was detailed, and under a fire of bricks and bottles and stove-lids from tenement windows and fire-escapes, they finally succeeded in arresting the ringleaders. Every woman arrested threw herself fiat on the ground and yelled. All resisted with feline ferocity. Following days 'witnessed similar scenes. The women succeeded in frightening tho butchers "-into closing most of the shops. Those arrested were, almost without exception, fined amounts ranging from three to ten dollars, but this did not seem to deter them. |?'The Court* were crowded. Many of the women in the mobq, and some among the prisoners, carried babies in their arms. In one case of which I know, a woman carrying a child with one arm hurled a plafe with the other at a .poliseman, severely cutting him about the head and felling him to the ground. One of tho most exciting incidents of tho turbulent days was the attempt of two hundred men, husbands of incarcerated female prisoners, to rescue their wives. This happened at the Es6ex-street gnol. All one afternoon angry men" hung about the place and were "charged repeatedly by squads of police. Not until lato at night did the men h*ve sufficient courage really to make a determined attfmpt. Then about two hundred of them made a rush toward tho station and were already inside the outer doors before the police had sufficiently recovered from the surprise of the quick attack to force them back. This one chivalric effort on the port of only two hundred men casts a certain reflection upon their bravery, or else, it may be assumed, they were wiser than their wives.

A unique method of worsting ihe butchers was employed by somo of the women. Beneath their all • concealing shawls they carried into the shops bottles of kerosene, which, when the attention of tho proprietor was diverted, they poured upon the meat. In sections of the city where feeling ran highest, a match was then touched to the keroseue, with startling, thpugh only in a few oases, serious results.

But the resourceful Jewesses of tho East Side were not alone destructive, but also were .constructive. Several of the brighter ones among them organized cc operative shops, and went into tho meat selling business on their own hook. One Surah Cohn, a buxom Russian Jewess, has a shop on Stanton-street where she does a rushing business, and declares dividends every day. When she has sold out every thing she closes the shop and sends for a new lot of "chuck." Another organization has been formed, known by the euphonious titlo of "The East Side Ladies' Anti-Trust Association,' and it looks as if the high-priced butchers would have either to meet the prices of their female rivalß, or go out of business.

One of the things which is amusing to the unattached spectator, but scarcely ko to those whom the joke Concerns, is that the universal voice of tho East Side declares' that Mayor Low is responsible for deaf meat. Tammany, thty over, never did anything bo bad as this in its cureer. And it may bo worth the Mayor's Avhrle to spend a few hundred thousands in selling cheap meat to the strenuous, black-haired, brown-eyed, bigbosomed Jewesses who live over in the tenement district, if he expeots to be reelected' next time.