LITTLE EUROPE IN AMERICA

Evening Star, Issue 18980, 30 June 1925, Page 5

LITTLE EUROPE IN AMERICA

THE MELTING POT IN HEW YORK [By J. M. Bn, lock, in the ‘ Sunday Chronicle.’] If. is estimated that Now York has a million German-speaking inhabitants, 60,000 Swedes, 40,000 Norwegians, 30,000 Rumanians, 20,000 Spaniards, 15,000 Finlanders, 11,000 Dutch, 4,000 gipsies. There, are 400 Hungarian restaurants alone, and tho numbers ol Jews oi all nations, Orientals, and blacks are enormous. A symbol of the multifariou-sness of New York is to he found in the fact that it publishes fifty-two different newspapers in twenty-two different foreign languages. There is no oilier city where you can listen in one and tho same wight- to a plav plaved in Russian by tho best Russian players, or others played in German by tho best German players,-or one played in French by the best I reach players, to ‘Hamlet’ in English and ‘ Hamlet ’ played in Armenian by Armenian plavcrs .specially come, from Till in.

The grow th of New York has been like a mushroom, for it is now 120 times bigger than it was 100 years ago. Immigration lias been deliberately cut down, ami Ellis Island is a greater terror to tho incomer than ever before. Yet Europe continues to pour in its iiniltitudc.s, and Babel reigns as much as ever. Indeed, New York, like no other city, afters the best study of tho nations of the world, samples of each, being centred in different sections within easy roach of one another. EUROPE SUPERIMPOSED.

Tice Melting Pot, which was tho phrase used by Air Zangwill, is tar from m?cßing tho ingredients, for the incomers cannot forget the distracted Europe Uu*y have left; tho French, oven to the third and fourth generations, being born routiniers, keeping up many of their old-world altitudes.

Indeed, a map of Europe superimposed upon the map of New York would prove that the different foreign sections of tho cii.v live in the .same proximity to one another as in Europe —tho Spanish near the French, tho French near the Germans, the Rumanians near the Hungarians, and tho Greeks behind the Italians. People of Western Europe live in (he wrefern side of the city. People of Eastern Europe live in the eastern side of the city. Northerners live in the northern part of the city, and southerners in the southern part. ThWi who have lived in Europe near the sea or a river have a tendency in New York to Jive as near the sea or tho river as possible, 'I no English, as bom islanders, livo mi (lift other side, of tho Hudson, as if tho river were the channel that separates them from the rest ol Europe. THE EFFECT OF THE WAR.

Furthermore, a, iv-!orinatiou of the same grouping lakes place every lime, the city expands, if the Kalians move, further up Harlem, lie* Greeks Mlmv them, (lie Spaniard, join them, with the, French always lagging behind, and the Germans expanding eastwards. And yet these people hale one another as only neighbors can bate one another. It is not )<>vc that attracts them to where the of hem are. Hatred proves a, more potent element of attraction than loom In particular, the Poles, wo are told by Conrad Kercovlci, in ’Around the World m New Wak.’ don 1, “neighbor” well. They have inherited century-old quarrels and 'grievances with almost all the nations.

Tho wax has atleck'd the tore : gn elements in Xcw York just as it has alEcled them in Europe, elevating some, amt depressing others. Thus Hie. restoration of some of its former territory in Rumania under the, terms of the IVwc of Versailles was followed by the New V ork Romanians expanding further into I'm Hungary quarter. All through the wax lino had been taking place in all the other quarters of tho town. The Bui cars had invaded the Serbian terrilory, ami wore expelled afterwards. And tho Germans had gone as near lo tin; heart of Iho 1' Huich district as they had gone to P.n'i.i, only to be pushed back later. Hum iim occupation of the Bain' by tho French hahad its couniorpail. in Now \ oVk. Tim French went as far into tho German territory as they possibly could, and many a German bakery became a, .trench boukmgerio ovondg ll l, Tho Germans h;u•' saflered in many wavs, though they cun.-Uiute a sixih oi tho population of tho cosin'ry. shiny a boy, we arc (old, who 111:11 vineil away v.iih the American army is “ unable to h'uk into his fa.l.lu;r'fi eyes” when be remember* the battles in which ho look part against lies father’s people. 'There is many a wi'.c who finds, living with her husband wellnigh impossible since Ids return from the battlefield, when sho remembers her kinsmen dead in Germany. (homo or the incomers aMnidate nn-ro readily than otlieis. Jim hremli, whom Mr Bcrcovioi describes as tho "grvr.teM. ancestor worshipper in Mm world tmM, ihe Chinese,” keep very much to i.hcim-elv-"s. just as they do in Europe, and as a. wineloving people ihey have taken badly with Prohibition, which has reduced the number of their cafes. IN AN OPIUM HEM.

In the Chinese qiiart/T there, arc opium dens, or '‘joints” as Americans call them, and the visitors arc mil. confined to tho Chinese (hern-elves. Mr Beivovici has counted as many as eight while people out of eleven in one of those places : They looked more like disembowelled creatures, from whom everythin;: that bad a semblance of real life bad. been taken out. Their brains seemed to have been scooped out limn within, their skulls. Their eyes were bleary and partly closed. The twitching bos and the arms hanging over tho edges oi tho narrow' cols on which they lay down made a picture of contemptible distress portrayed and horrifying. The- Chinese lay in'a tranen without in any way giving the impression -nf disgust and horrors given by tho others.

The forr-ign q liar Icm in New York are, a great attraction to .sightseer?. On one occasion Chaliapin visited tho Nr"iota del Ditto, a musical organisation in the Italian quarter, .lie was constantly iniemiplod as ho talked Italian by an Irish visitor, who wanted him to speak English, at which tho Russian is but a, poor hand. At last he could stand no mo;e. With a panther-like leap ho jump' d across the tabic. Lotties, disk?, and forks clattered on the Moor, and, although t wenty men tried io ball bis leap, clinging to bis aims and long legs, Chaliapin shook them off. And then with ono big shove, ho threw his persistent inlemipter into the street. Bow is it all going to cud? At present America in general, and Nov York in particular, is but a seething melting pot, wondering often uneasily what sort ol metal is -to be produced in tiro cauldron.