Our New York Letter.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 936, 7 February 1890, Page 8

Our New York Letter.

Within the past ten years a word has crept into our vocabulary expressive of extreme impudence, waich has almost entirely superseded for this particular quality the grand old Saxon word, ‘cheek.’ I don’t know but cheek may be the comparative • and gall the superlative ; if so, it is all that could be desired to express the merits and character of Mr Elliott, a builder of Brooklyn. Mr Elliott is a married man living in excellent style on Eighth Ave. in the City of Churches, and what makes Mr Elliott’s gall more remarkable is that he is not an unknown quantity in that city, but he may be called a prime factor and a very prime factor at that. He is one of those gentlemen who never hides his light under a bushel, who was equally at home in a comic opera or a Sunday school convention, aud in fact was as well known as any man about town. While passing aloDg the street last spring his eye was arrested by a winsome young lady gazing into a jeweller’s window. No doubt she was admiring the pretty things therein contained, and wondering if the engagement ring on the edge of the tray would lit the third linger of her right hand. It is not altogether clear how the acquaintance came about, but iu two weeks from the time he met her Mr Elliott was an acknowledged suitor with a very fair prospect of becoming a husband. Mr Elliott had peculiar notions about marriage which Mr Elliott's affianced and her mother did not share. He told her that all he had to do was to acknowledge her as his wife and the business was done as effectually and legally as if all the magistrates and ministers in New York and Brooklyn had presided at the ceremony, but the young lady failed to sec it in that light, ior she and her mother had long ago resolved that when she launched her matrimonial bark that she would have a first-class send off. Mr Elliott begged and prayed ; he said that his family was very wealthy and they did not want him to get married, so to avoid their anger he proposed a secret marriage or an elopement, but the lady said no, no, no ; and she meant it, every word. She declared that she never would marry him without the consent of hie family. In a tpw days he

joyfully returned with the written consent of his mother, who had given him her blessing and a browa otone house fully furnished, whioh he in turn immediately deeded over to his expected wife, and then he asked her if she would not line to go around and see it. She accepted the offer and with her deed in her pocket she went with her affianced husbaud to inspect her property. The house was all that could be desired and the furniture magnificent, and to further seal matters he gave her a very fine diamond engagement ring. The next called on Mr Elliott at his place of business and his partners told her that she would probably find him at his house on Eighth Ave. She went up to find it was the identical pieoe of property that she had inspected the day before and the deed of which she still had in her pocket. She rung the bell and a lady came to the door. She inquired for Mr Elliott, the lady at the door answered the visitor that Mr Elliott was not in but she was Mr Elliott’s wife, and desired to know what was the visitor’s business with her husband. The young lady declared that she had no business with the lady’s husband but she was looking for her own husband, and she desired to know who the laiy was who answered the door, and what the was doing in her house? The lady at the door almost fainted, and then she inquired of the visitor who she was and what she wanted ? The visitor gave the lady at the door to understand that Bhe was the owner of the house and everything in it, and in forty.eight hours would be Mrs James Elliott according to the forms of law. Then there was a row. The lady who answered the door ran up stair 3 and got her . marriage certificate while the young lady visitor flourished a deed of the house and a bill of sale for everything in it. Then both the ladies fainted as they were bound to do, and when they came to the young woman rushed home to her mother, and 'Mrs Elliott went hunting for her husband. The impudent vagabond had actually taken the girl into his own house in the absence of his wife, who was shopping in New York, and had taken one of his wife’s diamond rings which he had given to the young girl as an engagement ring. On the discovery Mr Elliott got up and dusted, and he has not been seen in Brooklyn since. The thermometer is gradually getting towards freezing point as we approach the holidays, hut it will be quite warm enough for Mr Elliott if his vrow catches him within the lines of Brooklyn city. Looking over the telegraphic news the other day I saw in leaded head lines ‘ Terrible Sufferings in Ireland, Horrible Evictions in Wicklow and Kerry,’ then followed a long account of the fight that followed, in which several of the officers were scalded and wounded in the attempt to storm the house. I now make this statement and challenge investigation : That there are more evictions weekly in New York and Brooklyn than are made in all Ireland in the same space of time from the Hill of Howth to Dingle Bay, and that these evictions are executed with greater cruelty and heartlessness than any seen in Ireland for the past ten years. Let us attend to the mote in our own eyeß before meddling with the beam in our neighbour’s. One bitter night last week while a pelting storm of rain and sleet swept the Btreeta a wretched woman was found crouching in a doorway drenched to the skin, an infant dying on her breast and a starving little girl shivering beside her. The big-hearted policeman unbuttoned his coat and tucked the infant away inside it, and taking the other child in his arms led the way to the station where they were fed, supplied with dry clothes and made as comfortable as possible, and in the morning they were cared for by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelly to Children. The woman had been a society belle in her day, and when her father died he left her a email fortune. She married a worthless vagabond against the protest of her relatives, and in a few years he had squandered all her money gambling and drinking, and becoming a confirmed sot finally deserted her. The few articles of furniture in their wretched house were sold for food and fire, then her dresses went, and at last her wedding ring, and then in the midst of the storm the landlord thrust her and her two little ones into the street where they were found by the police. 1 his is not

a solitary case, it is done here every day. The week before last a dying woman was taken out of her house at Coney Island and carried to a barn and left there to die. Only a few mouths ago a section of Texas, thirty miles long and fifteen miles wide, was raided by civil officers and troops, the settlers were driven off, their houses and crops burned, and they were left to shift for themselves on the roadside, to find food and shelter as best they might. But we need not go as far as Texas, we have enough of it right here in New York and Brooklyn, and that we have it is a disgrace to our civilisation.

The other morning a beautiful young girl was found nraying on her knees on the Sixth Avenue. She was richly dressed, of refined and ladylike manners, and evidently a person of education. The policeman on beat took charge of her, for her mind was evidently affected. She proved to be a Miss Hilton, who bad been reared from her infancy in a convent, her mother here in New York paying for her eduoation, and supplying her with everything needed. When summer came the daughter did not go to her mother in New York, but met her at some pleasaDt place in the country, and with her she spent her vacation and then returned to sehool. She had her mother’s address in New York, but was never allowed to come to the city. A few weeks ago, not feeling well, and now having arrived at the age of womanhood, she obtained leave of absence to visit her mother, thinking to give her a pleasant surprise. She found her mother living in elegant style in a fashionable portion of the city, but there was something very constrained in her welcome, and in a few days the poor girl became aware that her mother was one of the lost. The shock turned her brain, she wandered out into the streets, and kneeling down on the cold stones prayed while tears coursed down her cheeks for the woman she could never again call mother. Tain, in his English Literature, says there is a savage taint in our Saxon blood left there by our early ancestors, commingled with Normans, Danes, Huns, and other barbarians, and that no matter how much we are educated or civilised, that peculiar savage taint will crop out if you will only give it an opportunity. Tain was right. There are thousands of men to-day in this city, and some of their names may be found among McAllister’s four hundred blito, who would give ten times as much to see a prize fight or a dog fight as they would to see the finest art collection in the world. On Thanksgiving Day thirty thousand people went to the Berkeley Oval to see the football contest between Princeton and Yale. The day was miserable enough, the air was raw and chilly, but seemed to be of no account with the thousands that flew the opposing colours of Princeton and Yale. Who were they ? Why, they were the very cream of New York society, and they were out for keeps. When the teams entered the field clad in their canvas suit 3 they looked 1 ke savages ; and when the word * play ’ was given they acted like savages. When the teams came together they rolled and wallowed in the mire till they presented the most shocking appearance ever seen at any football exhibition. Old men shouted, fair women clapped their hands and danced with delight, and as a Yale man was knocked endways, or a Princeton man was sent flying heels over head all covered over with mud, you could hear such exclamations as these—Ain’t that splendid ? Beautiful ! Oh my ; oh my ! When a mail’s leg was almost broken, the crowd went wild with delight ; and in the rushes the ears were edified and delighted with such cries as these—Kill him ! Gouge his eyes out ! Break his leg ! Cut off his head ! &c., &c. And this is the noble game of football between the representatives of two of the foremost colleges in the land, and when the game was finished amid the cheers of the assembled thousands a fouler, dirtier, more disreputable looking set was never seen anywhere. That night, the vietorß and defeated proceeded to paint the town red, and they partially succeeded, the police having special orders to give the boys a pretty long tether. They paraded the streets blowing horns and beating pans, and raising the d 1 generally, and quite a number of the Yale boys had to hustle around lively for a bed and a breakfast, and I have uq

doubt hut Chauncey Depew, who is a Yale man himself helped to get a lot of them back to New Haven marked ‘ D. n.’ Football is the polite amusement of the educated dlite. Prize fighting is supposed to be the recreation of the ignorant roughs and blackguards, but of the two prize fighting is the most refined and the leas brutal, and it is certainly cleaner and more scientific. 1 despiso both of them as they are now practiced. College football is a game of unexampled brutality, and if compelled to choose between the two give me a first class prize fight every time, for it is the cleanest and most descent exhibition. Broadbrim.