BROADBRIM'S NEW YORK LETTER.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 12120, 5 December 1894, Page 3

BROADBRIM'S NEW YORK LETTER.

sun's head rolled into the basket on Thursday, and wonder of wonders-the office ot ward man has been abolished. Tho wardman was lite the pilot fish lint swims above tho shark and steors him into all good things that happau ta like in his way ; or, like the jackal who hunts for the loin, and takes for his shore whntever the monarch of the forest leaves when his kingly appetite is satisfied. All the waidmen liwe either bs cm dismissed or reduced to patrol duty, and hereafter the captains will have to do thoir own blackmailing, or else do without yachts or fußt trotters. Dr Parkhurst dropped in upon in this week, looking brown as a berry and happy as a sand boy. He was especially glad to hear of Captain Devery's decapitation, whom he regarded as one of tho worst of the gang. But he says that the heaviest sinners are the Commissioners themselves, the very men who have boon trying ard driving from the public service the police captains and wavdmen. Capt, Devery refueed to appear before the Police Commissioners, but tbey tried him and dismissed him all the same.

(Special to Chronicle ) In the midst of our disorganized and disrupted labour system, with starvation staring them in the face,— 2o,ooo tailors in New York and Brooklyn have gone tut out on a strike. The main scene of <his labour disaster isbet.vcien Division street and Twelfth street and Ili9 Bowery and | Avenue A in this city, and at a place called Brownsville in tho 26th Ward of the city of Brooklyn. I hate and deprecate strikeß— not becauso Ido not want _^rto see my suffering fellow-beings attempt to better their condition, but because strikes have always failed to remedy tbo evils compliined of; and hive left their poor victims worse off than they were before. Besides this they are always attendoi •with brutality and excesses', and instead of wreaking their vengeance on the capitalist who they declare is oppressing and robbing them, they fall in muiderous gangs on soms workman as poor and as wretched as themselves dastroy his littlo proparty, wreck bib household, and either m»im him or bo it him to death. A few years ago the manufacture of Teady made clothing was mostly in the hands of Americans, — American men, womeD, aDd girls, were well paid, well fed, decently clad, and comfortably housed. Then came the first invasion of RuEsian. Polish, and Hungarian Jews. They had always lived in squilid wretchedness and privation, and were strangers to the comforts of a decent and wholesome civilisation; tbey resisted every effort cf tboir intelligent and charitable Amnrican brethren for their elevation and improvement, and clung witn tenacity to their wretchedness, dirt and rags. They had not been here long when they entered into competition in tho la 1 our market; they soon mastered tho manipulations of a sewing machine, and in a few months every American man and woman was driven from the bunnoES and were forced fo seek otli3r means of

Once more the Lexow Committee is at work, and before they get through it in possible that New York may find itself without a Police Commission. It is not to be believed that the vast sums extorted ftom the criminal classes were absorbed entirely by the captains, and I have no doubt but the evidence in the hands of Mr Goff, the prosecutor of the Lexow Committee, which will trace the plunder through tho Police Commission right up to the doors of Taminuny Hall, Among the expected witnesses in tho coming trials are many of the most respected merchants in this city, who year after year have allowed themselves to be blackmailed, because they violated the law in piling their goods upon the sidewalks, driving podesttianß into the midd'e of tho streo', bribing our corrupt officials to wink at their finsjront viola, tions of the law.

living. . -i, it. I There was no competing with them. A single room furnished ample accommodation for ten or fifteen people ; here they worked, eat, drank, and slept. Cabbage soupp, decayed vegetables, rotten fru'.t, and the vilest of gin, called vodky, made from potato alcohol, were their usual daily fare, and the sharp competition in the race for life brcuphb wngeß down cent per cent, till at last, it has reached the starvation limit, and tho qu»tion involves into a slow or a quick death, I have paid that I. hate strikes, and so I do s but my heart aches when I £63 the mißorab'e condition to which these poor people are reduced ; not one in a hundred of them can apeak our language, nor do they wish to acquire it. They are hardly responsible for thb dense ignorunco, nor the bitter prejudices that darkonß their lives; ages of oppression and tuCforiDß hava made them like Ishmael with their hands against every man, and eveiy man's hand against them. Miserable as they were, with no supplies and no money ahead.no sooner was , the strike proclaimed than 20,000 poverty BtricVen wretches quit woik ard went out. It would have been bad enough if they had stopped there. But they did not atop there ; parties of a hundred or a hundred and fifty strong vintod the shops which refused to join in the strike, attacked tho workmen and women in a murderous fashion, broke all the sawing machines, and did not depart until they had left several shops a wreck. In many instances tho strikers were successfully resisted and driven off, but the end has not yet come, wo must wait; for the aftermath. It is pitiful any way you look at it—the condition of the strikeis as mott miserable, their presence here is a continual menace against our own peace aud safety. 'Whatever field of labour they have entered they have deßtrojed and loft as baie and as mined as the , locusts of old cuised the fair fields of the Egyptians. Aft6r driving all other competitors from the labour market came tho sharp and terrible competition among , themeolves, prices went down week sfter weak till a man working eighteen houtß a day could scarcely earn eEou ; hto live. One poor wrotch hsUfkd thut to had to make a hundred coats in four day-, acd that twet.ty five coats was a regular day s work. No wonder that fuesa poor ignorant people occasionally rise in rebellion againtt the horrors of such a miserable slavery. The negro of tie South in the darkes 1 " 3ays of slavery was cover sunk to Bitch low estate; he had p'oaty t> fat and fair clothes to wear, and a comfortable roof to shelter him-, in the evening wlnn his work was done, he joined his Mlows in tho song and dance, acd wh-ra M laid down he slept soundly till the sun ro3e in the morning, , No sound of song is heard in the homes of these wretched foroign Blaves. • the sharp click and interminable whirr of the sewing machine 1b heard in homes early and late, far, far into the shadows of the night. For tho lost few days tho entire Jewish quarter has been seetninß and eurgin? like an anaiy sea. They have no bond in common with society— they only know life us a lirao of better trial and pri/ation, from which any change wcu!d be preferable. Now that it is too late we discover that we have been too liberal with our emigratunlaws, our public lands and the ruht, of franchise The Anarchist beaten back by Federal bajonets, from his work of murder <md destruction at Cliioago-is told to savo Mb money and buy a gun, while another labour leader tells us, " We will w«j- ( ieetyou with our ballots at the polls. This is one of tho most appalling daagers that confronts us ! Can this raasa of ignorance and criroo be consolidated into an aggvessive whole and be made effective by promifO3 of license nnd plunder P The crnctod brained miuatebank Coxey sounds his slogan, and all over the land thousands begin their march upon the capital ; revolution and anarchy are rife from the Atlantic to tin Pawns j railroad trains are seized; the inhabitants of towns a'onp the routs aro terrorized and aro compelled to feed these huagry luffianß as they mirth towards Washington to enforce their demands, by overwhelming numbers, on the regu'arly elected loprbsentatives of the Governmont. . . Tho great peril of the working people ib the uncrupulous character of the men to whom they have blindly committed their interests. Take the three foremost men in the late strike at Chicago-Debs of the A 8.U., Soveie'gn of the Knights of Labour, and Windy Sim Gompera of the Federation of Labour. It seems impossible for eithtrof these men in dealing with their dupes to tell the tiu h H Only twenty-four hours before the aolUpsa of the Chicaip strike, Dabs issued a manifesto to bis deluded followers that their victory was won, and that the railroad kin^swero on the lunjthe poor fools believed him and held out till the hour of grace wa3 rassed, so they lost their jobs, and many of them now are starving. Sovereign, the Grandmaster Workman of the Knights of Labour, came on to Chicago .^■'with a great flourish of tmmpets, and he expected to see the railroad kings come crawling at his feet. The community crew pale when he announced t hit he was going to aid J">eba' strike, by calling out a hundred thousand men,— not a man answered his call. A few nights aro Sam Gompers declared at a meeting of the Federation of Labour, that eighty per cont. of tho btrikea were won, ton per cent wero lost, and ten were comiuomtsed. Now, if tuch a declaration had been made in a country where no newspapers were published, and labour statistics were unattainable, I shju'd not wonder at the brazen cheek of tho man who could dare get up iv a public meeting and make such an assertion. As a specimen of he ivy armored. 'copper fasteued, niCKle-plnted lying,- Sam' Gompers takes the cake. Bifehty per cent, of the strikos successes ! "Why, there is not a echoolboy in the Onitdd States w},6 can read and vnte, who dries not knofc tliafc eighty percent. ot the strikes have been tho deadest of r"o id failnree, and that not more lhan ten r (.-cent, hava succeeded; and ihu3B sueccssps havo been purchased at terrible lofs of life and property— the aggregate losses to the employer and emplojea in tli3 past ten years footing v; over a thousand millions of dollars. The Strike inaugurated this week leases beiweoa thirty aad foJty thousand men idle. Win; er is coming on, no food in the closet, no coal in the cellar, no money in the bank. What is to become of thorn ? Dreadful sufloring is sure to come ; Uocl halp them, God help them ! ■ , Another police, captain has gone down to Davy Jones' locker. Captain Stephen1-. , <■ " ■