Vol. LIX. No. 2631. 
NEW YORK, JUNE 30, 1900. 
81 PER YEAR. 
3 STRANGE SIGHTS AROUND NEW YORK. 
HOW THE FOREIGN ELEMENT LIVES. 0 
Outdoor Markets and What We See There. 
ITALIANS AND CHINESE.—In a walk of 10 min¬ 
utes from The R. N.-Y. office one can get into sec¬ 
tions of the city so completely foreign that he might 
think he had been scooped up by a cyclone and 
landed in Italy or China. It is surprising how such 
a mass of foreigners can settle in a strange land 
under entirely new conditions, and yet retain nearly 
all of their own peculiar customs of living. While 
many Italians are hard workers, laboring during the 
day on the streets or in sewers, some prefer to sell 
peanuts or keep fruit stands, and others, apparently, 
have plenty of time for doing nothing. However, but 
few idle Chinamen are seen except on Sunday. If they 
loaf around during the week, it is done inside. They 
are usually hustling along the sideiwialks or hard at 
work in a laundry, which occupation they take to as 
naturally as a squirrel climbs a tree. So far as my 
observation goes, industry is a characteristic of this 
race, and an element of strength that may account, 
in part, for their holding together as a people thou¬ 
sands of years, numbering at present not far from 
one-third of the world’s population, while other na¬ 
tions, like Greece and Rome, which led them in 
learning and progress, have decayed. An ambition 
to work may be transmitted from one generation to 
another, and is an inheritance not to be despised. 
Some people are now talking flippantly about the 
cutting up and distribution of China by the Powers, as 
though it were as easy a job as for a country boy to 
get away with a pumpkin pie, apparently forgetting 
that, though backward, the Chinese cannot be a 
weak race, or through their weakness they would 
have ceased to be as a nation long ago. Weak people 
cannot hold their greedy neighbors at arms’ length 
for generations. When at work, the Chinaman does 
not look like a sport, and few would suspect him of 
joking or gambling, but a trip through Mott, Pell 
and Doyer streets on Sunday afternoon will open 
one’s eyes. The streets are full of Chinese, laughing, 
talking and having the biggest kind of a time, while 
inside they are smoking and gambling. On the sides 
of buildings are bulletins of red paper covered with 
strange letters, probably giving the news of the day 
and various announcements. This section of New 
York is a sort of Sunday magnetic pole for them. 
From all parts of the city and suburbs they drift in 
here. A few Chinese children are seen—lively little 
chaps, dressed in bright colors, full of laughter and 
chatter. 
SCENES IN LITTLE ITALY.—Fig 143 is a typical 
scene on Mulberry Street, an Italian quarter, in early 
Spring. The women nearly always go bareheaded. 
The picture shows the large figures on the clothing. 
The blankets worn around the shoulders, and the 
handkerchiefs tied over their heads in extremely cold 
weather, are gorgeous mixtures of red, yellow and 
purple. The push cart on the left has an assortment 
of dry goods, as great as that carried by some coun¬ 
try stores. I have seen these carts with as many as 
100 bolts of calico or other cheap cloth. The seller 
measures them off with a yardstick, and is his own 
clerk, cashier and porter. Crockery, fruits, vege¬ 
tables, tinware, clothing, food of all sorts, and none 
of it remarkably clean; in fact, nearly everything is 
sold from stands or carts on the streets. There are 
odd-shaped loaves of bread that look as though they 
might have been chopped out of a chunk of dough 
by a streak of lightning, and cakes, crackers and 
pretzels ditto; washtubs and dishpans half full of 
boiled corn or large beans, covered with water and 
sold at so much a measure; fresh fish with which the 
flies are unduly familiar; dried -salt meat and fish that 
look brown and old enough to have been some of 
Noah’s pickling; lemonade in open tin pails or wash 
tubs; watermelons and pineapples cut into penny 
slices; cheeses of various colors stuffed in cases like 
sausages; and all this right on the street, where it is 
A “BUSINESS GROUP” IN NEW YORK. Fia.-M3. 
peppered with dirt raised by the wind and street 
sweepers. Probably most of this food would be 
wholesome minus the dirt, but it is not inviting to a 
stranger. Yet these people seem to thrive in the 
midst of it all. Crowded as they are, it is scarcely 
possible to keep clean, and it is doubtful whether 
they would if they had a chance. Soap is not on 
their bill of fare. They may have it for sale some¬ 
where, but it is not in sight. There is no demand for 
books. I saw some cheap-looking novels on a cart, 
but no attention was paid to them, and the owner 
left the cart by the sidewalk uncared for, evidently 
thinking that his goods were not worth stealing. 
OUTDOOR LIFE.—Some of these people would take 
the first premium for laziness. It is nothing unusual 
to see one sitting by his stand sound asleep, so that 
a would-be customer has to wake him up. The City 
has done something for their comfort by making a 
park at Mulberry Bend, where thousands may get a 
little air. In extremely hot weather they spend most 
of their time out of doors, as the houses are suffo¬ 
cating, and the craze is for something cool. A bell 
jingles, and along comes the ice cream man. A child 
runs to the cart, gives the man a penny, gets a small 
spoonful of cream on a piece of paper, and goes away 
licking it. It is a mystery where the children get 
CHICKENS THAT ROOST HIGH. Fig. 114, 
their pennies. There goes an ice cart. A crowd of 
little ones run after it to pick up any loose pieces 
which may be dropped, and one comes back with a 
chunk in his hand, and half a dozen others trying to 
get a bite, apparently thinking it the most desirable 
thing on earth. These foreigners pay no attention 
to strangers. The women sit in the doorways, some 
doing fine crocheting or needlework. A man may 
walk along the street, mixing with the crowds, dodg¬ 
ing here and there to avoid stepping on the small 
children, who seem to be everywhere; yet the ma¬ 
jority of people do not even glance at him unless he 
shows signs of wanting to buy something. 
HOW GARBAGE IS HANDLED—One of the Street 
Cleaning Department carts is illustrated in Fig. 146. 
The loads picked up around the markets contain 
quantities of rotten fruits, and are usually topped off 
with an old barrel or two, as shown in the cut. This 
garbage is put on scows, towed out to sea some dis¬ 
tance, and there dumped. Some works back to shore, 
and is a nuisance at the bathing beaches along Rock- 
away and Coney Island. Part of this, especially the 
street sweepings, would be valuable as fertilizer, if it 
could be kept separate from the other rubbish. Some 
of the left-over stuff of hotels and restaurants is used 
by hog raisers on the Jersey lowlands. They gather 
it up toward night in wagons boarded up on all sides, 
as the law compels them, yet the odor oozes through 
the cracks, and one whiff is enough to make a person 
decide in favor of other meat than garbage-fed pork. 
ODD-LOOKING LOADS.—The camera caught a 
truckload of wheelbarrows, as shown in Fig. 145. 
Some of the most peculiar sights are the large quan¬ 
tities of articles usually seen only in small bulk. For 
instance, a load 10 feet high of wooden pails, clothes 
baskets, or round paper hat-boxes; the time-table 
supply wagon, with bushels of railroad and steam¬ 
boat time-tables for distribution at the hotels and 
railroad offices; or 90 bushels of peanuts on a one- 
horse truck. A man with a large hand cart on which 
were piled 50 empty boxes done up in bundles of five 
each, tried to cross Broadway at Duane Street. The 
north wind was blowing, and Broadway, running 
north and south, had the full force, while on Duane, a 
cross street, it was comparatively still, so that the 
hat-box man was not on Ms guard for the gale which 
struck him the instant he turned the corner. Away 
went some of the boxes. He chased them, but had 
not gone far before the others were sailing through 
the air, light as feathers. The bundles broke, and 
for a short time ruined hat boxes were trumps in 
that part of the city. The picture. Fig. 144, shows the 
hind end of a wagon loaded with live poultry in West 
Washington Market. These crates are piled up some¬ 
times seven high, and it is no wonder that the fowls 
are sticking out their heads between the slats wher¬ 
ever they can. A rooster in the top crate, by elbow- 
