NEW YORK EVICTIONS.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 247, 17 March 1888, Page 8

NEW YORK EVICTIONS.

TiiiiitE aro now each year, and there have boen for many years past, tnoro evictions of tenants by landlords in New York city, with its population of 1,500,000, than thcro have boon in corresponding periods in all Ireland, with its population of about 5,000,000. Once overy fow months tho American correspondents in London cablo to their papers in the United States vivid accounts ot heartrending cruelty on the part of English landowners toward unfortunate occupants of shanty houses and poor farm*. Once every few yoars oho Now York reporters have to write for their papers a btory of tho niisoiy of a family ejected from the two or throe wretched rooms in a rickety sovon-stoiey tenement, becaube the relontless agent of tho millionaire owner must have " the money or the rooms." Ireland's woe is not so great as New York's. Tho shevitl's in Ireland do not have so many cases of eviction to deal with in a month as do tho marshals of Now York's eleven districts in a week. From 30th June, 1885, to 30th June, 1886, there were turned out of thoir homos in all Ire land, according to Parliamentary report, 2,088 families, aggregating 8 817 per&ons. In a similar period, 12 months, in New York City thcro were evicted 22,804 families, or 124,020 persons, estimating live members to a family. This shows that tlio evictions in that city each year are nearly 11 times as many as in Ireland. Why there is so little sakt and written on this subject in this hot spot of discussion is one of the marvels of New York. The best explanation is that the people of New York have not fully studied themselves. At any rate, they have let the city outslip their own knowlcdgo of it in many ways. There is one building — a tenement in town there — which holds 1,200 persons. Not more than one citizen out of a hundred intelligent Now Yorkers can fccll you where ib is. There is one block there in which 2,500 men, women and children eat, sleep and work. Not moro than ono man in any of the big social clubs possibly can tell you where it is. Yet that ono house, with its 1,200 inhabitants, is larger than many a country town, and tho single block, with its 2,500 toilers, would be considered a good start for a city in some paits of the country, and would cover acres ana acres with cottages, stores, factories, streets and roadways. The life which is suffered by the people who are thus crowded together is not seen nor understood by the happier ones who have their homos in pleasanter parts of the great city. Except for wandering curiosity or for the fashion of " slumming," there aie thousands who would nover know the sight of even the streets of the East Side. The inhabitants, too, of the over-populous districts are too hurried in the constant struggle for bread to have time for more than note tho worse distress of their neighbours. An eviction is no new thing to them. They have seen too many to think aooub tho latest that is taking place on the sixth floor. Some new family will bo in the vacated room next week, and if they don't pay the rent promptly, why, they must go, too. Go where? There are various by-paths, and it may lake some time te got there, but tho end generally reached is the almshou&e or the country prison for the elders, and some reformatory or public charitable institution or asylum, or the "street," for the boys and girls. The father of the evicted family is oub of work ; he has perhaps 50 cents. The chances are that he will at once abandon his wife and family for tho saloon, and there got drunk. The wife will skirmish among relatives and friends, and somehow — for the poor are good to each other, and the women are the saviours and J best providers in crises — she will scratch up enough money to pay a week'? rent in some other squalid tenement. Perhaps she will get washing or scrubbing or sewing or "slopshop" work; the children will soli papers or beg. Somehow the family get moved to another apology for a home, and life is begun over i again, but on a lower scale, for each eviction generally gives the victims an ugly push down the hill to greater desperation and worse poverty. The drunken husband has been arrested and sent to prison because he could not pay a fine. When released he is more likely than before to become again a public charge. Instead of helping to pay taxes he is helping to make them bigger ' for other people to pay. Out of prison, he tinds hi* wife and children in their now rooms. His wife has another life to support until he finds something to do. All this while this family is descending lower and lower, and some trouble, bo it sickness, drink, lack of work, or death, will soon overtake the miserable group, and once again the landlord will say " Pay up or go." The judge of one of the civil courts will back him up with legal documents and one of the marshals will serve it. The family have five days' notice to quit. If they can square up they stay, or if they can get money for a room somewhere else, all right. If not, then there is the street, and then the poorhouse and Blackweh's Island and Randall's Island, and so a new batch of paupers or prisoners is added to the register of the city's great charity and penal institutions. Families who go through this experience will bo evicted three, four/ fivo times a year, perhaps fcen times, before they get fco tho public institutions. Some of the sharp Polanders prefer being evicted to paying rent. They and the first-class help to make the number so enormous each year, ono family being counted several times in tin t0ta1— 22,804. The Polish Jews and the Irish aro subject to evictions oftenest, the Germans next and, the native Americans least of all. Where they see a chance to settle matters peaceably, the civil justices act as mediators. Until 26th June, 1882, a tenant in New York could be ejected after four hours' notice. The Legislature then passed a bill making five days' notice obligatory. As the law is now working, tho tenant in 80 instances o.ut of 100, after making things as disagreeable to the landlord as possible, either moves or pays up before the five days have expired. If he pays arrears and a fee of <1.50dol. ? to the court he gets two days' more time, and in cases of sickness a stay of two days, is also granted. Force is used in a little less than a quartet* of all the cases where eviction papers have been obtained. When the dispossessment is by violence, it is generally due to tho tenant's ugliness or drunkenness. In 70 per cent, of the Evictions in New York, drink and shiftlessriess aro tho chief causes. „ A landlord grinds ' down the tenant, knd regards the reason of the nonpayment as due to these two curses of thepoor; the court omoers are so informed, and often) consequently, £h$ condition Of,, tho evicted/reailVv does not* attract that pity wj»lch It j&Sgh^. o^erwi&e" receive: • ' > The gases', oi; notipo to quit and ,the. drafting out* of a dispossess warrant | are mostly in the tenement house "quarters, and, where a rent of 8,10! 9F ,Vty$ 9'9 ' a montji is paid.- , Sometimes the occupant of a house , at 36Qdots. per month undergoes this treat* ' ment> , , Gflpereliy, , iiy s^ £ bpardinff-h.ouBe keeper j.Who sis. unable ,to. make thqth ends, meot, ; But the mjnftberof tenement houses,' in tho ward U' tho index of the number of evictions. Consider the figures below, in

which from the records kept in the eleven district, courts the family evictions for the months indicated are given ; —First District, November, 1886, tv November, 1887, 2,062 ; Second District, November, 1886, to November 1887, 700; Third District, November, 1886, to November, 1887, 1,475 ; Fourth District, November, 1886, to November, 1887, 3,000; Fifth District, November, 1886, to November, 1887, 1,800 ; Sixth District, November, 1886, to Novembor, 1887, 1,200 ; Seventh District, November, 3886, to Novombor, 1887, 5,433 ; Eighth District, Ist Decombor, 1886, to Ist October, 1887, 2,800 ; Ninth District, Ist January, 1887, to 15th November, 1887, 3,332 ; Tenth District, 18th December, 1886, to 12th November, 1887, 448: Eleventh District, Ist September, 1886, to 11th September, 1887, 2;554. Total, 22,804. The first two districts include the lower business part of the city. Many of tho evictions thoro nro only disuossoss cases in stores and oHiccs. Tho Tliird District is 'on the West Side, and though its population is immenso, the evictions aro proportionately few, bocauso the inhabitants are chiefly native Americans. Tho district includes the old village of Greenwich, which is thoroughly Ameiican, and whore many of tho families own the houses they live in. In the Fourth and Fifth Distiicts is found tho woist and greatest part of the Ea«t Side below Fourteenth-street. The pooplo are un-Americanised foreigners. Hence the mai y evictions. The other districts are in the less crowded parts of tho city. Tho Tenth District is tho recently annexed region, where theie are comparatively few rented houses and tenements. It must bo apparent from these- facts that the hardship of evictions is more keenly known in Now York City than in Ireland. It is easier for a landlord hero to have a tenant ousted than in Ireland. Tho process abroad is rlow. Hero it is rapid. The Irish rental is yearly. Here it is by tho month, and often by the week. There is something tremendously wrong in the condition of things in this proud American city, when her own court records show that so many families are summarily ordered to clear out from baneath even the tenement house roof tree. What's the cause ? What's tho remedy ?