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Subject: [IRISH-NYC] Merry Christmas in the Tenements, END
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2003 13:45:35 EST
"Merry Christmas in the Tenements"
Jacob A. Riis
The Century Magazine
Vol. 55, December 1897
END
In one of the side-streets near the East River has stood for thirty years a
little mission church, called Hope Chapel by its founders, in the brave spirit
in which they built it. It has had plenty of use for the spirit since. Of
the kind of problems that beset its pastor I caught a glimpse the other day,
when, as I entered his room, a rough-looking man went out.
"One of my cares," said Mr. Devins, looking after him with contracted brow.
"He has spent two Christmas days of twenty-three out of jail. He is a
burglar, or was. His daughter has brought him round. She is a seamstress. For
three months now, she has been keeping him and the home, working nights. If I
could only get him a job! He won't stay honest long without it; but who wants a
burglar for a watchman? And how can I recommend him?"
A few doors from the chapel an alley runs into the block. We halted at the
mouth of it.
"Come in," said Mr. Devins, "and wish Blind Jennie a merry Christmas." We
went in, single file; there was not room for two. As we climbed the creaking
stairs of the rear tenement, a chorus of children's shrill voices burst into
song somewhere above.
"This is her class," said the pastor of Hope Chapel, as he stopped on the
landing. "They are all kinds. We could never hope to reach them; Jennie can.
They fetch her the papers given out in the Sunday-school, and read to her what
is printed under the pictures; and she tells them the story of it. There is
nothing Jennie doesn't know about the Bible."
The door opened upon a low-ceiled room, where the evening shades lay deep.
The red glow from the kitchen stove discovered a jam of children, young girls
mostly, perched on the table, the chairs, in each other's laps, or squatting on
the floor; in the midst of them, a little old woman with heavily veiled face,
and wan, wrinkled hands folded in her lap. The singing ceased as we stepped
across the threshold.
"Be welcome," piped a harsh voice with a singular note of cheerfulness in it.
"Whose step is that with you, pastor? I don't know it. He is welcome in
Jennie's house, whoever he be. Girls, make him to home." The girls moved up to
make room.
"Jennie has not seen since she was a child," said the clergyman, gently; "but
she knows a friend without it. Some day she shall see the great Friend in
his glory, and then she shall be Blind Jennie no more," said the clergyman,
gently: "but she knows a friend without it. Some day she shall see the great
Friend in his glory, and then she shall be Blind Jennie no more."
The little woman raised the veil from a face shockingly disfigured, and
touched the eyeless sockets. "Some day," she repeated, "Jennie shall see. Not
long now - not long now!" Her pastor patted her hand. The silence of the dark
room was broken by Blind Jennie's voice, rising cracked and quavering:
"Alas! and did my Saviour bleed?" The shirll chorus burst in:
It was there by faith I received my sight,
And now I am happy all the day.
The light that falls from the windows of the Neighborhood Guild, in Delancey
Street, makes a white path across the asphalt pavement. Within there is mirth
and laughter. The Tenth Ward Social Reform Club is having its Christmas
festival. It's members, poor mothers, scrubwomen, - the president is the
janitress of a tenement near by, - have brought their little ones, a few their
husbands, to share in the fun. One little girl has to be dragged up to the grab-bag.
She cries at the sight of Santa Claus. The baby has drawn a woolly horse.
He kisses the toy with a look of ecstatic bliss, and toddles away. At the far
end of the hall a game of blindman's-bluff is starting up. The aged
grand-mother, who has watched it with growing excitement, bids one of the settlement
workers hold her grandchild, that she may join in; and she does join in, with
all the pent-up hunger of fifty joyless years. The worker, looking on, smiles;
one has been reached. Thus is the battle against the slum waged and won with
the child's play.
Tramp! tramp! comes to-morrow upon the stage. Two hundred and fifty pairs of
little feet, keeping step, are marching to the dinner in the Newsboys'
Lodging-house. Five hundred pairs more are restlessly awaiting their turn upstairs.
In prison, hospital, and almshouse to-night the city is host, and gives of
her plenty. Here an unknown friend has spread a generous repast for the waifs
who all the rest of the days shift for themselves as best they can. Turkey,
coffee and pie, with "vegetables" to fill in. As the file of eagle-eyed
youngsters passes down the long tables, there are swift movements of grimy hands,
and shirt-waists bulge, ragged coats sag at the pockets. Hardly is the file
seated when the plaint rises: "I ain't got no pie! It got swiped on me!" Seven
despoiled ones hold up their hands.
The superintendent laughts - it is Christmas eve. He taps one tentatively on
the bulging shirt. "What have you here, my lad?"
"Me pie," responds he, with an innocent look; "I wuz scart it would get
stole."
A little fellow who has been eying one of the visitors attentively takes his
knife out of his mouth, and points it at him with conviction.
"I know you," he pipes. "You're a p'lice commissioner. I seen your picter
in the papers. You're Teddy Roosevelt."
The clatter of knives and forks ceases suddenly. Seven pies creep stealthily
over the edge of the table, and are replaced on as many plates. The visitors
laugh. It was a case of mistaken identity.
Farthest down-town, where the island narrows toward the Battery, and
warehouses crowd the few remaining tenements, the somber-hued colony of Syrians is
astir with preparation for the holiday. How comes it that in the only settlement
of the real Christmas people in New York the corner saloon appropriates to
itself all the outward signs of it? Even the floral cross that is nailed over
the door of the orthodox church is long withered and dead: it has been there
since Easter, and it is yet twelve days to Christmas by the belated reckoning of
the Greek Church. But if the houses show no sign of the holiday, within
there is nothing lacking. The whole colony is gone a-visiting. There are enough
of the unorthodox to set the fashion, and the rest follow the custom of the
country. The men go from house to house, laugh, shake hands, and kiss each
other on both cheeks, with the salutation, "Every year and you are safe," as the
Syrian guide renders it into English; and a non-professional interpreter amends
it: "May you grow happier year by year." Arrack made from grapes and
flavored with aniseed, and candy baked in little white balls like marbles, are served
with the indispensable cigarette; for long callers, the pipe.
In a top-floor room of one of the darkest of the dilapidated tenements, the
dusty window-panes of which the last glow in the winter sky is tinging faintly
with red, a dance is in progress. The guests, most of them fresh from the
hillsides of Mount Lebanon, a squat about the room. A reed-pipe and a tambourine
furnish the music. One has the center of the floor. With a beer-jug filled
to the brim on his head, he skips and sways, bending, twisting, kneeling,
gesturing, and keeping time, while the men clap their hands. He lies down and
turns over, but not a drop is spilled. Another succeeds him, stepping proudly,
gracefully, furling and unfurling a handkerchief like a banner. As he sits
down, and the beer goes around, one in the corner, who looks like a shepherd
fresh from his pasture, strikes up a song - a far-off, lonesome, plaintive lay.
"Far as the hills," says the guide; "a song of the old days and the old people,
now seldom heard." All together croon the refrain. The host delivers
himself of an epic about his love across the seas, with the most agonizing
expression, and in shockingly bad voice. He is the worst singer I ever heard; but his
companions greet his effort with approving shouts of "Yi! yi!" They look so
fierce, and yet are so childishly happy, that at the thought of their exile and
of the dark tenement the question arises, "Why all this joy?" The guide
answers it with a look of surprise. "They sing," he says, "because they are glad
they are free. Did you not know?"
The bells in old Trinity chime the midnight hour. From dark hallways men and
women forth and hasten to the Maronite church. In the loft of the dingy old
warehouse wax candles burn before an altar of brass. The priest, in a white
robe with a huge gold cross worked on the back, chants the ritual. The people
respond. The women kneel int he aisles, sharouding their heads in their
shawls; the surpliced acolyte swings his censer; the heavy perfume of burning
incense fills the hall.
The band at the anarchists' ball is turning up for the last dance. Young and
old float to the happy strains, forgetting injustice, oppression, hatred.
Children slide upon the waxed floor, weaving fearlessly in and out between the
couples - between fierce, bearded men and short-haired women with
crimson-bordered kerchiefs. A Punch-and-Judy show in the corner evokes shouts of laughter.
Outside the snow is falling. It sifts silently into each nook and corner,
softens all the hard and ugly lines, and throws the spotless mantle of charity
over the blemishes, the shortcomings. Christmas morning will dawn pure and
white.
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