In contrast, and much more encouraging, are the six blacksmiths, eleven tailors, three barbers, two bakers, three shoemakers, two printers and a locksmith, a machinist, a plumber and a glazier, who started and continue to use the trades they learned in the old country.
One of the most interesting facts brought out was that the number of peddlers, grew from ten in the old country to twenty-eight on their arrival in America and to thirty-two as the first work in Pittsburgh, dropping again to seventeen who are peddling at the present time.
The following table compares occupations in the old country with those practiced in the new:
| Old Country. | New Country. | |
|---|---|---|
| Store keepers | 20 | 20 |
| Craftsmen | 37 | 28 |
| Laborers | 4 | 7 |
| Peddlers | 10 | 17 |
| Hucksters | 4 | 16 |
| Factory workers | 1 | 9 |
| Factory owners | 1 | 5 |
| Restaurant keepers | 2 | 4 |
| Lumber dealers | 3 | .. |
| Gardeners, farmers, etc. | 7 | .. |
| Clerks | 1 | 4 |
| Travelling Salesmen | .. | 2 |
| Miscellaneous | 2 | 7 |
| Note.—Under miscellaneous were classed aforeman, manager, agent, contractor, collector. | ||
The meaning of this table will be made clearer by telling two stories, one of a man who is succeeding, and one of a man who has known the keen anguish that to the great masses of men is involved in the words "hard times." For the results of an industrial depression show themselves with promptness in such an immigrant neighborhood. One man, married and the father of three children, was employed as a porter in a downtown store. He was thrown out of work, and to the terrors of rent was added the fact that his wife was soon to give birth to another child. Four weeks afterward, the landlord levied on the furniture for the unpaid rent and the weak, under-nourished mother became temporarily insane. She was placed in a sanatorium, two of the children were sent to a day nursery and the youngest child,—too young to be taken by the nursery,—was sent to a private family. And then, for the man, began the struggle to get work. He bought a small quantity of fruit and peddled it in a basket from house to house. He was arrested one morning, in a freight yard where he was charged by the yard policeman with stealing. He was acquitted at the trial and the police sergeant claimed that cases of injustice of this kind were not infrequent. Next, he secured work as janitor in a hospital at five dollars a week, and after a time, his wife's condition improved and he was able to reunite his family. Thereupon, he borrowed ten dollars and bought a second-hand pushcart with a license, and now he is once more trading in fruits and vegetables in his struggle against odds to care for them. Another man, forty-eight years old and the father of eleven children, had spent his early life in a small town. His first job on coming to New York was that of a clothing operator. The over-strain of the sweatshop caused the only too frequent breakdown in health. Two years later he came to the Pittsburgh District, where, as a peddler in the country towns, he gradually regained his strength. To-day, he owns his home and has a paying grocery business.
Of the 263 non-Jews in these blocks, nine out of ten were Negroes; and among them four questionable houses were found. Such an environment, with the change from former surroundings and conditions, does not always work out satisfactorily; the higher cost of living, the severe struggle for existence, the sudden transition from oppression to freedom, often have a deteriorating influence. They result in cases of wife-desertion, in laxity of religious observances, in gambling sessions at the coffee-houses, in occasional moral lapses, and in contempt for the ideals, customs and beauties of the traditional family and religious life of the old country. Yet, as a whole, we know the people of these blocks, and of the hill, as immigrants who have suffered oppression and borne ridicule; who in the face of insult and abuse have remained silent, but who have stamped on their countenances a look of stubborn patience and hope,—always hope,—and of capacity to overcome.
HOMESTEAD FROM THE HILL BEHIND THE TOWN.
THE STREET—HOMESTEAD'S ONLY PLAYGROUND.