It used to be that the newsboys had no other competitors than their fellows: but all has changed now. Girls of various ages, from the tot, who should not be out from under her mother's wing at all, to mothers themselves, old and wrinkled and bent, are to be seen on the corners of the streets and at the foot of the steps leading to the elevated stations crying their wares and fleetly rushing in to get ahead of the boys or offering them silently and appealingly. Yes, the newsgirl is here and she is here to stay. The combined effort of individuals and organizations has not proved string enough to drive her away entirely, and she is doing her full share in the world.
The girls and women who sell papers are an interesting study. There seen to be as many types as individuals. This is not true of the newsboys. Their dress, manners, and methods are of no particular pattern. Some wear thin, worn garments and have thin, worn faces. Others are warmly and neatly clad, and carry with them an air of comfort. Many express themselves in the slang of the street: but others use language pleasing to a trained ear. Undoubtedly these girls would teem in bands and the boys do, but the arm of the law stretches out and keeps them in safety ay least until they are 16 years of age.
Winnie Horn, who stands on the northeast corner of Twenty-third street, at the foot of the Sixth avenue elevated station, is the most famous of all newsgirls. She is 20 years old, but does not look a day more than 14. She is quicker than chain lightning, and has a large clientele of distinguished men and women. Those who do not buy of her patronage her sister Sadie, who stands on the opposite corner. These girls have been joined this week by "one of the little Horns," as they call their six young brothers and sisters, who are dependent on them for bread and clothes, and indeed for the roof that shelters them. The newcomer is Emma. She is 16 years old, so she says, but is no bigger than the average 8-year-old girl. Emma promises to become as distinct a character as Winnie. She has made a good start considering her size. The first day she appeared with a bundle of papers under her little thin arm, pennies didn't come her way very fast.
"This will never do," she said to herself, "I'll dance," and dance she did. It was a ten strike, for in less than ten minutes the crowd that gathered to watch her graceful pirouettes and backward and forward and upward kicks was so great that the police had to scatter it. The child saw her opportunity and seized it. She darted off, seized her bundle of papers, and got rid of them like hot cakes.
"She's made out of the right stuff," said Winnie when Emma returned to her side with a whole dollar and all her papers sold.
"Bet cher life," responded Sadie, who happened to be near. "We are born news-girls."
"Don't you ever expect to go into any other business?" asked a bystander. "I should think this would be a very exposed, unprotected life."
"We do get mighty cold, missus," answered Winnie, thinking only of her physical well-being: "but this is a cold world, so we can't expect to be warm all the time. And, as we make from $1 to $2.50 every day, we propose to be newsgirls until some Princes, handsome ones, come along and want us for their brides. People say, 'Why don't you girls go to school?' Too much schoolin' ain't for poor folks, an' we can make more at sellin' papers than we could at most other things. It would kill us to be shut up in a shop. Why, [?] us, we would wither up an' go to nothin'. Did you ever talk to the newsgirl at the East Twenty-third Street Ferry? She's an awful nice girl. She ain't so dressy an' stylish as me an' Sadie, but, then, she is a nice girl an' supports her mamma and papa, missus, an' he is ole an' blin' as a bat in daytime. I know newsboys puts up dodges to sell papers sometimes, but newsgirls don't. Do I like those newsboys? Does a sick kitten like a hot brick? Well, I guess! I don't go into no partnerships with 'em, but they run my errands an' collect my bills an' get my papers for me, just the same as if I didn't interfere with their business. Newsboys are kind. They are good to us newsgirls, they are. Once I sent a little one to collect $1.50 for me an' he never showed up at this corner since, but I forgive him an' God bless him. There are others."
The little girl referred to by Winnie at the Twenty-third Street Ferry is Mary Welter. She does not go to work until 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and so afforded the reporter an opportunity to see her in her own home, if one can dignify three small, poorly furnished boxes by that name. Mary was having a cup of afternoon tea with her mother in the kitchen just to warm her up a bit before going out. She is a pretty child, with rich brown hair and bright blue eyes. Her cheeks remind one of the rich pink and white roses that blow only in the far South, and her manners are very shy. She is a child to-day, though she may blossom into a woman to morrow, for she has just passed her sixteenth birthday.
"Papa and mamma are entirely dependent on what I make," she said, "and that amounts to $1 from sales every day and about $3 extra at the end of the week from trusties. Don't you know what a trusty is? Why, he is a man who wants a paper every day and can't pay for it until he gets paid Saturday. Trusties nearly always give me something extra. I went to school until I was 13 and am crazy to go now, but of course I can't," she added with cheerful resignation, casting a look full of love at her old mother. "I've been selling at the ferry since a year ago last summer. Two boys had a stand there and they didn't want me, but the superintendent told me to be attentive to my business and stick it out, so I did, and while those boys were scuffling and laying ball I was getting their customers. The boys treat me very well, though, until they sell out and come to me for more papers and I won't let them have 'em. But I've got to look out for my customers and not those boys, so I can't. I don't like to be a newsgirl at all, and if I could get some other work that would pay me $9 or $10 a week I'd quit to-night. I don't like to have people stare at me as they do. But papa is 65 years old and has been blind for eleven years, and mamma is 63, and they both look to me for everything, so I must not complain."
Anna Flaherty is the baby newsgirl of the city. She is a bright little figure from the scarlet cap stuck jauntily on her mass of brown curls down to the hem of her red dress. She is 10 years old and goes to school in Brooklyn. She is in the third grade and spends most of her time out of school selling papers. Hers is a very protected life, however, for she is in partnership with her big brother, who, though stone blind, watches over her with the eyes of love. The brother has a news stand at the foot of the elevated station near the East Thirty-fourth street ferry.
"There are ten of us," said the little maid. "Our name is Flaherty. We are Irish, lady," proudly, as if the name and her ready wit and bright blue eyes did not signify. "My father don't do anything, so we support the family. I've been in school for a year and a half, and every day at noon time I cross the ferry and tend stand while my brother goes to dinner. Then I go back to school and stay till 3 o'clock and then I sell papers till 8. Like it? I should say! I'm big pards with the newsboys. See 'em hanging round me now. I like to go to school, but as soon as I finish I'm going to have a news stand all by myself. I never make less than $1.75 a day and sometimes I take in $3. Not a bad business, is it?"
Little Anna, fortunately, has seen only the best side of the business. Her fat, rosy cheeks tell the tale of nourishing food and plenty of it, and stout shoes and a thick coat shield her from the biting winds.
The same cannot be said for Sara Karp, who has a news stand on Park row at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge steps. Two newsboys were in charge when the reporter approached the other morning. When asked if they knew any newsgirls, the bigger, who was not more than ten years old, answered:
"A girl keeps this stand. Here she comes."
A Jewish girl approached and took her place at the stand. She is the oldest of seven children, has been selling papers seven months, and is 17 years old. It seems as if they mystic number should bring her luck, but, judging from her own story, it hasn't. She seems to have had neither childhood nor youth, and her whole bearing and conversation were without hope.
"My mother's got er leetle baby," she said. "She is ill- so ill, an' times are bad. We mek inly 80 cents now, sometimes 40, maybe 50. My father? I don't know him. Go to school? Yes, I went to night-school last year once. I go again some day, maybe. Oh, it is so cold. I stan' her from 6 o'clock in the morning till way in the night. I will always stan' here, I think."
This girl's face never smiles even on a regular customer. She is stolid: but cold and want have made her so.
"We do not admit that there are any newsgirls under sixteen years of age in the city," said E. Fellows Jenkins, superintendent and secretary of the Gerry society. "Of course, there are a few, but our officers keep a sharp lookout for them. About ten years ago a law was passed prohibiting girls under sixteen from peddling papers or flowers on the street. Nobody paid much attention to it until newsgirls sprung up like hops all over the city, particularly down about Park place and Newspaper Row. Things went from bad to worse. These girls were guilty of such misconduct that complaints came to us from even the newsdealers who sold them papers, from businesses and professional men, from everybody. This was about four or five years ago. We began to enforce the law, and now I don't think there are more than a dozen or fifteen newsgirls between the ages of 12 and 20 in New York. Not more than a dozen a year are brought here for selling papers under age. When the agent does catch one he takes her name and warns her. If he sees her again he arrests the child and parents. They are taken to court, and the Magistrate warns them. If the child goes out again the parents are arrested and punished, and the girl is taken care of by the society. Twenty years of experience has taught us that not one girl out of twenty can work on the street and not be led into a bad life.
"People say, 'Oh, but they are supporting their families by selling papers.' That may be true, but the question is, is it right to allow the girl to sacrifice herself to do this? We don't think it is. This law, which makes it a crime for a girl under 16 to work in the streets, is not enforced un cruelty, but in kindness to the girl herself. In her innocent ignorance the poor thing cannot see it that way. New York probably has fewer newsgirls than any of the largest cities in the world, and it is a credit to her. Chicago is rapidly reducing her number, and just now Cincinnati, so I've been told, is going through the same thing that we did a few years ago."
There are homes provided for the newsboys, where they can get a night's lodging and a clean bed for 6 cents, and a comfortable meal for the same sum. No such place is provided especially for newsgirls, but this shows that there is no demand for it. Most of those who are in this business have homes. Mrs. E. S. Hurley, the matron of the Elizabeth Home at 307 East Twelfth street, has been working for and with working girls for forty-two years.
"When we had a lodging house and home for girls in St. Mark's place before this one was built four years ago," she said, "a great many newsgirls came to us every night. We never turn a girl away, but those little creatures were very demoralizing to the other lodgers and inmates. They only came in to sleep and eat their breakfast, and then away they would fly to the streets. They really were about half wild and one could raise a great commotion. We tried to get them to learn dressmaking, typewriting, laundry work, or some business or trade with us, but, dear me, the poor things scoffed at the idea of giving up their liberty, as they called it. Pretty soon they quit coming, because the Gerry society adopted active measures to get rid of them, and now I am thankful to say that there are none to come, not for my own sake, but for theirs. The saddest thing in life is to see innocent young girls thrown by the very force of circumstances into the abyss that is always open and ready to close in around them, shutting them in a hideous darkness- the street."
The New York Sun, 6 December 1896.
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