CHAPTEE XXI.

SHANTYTOWN AND ITS DWELLERS — LIFE AMONG NEW YORK
SQUATTERS —OHARACTERISTIO SCENES AND INCIDENTS.

The Land of Hans and Pat —A Fertile Field for Artists —The March of Im¬
provement— German Patience and Industry — Pat's Fondness for White¬
wash— An Accommodating Style of Architecture — Growing up in Shan¬
tytown— Nora says " Yes"— Sudden Evictions — The Possibilities of Old
Junk — A Persistent Landholder; His Home Blasted from under him —
Making the Most of a Little — The Living among the Dead — The Animals
of Shantytown — Dogs and Goats as Breadwinners—The Pound — The
Aristocracy of the Tenement-Houses — An Irish Landholder — The Stuff
Aldermen are Made of — Rapid Rises from Small Beginnings — Cleaning
out the Shanties — The Shadow which Overhangs Shantytown.

LONG ago, in the days which the old New Yorker recalls
with an effort, there Y'as no Central Park. The traveler
up toY'n knew well the strange aspects of the dingy suburbs,—
land, rock, hill, and hoUoY', alike bristling Y'ith shanties Y'here
the Irishmen reveled in all the dirt, all the smells, and all the
barefoot freedom of his own native cabin. They swarmed at
every turn. Not a bush or tree but held its quota of famfly
linen, inflated by the free winds of the new country. Mongrel
dogs contested place with the goats, which broY'sed upon every¬
thing from a dandelion-top to a battered coffee-pot or the broY'iL
paper that had wrapped Pat's slice of bacon. Pigs lived in
closest relation with the family and lent their voices to the
chorus from geese and dogs. Cows lifted gentle, incurious eyes
to the jmsser-by, and hens divided place with the mistress
of the shanty and snatched the bread from the children's hands
Y'ith a confidence born of long practice.

In spite of the fact that building goes on steadily, that row
after row of houses rise everywhere of all orders of pretension
and general flimsiness of construction, it remains a fact that
hundreds of acres are still occupied by squatters, and that a

(411)