Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 January 1911 — CHICAGO GAVE BOISTROUS WELCOME TO NEW YEAR. [ARTICLE]

CHICAGO GAVE BOISTROUS WELCOME TO NEW YEAR.

Midnight Revelers in Saloons and Cases Drank Wine, Blew Horns, Sang and Shouted Like Wild. The coming of a new year makes a lot of temporary idiots in Chicago. They act as though the passing of one year 4 and the beginning of another were sufficient cause to do all sorts of weird and foolish things and they proceed to do them. The tendency seems to be to do something unreasonable or even something very bad, and in the business district of Chicgo a new year is ushered in with a tooting of horns, a playing of bands, a shouting of people who think they are having a good time, and the clinking of glasses. •*

To the unitiated it Is a remarkable sight, one worth seeing just to furnish a study of the odd beings of humanity. But it is a sight with so many shameful thingß connected with it that one would not care to see it frequently.. The worse feature of the event is the dissipation. Men and women make it the occasion for a disgraceful debauch and not only drink, but get drunk, and in many of the cases where men and women gather together there were scenes of the most disgusting depravity. Chorus girls seem to be regarded as the most apt to exceed the bounds of decorum and they usually become the companions on evenings of this kind of young men with a lot of money, and champagne and wine gulped down until the slight reason with which many of these beings seem to be endowed at the start is drowned and they laugh and sing and cry and fight until the scene they ptoduce beggars description. A nice looking young •jiroman, accompanied by a young man, fell on State street, vomiting as she fell and cutting a gash on her head as she struck the pavement. She was rendered unconscious and her escort, almost as drunken as she, could not raise her to her feet. An officer was near and a cab was- called and the poor, wretched and deceived young thing and her equally foolish, although probably not so badly deceived companion were taken to the girl’s home, or that was presumed to be the destination, judged by the address furnished by the young man.

Another woman, apparently accompanied by her husband and another woman, vomited in the street while waiting for a street car, and the man wiped her mouth and tried to hold her up. “Don’t worry Amy,” he. said, “Jack is here, hell take care of you.” “Yeth,” she replied, in a drunken stupor, “but what will mother thay?” Mother and her feelings were coming in for belated consideration. was an effort to be cheerful and to express a general welfare for humanity, and the street crowd selmed trying hard to make every one understand that they were “good fellows,” and took, every one to be the same kind. At a hotel a young man staggering drunk was trying to Bhake hands with all in sight and he slapped a stranger over the head and knocked his hat over his eyes and his glasses off and the lenses were broken as they hit the floor. Naturally the stranger was very much put out and he demanded pay for his glasses, but the young, fellow tried to get off . some funny answers and the stranger left the hotel to get an officer. Before he had returned the debauched youth had returned to the case, drank another glass of wine and fallen'unconscious and was carried to a davenport and a cab called to take him away. An order had been issued that was expected to close all the drinking places at 1 o’clock Sunday morning. The order was ignored and the Record Herald has the following to say of the condition of things: One of the first places visited after 1 o’clock was George Silver’s place at 126 Randolph street. There were 400 young men and girls in this place and nearly every one was drunk. Fights were sporadic in the crowded room and Silver’s fat form was kept in a high state of oscillation in trying to preserve the peace. Liquors were sold steadily. A similar state of affairs was found at the Princeton case, 165 Clark street, at 23 Clark street and at 12 Quincy street. At David Lewisohn’g place at 323 Wabash avenue both the case and bar were open. A patrolman was drinking with the crowd at Lewisohn’s bar. . The' Venice Case &nd bar at 339 Wabash avenue were both wide open, as were the bar and sitting-room of Michael Brudder, 48 Hubbard court. The Boston case on State street was open and a policeman in a garrulous state of intoxloation was standing in front of the plaoe. The Sayoy Case on Wabash avenue was packed to the doors with a boisterous crowd. Patrolman 654 was in the Wabash avenue doorway keeping the crowd out Two plain clothes officers entered the place while the investigators were there. Andy Craig’s Tivoli saloon on Btate street was wide open, with the usual collection of thugs, thidVes, confidence men, together with the women friends, drinking there Dlneen’s saloon at 359 South State street was filled with a large crowd. So was the saloon at 286 South State street, Gaudette ft

Hodson’s place at 83 Van Buren street, and Casey’s bar at 249 Jackson boulevard. The saloon of J. E. Fitzpatrick, 272 Madron street, which is just east of the ffrst precinct police station, was wide open and crowded at 3:30 in the morning. A lively fight added to the gayety in the Pompeiian Room of the Congress Hotel at 2:30 yesterday morning. Before it was ended, nearly every person in the apartment, including patrons, waiters and house detectives, had taken a hand in the melee. Three chorus girls from the Lyric Theatre and three young men in evening clothes were the center of the trouble The hotel people say they objected to the skidding of wine bottles over the floor by the young men. The young men say the trouble began through their objection to the promiscuous kissing of their women friends by other persons in the room. The real row began when two waiters got one of the men down on the floor and other patrons ran to his aid. Hotel detectives managed to extract the six principals of the affair from the melee and after dressing their wound! sent them off in taxicabs. ' pWhlle in the downtown district celebrating the advent of the new year with two companions Saturday night William Dobler, 18 years old, 1342 West Thirty-first place, was takes ill suddenly and died a short time after being taken home by his companions. * • * And this bedlam was Chicago’s welcome to the new year. Surely the modern city must be almost intolerable to the Lord.