PARK ROW CAPULETS AND MONTAGUES

There is no peace yet between the Montagues and Capulets of the so-called newsboys’ strike, in which the newswomen are participating as actively as the boys. Some of the women, who think themselves safe from vengeance on account of their sex, are selling the tabooed papers. Annie Kelly, however, stands firm on her original platform as a striker, and the newsboys regard her almost as a patron saint.

“Sure,” she said yesterday to a Tribune reporter, “it seems a mean thing fer thim rich papers to grudge the little boys a livin’ an’ thin pay them big fellers $2 a day. Of course, I stand by the boys, an’ I’ll stick it out with ’em to the end. But there’s them two old women,” pointing dramatically to her left, “they sell the scab papers–an’ Mis’ Shea and Mis’ Corcoran, both with big bank accounts to their names, they’ve gone back on the boys an’ sell ’em on the sly.

“‘Don’t I make as much as I did/’ Oh, yes,” and here she jingled her pockets. “I make more, for all my customers stan’ by me an’ a lot of new ones are helpin’ me out.”

The other newswomen had nothing to say.

Source: “Park Row Capulets and Montagues.” New-York Daily Tribune, 25 July 1899, p. 5.