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Another feature of the landlord
and tenant controversy, and one
which is seldom given
publicity in consequence of the
absence of news gatherers from
the scene, is the constable's
final sequel to the court
action, that is, the last scene
in the proceedings the ejectment
of the recreant tenants.
Not
infrequently this part of the
business is accompanied with
considerable personal risk to
the constable, as Joseph Lauby
of the Sixteenth ward will
readily testify. A few weeks ago
an irate non rent paying female
and a wood chopper's ax
threatened to put a summary end
to Constable Lauby's official
career.
Armed with a dispossess
warrant signed by Judge
Petterson, Lauby about 5 o'clock
one afternoon swooped down upon
Mr. and Mrs. John Weidman in a
rear tenement at 68 Scholes
street. The couple, who occupied
the lower floor of the building,
according to the landlord and
neighbors, had been conducting
themselves in a very disorderly
manner. When Lauby arrived with
official order to vacate the
premises husband and wife
manifested a pronounced
disposition to resist the
court's interference. Lauby
thereupon peremptorily proceeded
to hustle the contents of the
place into the street. Suddenly
he was pounced upon by Weidman,
a powerful longshoreman, and
thrown tot he floor. While lying
on his back, with Weidman
holding him down, Mrs. Weidman
picked up a long handled ax and,
swinging it through the air,
brought it down savagely upon
the floor. The weapon was aimed
at the prostrate constable's
head, but he succeeded in
wriggling out of its way and the
blade sank two inches into the
flooring. Lauby's shouts for
assistance finally attracted the
attention of the policeman on
post in the neighborhood, and
the officer released him from
his perilous position. The rooms
were afterward emptied and a
warrant for the arrest of
Weidman and his wife obtained.
The service of dispossess
warrants in Brownsville, the
Hebrew colony on the outskirts
of the Twenty-sixth ward, is
almost invariably the signal for
a savage uprising. Constable
Jacob Steinbacher of the
Twenty-eighth ward, who, by
virtue of an annual contract
with the Twenty-sixth ward
Landlords' league, controls this
line of business up there, has
had repeated experiences of an
unpleasant character with
Brownsvillians. Not long ago he
visited the settlement for the
purpose of ejecting Louis
Cohyon, a non rent paying tenant
of Eastern parkway and
Christopher avenue. The
constable found upon arriving
upon the scene that somebody had
nailed and padlocked the
premises from cellar to attic.
He proceeded to forthwith remove
the barricade, when he was
suddenly set upon by several
hundred indignant and howling
inhabitants led by a barking dog
of big proportions. Between the
dog and a score
of clubs and stones in the hands
of the excited populace the
constable's lot was emphatically
not a happy one. He was being
pretty roughly handled when a
section of police from the
Seventeenth precinct station
house, whom somebody had
summoned, swooped down upon the
crowd. The Brownsvillians
dispersed at sight of the police
and Steinbacher, under police
guard, carried the Cohen
household goods to the street.
On the whole, landlord and
tenant proceedings of a court
nature are not favorite actions
with any official whose duty
compels him to take an active
part therein.
End Of Article
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