The Sun

MERRYMAKING OF THE FOLEYS

BOWER TURNS OUT JOYOUS CONGRESS OF ALL NATIONS.

20,000 Women and Children Went In at the Gate and 30,000 Came Out—Stork Left the Odd One With Mrs. Elfreda Aristo.

It started with the wedding of a young couple from Pennsylvania and ended with the birth of a boy whose mother lives in Mulberry street.

The picnic was held in Sulzer's Harlem River Park. Twenty thousand women and children, not to speak of the men, passed in and out of the gates before 6 o'clock, and after 6—well, no one could count them unless it was Senator Dan Riordan who might have figured it from the box office receipts, for he is treasurer of the Foley Association.

They kept coming and going from the time the park gates were opened, at 2 o'clock, until the dance music band played "Home, Sweet Home." Even then the crowd would not leave the park. They succeeded in getting one of the other bands (there were eleven) to play other tunes, and some of the folks may be dancing there yet.

The announcement had been made that the Downtown Tammany Club had arranged to transport the women and children from the Second Assembly district to the picnic park in surface cars, and the cars which had been hired began to line up along the Bowery near Bayard street at 1 o'clock in the afternoon. By 1:30 a crowd of 3,000 women and children had assembled, and that the traffic on the Bowery was so congested that the reserves of three police precincts had to be called out.

The railroad officials sent empty cars to the Post Office loop and back sandwiched between cars running for the accommodation of the general public. As soon as a Foley picnic car was filled it was despatched along the road to the park. Then a regular car was permitted to pass and then came another picnic car.

In this way the police succeeded in moving things along the Bowery, and Foley's friends succeeded in getting to the picnic in time to get some of the good things that were being handed out. These included free rides on the merry-go-rounds, a free Punch and Judy show, a vaudeville performance in the open air, athletic games, free ice cream and dancing on two platforms.

If any nationality on the face of the earth was not represented it wasn't worth speaking about. First came the Mike Rofrano Association, led by a band, with Mike Rofrano, an Italian contractor, in the van. Jerry O'Connor and the O'Connor Association from the Battery were second, followed by the Genet Club, numbering 500 men, and a band playing "The Campbells Are Coming."

The local lodge of the A. O. H. was sandwiched between the Moe Levy Association led by Sam Ellenbogen, the Mayor of Canal Street, and the Free Hebrew Burial Society, led by Bernard Friedman. Next came the Demosthenes Democratic Club, led by Georgie Peteropolis, known as the King of the Cherry Hill Greeks. After them marched the Daniel Valenti Association, led by Dan Valenti, the Sultan of Mulberry Bend.

This delegation was followed by three Italian clubs, the Mike Bove Association, the Gabriel Isola Association and the George Canepa Club.

Tom Lee, the Chinese Deputy Sheriff, drove next with the Hip Sing Chinese club with Boston, the interpreter, at the head and a name like Mock Fick Jim White, the only Siamese in town, dedicated like Fo-Lee Mucha Peter Sea m.n ot dge Newburger's court and three Chinamen on white horses. The horses were not allowed in the park, but they did not kick at that account.

The James Slip Foley Club in white uniforms marched to the picnic with these clubs. The Boys from Horn's, the St. James's Literary Union, the Edward Shen Association, the Hamilton Athletic Club, the Ivy Social Club, the Pig's Head Club, the Henri Marquard Democratic Club, the Renwick Club, the Adirondack Wheelmen, the Seymour Democratic Club, the Martin Talley nev Association and the John Redmond Hibernian Rifles.

The wedding which started the ball rolling was that of Miss Edna C. Robinson and William P. Eckfeldt, Jr., of Lansdale, Montgomery county, Pa. They went to Foley's saloon, at the corner of Centre and Franklin streets, in the afternoon and asked Foley to marry them, as they believed he was the principal Alderman in New York.

Foley explained that the ceremony might be performed by a notary public, according to a new law regulating marriages, and the couple agreed to be married by a notary on condition that the notary was a follower of Big Tom. Sam Ellenbogen was sent for, and Foley led the bridal party next door to Lawyer John Hoover's office, where Ellenbogen performed the ceremony.

"Are you willings to take dot man for life und death?" asked Ellenbogen, and Miss Robinson said she was.

"Und vhat do you do?" asked Ellenbogen, addressing the bridegroom.

"I'm ready to marry her," said Eckfeldt and the Mayor of Canal street proceeded to fill out the legal papers, which will be filed with the County Clerk to-day. Ed Coppers, the keeper of the Criminal Courts Building, Warden Van De Car of the Tombs and Dennis F. Shea of 41 Catherine street, were the legal witnesses. Tom Foley and a host of his friends congratulated the bride and bridegroom and promised them a good time at the picnic.

The birth referred to occurred while the Catholic Protectory Band played "Hiawatha" in five-step time. The mother in the case is Mrs. Elfreda Aristo of 19 Elizabeth street. She had ridden up to the picnic in one of the Foley cars with her sister-in-law. She was attended by Dr. Kraustopf, who had been summoned in an ambulance from the Harlem Hospital.

"If they don't stop playing 'Hiawatha,'" shouted Jerry Murphy, the Emperor of Roosevelt street, "Low and Jerome are liable to get by Ormsby, the gatekeeper, and that would be a calamity."

"Well," said Jerry O'Connor, "we've had everything but a funeral and that's something I don't want to see. I'm opposed to dying. If I knew the spot where I was going to die, I'd give a good deal."

"Well," said Donovan, the Cherry Hill landlord, "if I knew the spot where I was going to die, sure I wudn't go near it."

About that time a band of Greek musicians started to play "Hiawatha" and a girl performing on a trapeze became rattled and fell to the ground. She was only slightly injured.

When Big Tim Sullivan arrived, all of the bands, including the Abe Lincoln Colored Fife and Drum Corps, tackled "Hiawatha," but there were no further births or casualties.