142 THE UTOPIAN COMMUNIST
down after a short interval to a peaceful and contented existence
as members of the prosperous American middle class. Engels
wrote in 1851 to Weydemeyer, who had come to America as a
Marxist propagandist, "Your greatest handicap will be that the
available Germans who are worth anything become easily Ameri
canized. ..."^4
The Irish also were present in great numbers in the New York
of the 1850's, and on many an occasion German and Irish immi
grants became involved in bloody feuds and pitched battles over
incidents arising from the numerous outings of which both groups
were fond. The Irish of New York lived east of the German sec
tions and for the most part north of Eleventh and Fourteenth
Streets between Broadway and the Bowery, in the area extending
to the East River. The New York papers of the 1850's reported
many cases of friction between them and their German neighbors,
and the picnics of the German Turner seem to have been special
targets for attacks by rowdies. New York also had a number of
descendants of its old Dutch stock who though born in America
spoke inadequate English. A small French quarter was located
above Canal Street and west from Broadway.
This was the New York which Weitling knew during his early
years in the United States. Fortunately for him and others of his
kind, living costs were low. Room and board could be obtained at
$1.50 a week, and as late as 1861 it was possible to rent a five-room
dwelling on the ground floor for $9.00 a month. A pair of good
shoes cost $1.25; cigars sold from one to three cents apiece; and
a bottle of imported Bordeaux cost twelve and a half cents. As
yet the city required no liquor licenses, and whisky and other
drinks were sold in the back room of most groceries. Lagerbier
did not become popular until the Civil War. Policemen, known
as "watchmen," were not uniformed, and the fire departments
consisted of volunteer companies that contributed more to the
(^4) Quoted in Karl Obermann, Joseph Weydemeyer, Pioneer of American So
cialism (New York, 1947), 28.