Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1865-02-02
New They Live i'm New YORK city,

We do not refer to the upper tendon,
OF the shoddy, petroleum or any other
variety, bat to those masses of human
beings crowded into tenement houses
cellars, etc. No other city in Christen-
dom can surpass, if any can equal, New
York in the human packing business
We gather few facts on this subject
from late article in the New York
Times. 1t appears from a report Of San
itary visitors that in one part of the
city, in space one hundred and eighty
feet long by fifty feet deep, there are
huddled tsoeIse hundred and Gtty persons. A
single house in the Fourth Ward is con-
structed to hold one hundred and t,oenty-
SAT families; and it is computed that
sometimes this building contains oVey
fifteen hundred human beings.
recent report Of the First Ward
Industrial School" gives the following
example, among Others, of city life."
The report states in regard to O family
. living in Washington street, that Il the
father and two boys lodge in an under
ground room, about II feet by 80; with
in this narrow passage there are twe1Ve
beds, each one containing three occu-
pants or more, making at the lowest
number M@ty-siT 9odgers, men, wosen and
Shildrea. The man and his two boys pay
fifty cents a night; they provide them
selves with Is cents worth of scraps and
10 cents worth of bread, and thus they
live. The boys are both of them in our
school, but irregular in attendance, as
part Of their time is devoted to boot
blacking. Drinking is going on in this
cellar, and drunkenness is the order of
the night"
The Citizens Association Of that city
have been collect ing information, and
are preparing bills relating to the sub
ject for enactment by the New York
Legislature. The visitors of this Asso-
citation report that there are twenty-sev-
en- thousand persons who eat, cook and
sleep in cellars throughout the city;
that there are single blocks containing
nearly twice as many families as reside
on the whole Fifth avenue, and that any
ten OF the tenement blocks eoiH often
contain more ss'ba5jtaats tden FeO Hevsn or
Syracuse.
Such over-crowding as is here men
toned abounds through the lower parts
OF Washington and Greenwich streets,
the south ends of Cherry and Water
streets, in Pitt, Willett and the neigh
boring streets, the Rotten Row" in
Laurens street, Harmony Court in
Tenth Avenue, in the huge blocks with
dosble hoases in front and rear in East
Eleventh and Sixteenth and Seventeenth
streets, etc.
A steady and alarming increase Of
disease and crime, attendant upon such
amassing of human beings in close and
filthy rooms, is Of course inevitable.
Diseases of domiciliary character are
reported as increasing in many instances
100 per cent. cholera infantum. $50 per
cent; diarrhna, 1000 per cent. and
typhoid and other diseases in almost
similar ratio. This is bad enough, but
the increase Of crime is still greater
evil; the poor-hOuses and asylums and
prisons are filed with the offspring Of
these crowded cellars and tenements,
wherein numberless men and women are
ruined and numberless children are
trained In crime and debauchery.
The Citizens Association above men
toned are endeavoring to prepare plans
and legislative acts to check this great
evil. In London Lodging House
Act" is in force which rigidly restricts
the number OF dodgers or residents to a
given number Of cubic inches. A reform
in New York will be opposed by all the
wealth and power represented by the
owners OF the overcrowded quarters,
who fatten on the miseries of these
nmassed tenants. Whether the act
lively phiianthropic citizens of New York
can make Roadway against such opposi-
ton reIaains to be determined.
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