New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1865-02-16


to dwell by themselves, as Jews once dwclt in
the Ghetto at Rome, our democratic instincts
would revolt a. it. Yet we have hundreds OF
Ghettos in New York, crowded with practically
ostracized members Of society, who dwell like
pariahs at the gntes Of civilization which they
cannot enter; who are outcast from common
comfort common suStenance, common air,
Light, purity and health. And these abscinded
portions of our population arc not individuals,
but masses; not mere families or limited class,
but hundreds of thousands of souls and bodies
out of the million dwelling upon this island.
They clam to be Of our nation, our race, our
color. our blood our faith, as Christians
They ballot with az for our rulers, make and
veto our laws, and have the power to conserve
or leopard our dearest interests az citizens
How, then, have they become antagonismS among
US! Why is their local existence perpetual
menace of our safety Wherefore heve they
no common part in the res puLlicG which consti-
TUES our citys strength and grandeur in The
salQbrity of its cline, the beauty OF its location
and surroundings, the advantages of its culture
the blessings Of its sunshine, it, breezes, ITS
necessarics and its comiorts1 The answer Is
suggested, too pertinently by that drawing OF
Retzsch's. We play our stakes OF Llie nnd
Health against Wealth. and our counters are
the dwelcrs in those vile ncighborhoods which
Speculation seizes upon and makes its gaming
boards for the occasion. Call it Real Estate
and Property Investment, if you VII; but That
cannot describe the building anomaly which has
agglomeroted without plan or purpose save It's
one memorable end of moneyuaking; which
has covered the ground with nulsances,
darkenel tie light with foul exhalations, tainted
the air with fatal infection, and made this
healthiest city of our land labyrinth Of lazar-
houses and iever-nests."
l. the Tenant House. then, nothing to US,
good citizens. who share neither in its cash
value nor monthly profits to Us, who never
by chance, penetrate its purlieus Ito us, who
only know Of its existence through the journals
that report frequent holocaust OF human lives
10y the burning Of its perilous dcnsl II may be
that the individual privations, suiiering7, mo.ris
and habitudcs Of dwcllers in these abodes, ar
rest neither our sympathy nor curiosity. But
have We ever considered those rcpuls've per
sonalities in their relations 10 our own indivd-
ualism and that of our fGmiliesl TIE five
thousand cases Of smallpox occurring sem.aa-
nually-are they nothing to usi The emana-
tons from this loathsomc malady constantly
salient upon the atmosphere which feeds Us
are they nothingl The transmission of this
ripe cop,ssicn, no, only by our city thorough
fares and in our local travelling convcyances,
but beyond the island, far into raral interiors;
spreading panic among commercial customers,
and d.ycrtlng trade from our great marts-is
such result nothing TO us Ii two hundred
cases Of this disease cluster within stones
throw Of the 81. Nicholas and Metropolitan
Hotels--is 1t nothingl II onr domestic pcsti'
lencc Of typhus fever, radiating from twelve
hundred ccniers, threatens continually every
home in the city--i3 il actually nothing' II
our dea,h.ra.c has been augmented, within two
score years, from in ~ 10 in -; and il II now
compares with the death-raic in London rs in
- TO in 45; and with that Of Philadelphia as
! in 30 to in 57--does this amount to nothing
Does the unnecessary sacrifice Of from 1900 to
Is, 900 human lives annually signify nothing
The statistical fact that two hundred thou
sand cases of sickness that might be prevented
occur annually in New.York-ls this nothing
Tho corresponding facts that nearly twenty-five
thousand of our population burrow in cellars,
and that sickness is seldom or never absent in
these troglodytic abodes-do they likewise mean
nothingl The still more significant facts, that
O., 9Ss persons have less than 500, majority
less than 100, cubic feet. wherein 20 dwell and
breathe; that IG2,3i5 persons have less than
400 cubic feet TINT nearly 2Ii.00 persons have
only from 400 10 900 cubic feet for the habitunl
dwelling purposes Of each; while the air ncces-
sary for proper respiration iscstimated by DR..
Reid at 10 cubic feet per minute, and by other
scientific men at from thirty to sixty cubic feet
Arc Ill these facts merely nothing Ii eighty /
five apartments in one TcnantIiouse harbor so
nersons; if ninety-six apartments, in another
structure OF the kind, contain 577 persons; if
the efiete animal matter exllaled and elected
from the lungs and skin Of these last 517 nggre-
gates to nearly 200 ns per month (to say nothing
Of forty times this amount eliminated from the
pores in the form Of Carbonic acid aud other
gases;) and il, as is web known, the entire
mass of egesta, pregnant with disease, remains,
with other decomposcd impurities suspended in
the rceking atmosphere Of these close tenements