New-York daily tribune., 1866-04-05

ments of his constituents when he sad;
shelter Is the first consideration. In all
views Of political economy, shelter IS considered
the first necessity Of mana fact sufficiently
well known to the owners of real estate IN
New-York and elsewhere
1t would be easy to indulge in Poetieal writ
ing upon this subject but We prefer the PLAIN
and practical view. Houses are built to let,
and that may be a sufficient fact for those who
build thea TO let: but they are also built 70 i've
in; and when they are Oyercrowded, inconye-
nent, full of bad gases and curioSties OF IN
cleanneSs, they become nurseries Of peStllence
and seminaries of crime, and make the whole
community aware Of thei. presence through
cholera, fever, theft and murder. When cholera
made Us its first visit, it ruined the trade Of
that season, for our merchants ran away and
customers refused to come Pestileuce is
deadly foe to money-making, as we shall find
out if We live long enough and get no more
sanitary wisdom. II is common to write with
cheap Auency upon the sentimental side Of this
subject, and TO string together cheap phrases
about "home, sweet home" Fortunately, or
unfortunately, the perspiring spectators on
/ Change and the piers are not poetical; but II
| the'plague were in the town. and the dead-carts
crawling from one stricken home TO another
! if the grass were growing in Wall-st.,
and the pest-ships rotting by scores at
their moorings in the river-if the blight
had fallen not only upon human life, but upon
human enterprSe-if the rich and the poor
were involved in our common and loathSOme
destruction-then, with houses empty, and rents
merely nominal and hardly paid, it might be-
gin to dawn upon the mind of even the owner
of the most disreputable old barrack in the city
that filth is expensive, that mephitic air tells
upon the ledger, and that those who cannot get
away from the cholera do not after all, bear
the whole frightful brunt of its remorseless
Judgment upon our sins Of omission and COM
mission. We boast, often and loudly Of our
civilization, and of the advanced condition of
society," but just so far as we re-
tain the vilest features of barbarism,
Just so far We are unciyilized through
our own fault, and must pay the penalty of our
neglect. Unclean streets, crowded and foul
tenement houses, reeking shambles--all these
belong to the degraded condition of man-to
Digger Indians, to Esquimaux, to PatagonanS.
But our special and indelible shame is that we
sin against light. We know all about carbonc
acid gas. We are scientific in stenches. We
are not ignorant Of the danger Of dirt. Nor
ally, we understand all the advantages of cleanly
aud all the disadvantages Of uncleanly homes.
What the cholera feeds on is no secret to us. II
is frightful to think Of all this waste of knowl-
edge, of this stolidity for which we cannot
plead ignorance, of this recklesSneSs which has
only greed of gain for its cause. When the
plague swept through London, there was no
such thing as social science. When the chol-
era shall visit New-York, it will find every man
and every woman, and almost every child,
thoroughly cognizant of its causes and thouS-
ands of victims duly warned who have all been
regardless of warning.
We know that crowdng is diSarmed of half
its evils if only cleanliness can be secured; but
when families are packed like herrings in a tub,
there can be no cleanliness, no virtue, no ambi-
ton no godness which is born of cleanliness.
A man without comfortable home goes to
beer.shop A woman without any domestic
pleasures goes to the gin-bottle A child with
out tolerable shelter betakes itself to the cutters
and the kennels. Physical squalor being a di-
rect provocative of mental irritation, and all
ordinary moral restraints having been removed
we have brawls, fights, shootngs, Stabbings,
wife-beatings, and frequent murders. These
the police can keep in check; but they
are never stopped, and whoever talks of
stopping them is pronounced an enthusiast
But we need not attempt to catalogue all the
evils arising from what is either social crime
or misfortune. If there be no remedy; if the
civic congregation necessitates half its members
to live as beasts would, if left to themselves,
refuse to live, then the statesman who called
great cities "great sores upon the body polite"
WAS right. But, until we have fairly tried the
experiment. Of scientific building, with perfect
d1ainu and ventilation, we have no right to
charge cur sanitary evils upon oyer-population.
There will always be large class who, in spite .
Of every suggestion Of prudence and comfort, |
viii avoid the suburbs; and it is for our profit
and safety % see that it is decently housed