New-York tribune., 1867-05-01

from y tenement of one room. On 'Hc 'liiro J,
floor at five dollars a week, to Il !ehcni'", o'
a smaller room on sllc sixth floor at i.oI uo4-
lars, it is q gradual descent to the yegy ''h!e9-
prctahlc yagi0ut who takes al his worldly
wealth in the tatteys on his back from rcoSt-
ing-place in one black vault to y rOOsting-phce
in another at a cent or two q night less tuif.
1t is useless to inyeigh against EndOids.
They ask for Heir wares the very highest
market price, which is exactly what their
hghly-respectable and vchemently y-COmplain-
ing tenants, the butcher, the baker, the candle
stick-makcr are doing with theirs 1t is use
les, 70 cxhort these wandering Jews and Cen
tiles to flee from their Egyptian task-masters
into the Canaan of Jersey and the West be-
cause they won't go Some of them have
married Egyptian wives. Some of them
sigh for the hesb-pOts Some of them
think that making bricks without straw
is less irksome than to hcw down the trees in
the Forest of Difficulty stretching toward all
undiscovered countries. And to so many the
whole plan OF life is suit in 6anccry, one
day to food them with fortune, for which they
wait day after day, hoping all things, and do
ing none. There is no hope of adequate houses
for the middle and poorer classes, where the
most Inadequate houses pay fabulous prices,
and where land is worth all Russian America
the square foot
Nothing is left us, but the wise French plan
of living in flats If dozen pleasant cheer
fuI, reputable tasteful, and healthful tene-.
mcnts were made to occupy only so much
ground-rOOm as two occupy now, and IL the
rental were nicely graduated to the relative
value of the lodging, and the purse of the
applicant, New-YOrk would offer what she
does not offer nOw-hospitality and grace
to her best citizens the people
of moderate means The details of
this plan are very simple, and very perfect.
The good results are immeasurable. With these
French apartments for families whose income
ranges from $500 to $1,000 year, with model
iod lying houses for the poorer class, with an
underground railway which shall be a shaft to
the upper air for those happy souls who
would live in the country, were there
but means to get in to and ont OF town,
without the frightful waste of time which
is the penalty of suburban living now,
New-York might become a comfortable and
class. are Indifferent to the welfare of the
whole; being placed, in a measure, outside the
limits which bind the whole. The very poor,
rs a class, arc indifferent also; partly through
the ignorance which accompanies and perpett-
atcs poverty; partly through feeling unduly
the limits which bind the whole. 1t is
the middle class to which the City must
look for her redemption and growth
Their presence she must entreat their haDlta-
tions she must make gracious. -Four walls ana
roof, i-cOndtioned streets, Oyer-crowded
houses, mephitic neighbOrhOOds, eXorbltant
rcntals-from these elements a lodging, shell
ter, tenement, may be evoked, but not a home.
If our capitalists would but build their for
tunes, or the interests of their fortunes, into
model houses, not rich in plaster roses and bas-
tard brown-stone ornament, but set down in
clean blocks, brilliant with the sunlight, open
to the free air. supplied with those dumb ser
wants we call odern-improvemcnts, they
would do greater good than any posthumous
benevoence is likely TO achieve. Let these
houses be pretty, too. Painted judicously with
soft, safe tints perhaps a window which
looks hoSpitabe to flowers, and rooms whose
proportions do not offend the eye. For beauty
develops the sentiments, and the sentiments
preserve the State; and that is IA wise invest
ment of money which establishes this school
of citizenship.
New York is alternately splendid and squalid.
Comfortable she is not, and cannot be, ill she
has homes instead of houses, and May-moylngs
cease 10 he Il habit and DOOM and become
an occasional necessity OF an infrequent mad
ness.