St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1868-10-23

We hear a great deal about tenement
houses. Did you ever go down into one
of these tenement houses Do you know
what Il tenement house is = Let me de-
scribe one Of them 10 you.
Take % foot lot. The house is
built covering the lot. seven stories high,
perhaps, and Il basement. Right in the
middle is u hall, three feet or three and Il
halt feet wide, running clear through.
On each side are the dwelling apartments
They are divided up into two rooms to
each set Of apartments. There is front
room, called ''lhe living-room": and a
back room, called ''the >leeping-room.
Back of that there is another suit, and
back of that Notwithstanding to the
size of the house. Sometimes there are
only two suites. and sometimes :uur. and
sometimes eight. We will take Il house
with apartments six suites deep. That
gives YOU six families on each side of the
hall on Il tloor-l2 TO floor in all.
Seven stories high gives You cighty-tour
families E;gh,yciour families under one
roof and then there is the basement be-
sides The basement, very likely, Is
used as a grog shop, or AS Il place OF low
resort OF some kind. O,tentimrs ''the
living roon," as they call ii, is used as Il
>hoe-.hup, or ttilor's shop, or for other
manufacturing purposes; for these poor
People often have to do their work at
home. There the Shoemaker makes his
-hpc-. or the tailor works at his trade
and they do he cooking there, and eat
there. and have a lt;le ''cubby-ho.e" OF
a room where the. sleep The centre
suites oi rooms have ~ ventilation from
the streets. All tina, they get Is from
the narrow hall, and the door and win
dow opening INTO it.
Now, ii You will think what trouble it
is tor vcu TO keep your own house in or
der, or your servants to keep the side
walk and ward clean, when you are all
very decent people and doing your best
10 keep ti.'v. aul then imaLIuc eighty
tour families, not one member Of any one
e -.a:.h .nnIs "f .rn;,i:,. Inn. v"u ran
rcraap, imagine the congiJmrrrte mas.;-
nr-. which accunulatr- in such house.
Itlow twenty street there aye
jO2. 600 people lIyin. in cellars and
tenement houses. Five hundred and lwo
thousand last think of Il, Here
;h.>. ten mnut houses stand towering lii
.pH--In con. ,Act ma--r>. Iherr i not
only one ON iue front of the lot. but there
j. one on the rear of the lot; and there
they stand, piled up side by side, and
ii lei with the poor from basement floor
to attic roof There is one that some
times has had twelve hundred human be-
mgS living in it at the same time. Ii
any Of you want to see that house, and
will call on me ut some auspIcious mo-
meat, when | have nothing to do. / will
take You To ii; or, 20 TO the Howard
Mission people, and they will take you :;
or, TO Captain Tholne, OF the Fourth
Precinct. or any of his scrgeants, and
they will show YOU. do not expect
lou to believe there Is such Il place until
YOU 90 and see it,
The question may arise, "HIw is it
that we can have forty thousand de~il-
tute and outca,t children in this city
How can such vast number of them
come about - They mainly, almost
wholly. come about through rum drink
in, liquor drinking, whisky drlnhiss-
cal il what YOU please.
There are 5.2iN liquor shops in this
city-I have ,.ot it down here exact
somewhere. have put it down i'll
round numbers $500 liquor stores IN tins
c,tv. Now have you any i.lca what s.
5co liquor snJps involve Figures.
find. make no impression on people al
all but imagine a street BEGINNING al
the Battery, and running along past thI,
Institute out to Harlem bridge. out pasr
Mott lIa,cn. ont past Melrosc, past Nor.
risania, past fremont and Fordham, AND
two miles beyond; and then liquor shop,
llnrnu bolh sides Ct that street, all the
wav from the Battery clear out eight
miles into Westminster county-and vor
will have something like an adequate no,
ton what ) 200 liquor shops are.
There arc GiT houses ol ill-iame il
the city. 10 get Az idea OF that, imag
inc them hcgiuing Just out here in III.
Third Avenue, and running on boti
sides OF the way right up to Forty-fittl
street; or from the Battery up to Bon,
street, on both sides OF Broadway clca
along.
There are 1.G1S billiard saloons il
the city, and have come 10 beIev,
that, Of all the dcmoralizing places il
t New York -o! all places where youn:
men are ruined and put on the dlrectes
road to hcl-thc billiard saloons are tn,
worst. i Applause. They have thci
bars attached, and their private gamin;
saloons, most OF them and there the re
spectacle young man Is ''roped IN Ill
goes in to have his neat little game o
. biiiiarLs-''It Is sucn gentcti tang
YOU know" he meets there viii
very questionable people; and he is in
I duccd to game; and 50 he goes on, and
= finally, he orings up in the dens OF inta
I my-ln the wickedest mans dane
. h,use-or he would have brought u
| there. if the wickedeSt man had no
shut up his dance house. One thousan
} SIX hundred and seventy-eight billiar
, saloons would reach from this buildin
: up TO 104th street on both sides of tn
c way.
e As want to fortify myself as muc
as possible with indisputable facts-w
0 shall see the use of them by-and-by-
n will state that 1 hold in my hand the al
n nual report Of the commissioners OF til
y Metropolitan Police for 1867, froI
It which | will read sundry statistics. Ac
e cording to this report, during the la
IL year there were S0,532 arrests made
l. this city by the police 2l,5S9 were {
n oJ1 ,,.oro Of man II