The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-01-03

Giving aggregate of.....................11 III 694
Making due allowance for the change of
dwelling houses into stores, there are now
about III 900 buildings in the city used as
private residences, allotting among which a
population, according to the recent census,
of ga, ,022, we have an average of 5'76 per-
sons to a house-a smaller proportion than
will be shown by any large city in the United
States and probably in the civilized world.
Philadelphia is eminently a city of homes
and home comforts. Nearly every family has
an entire dwelling-house to itself, large or
small, luxurious or otherwise. Happily, the
vicious tenement-house system which is the
curse and discomfort of New York is almost
unknown here, and misery and crime are cor
respondingly averted.
The full returns of the Building Inspectors
for the year show that altogether permits
were issued during the twelve-month for the
erection of 5237 buildings of all classes, of
which 1927 were dwelling houses. The ag-
gregate number of permits, 5237, falls but
2G6 below the number for 1869, the highest
on record, the decrease in the number of per-
mits for the erection of dwellings, being 351.
The returns for several years past exhibit a
steady and gratifying increase, the number
being more than doubled in ten years. The
most gratifying fact resulting from a
scrutiny of the figures is the
great increase in the number of small
dwelling houses erected. Since 1866, one
story houses have disappeared entirely from
the books of the Building Inspectors, but
during the past year permits for the erection
of 1904 two-story houses were issued. This
number is greater by 495 than the number of
permits for similar buildings issued during
1853, although the permits for three-story
dwellings issued in 1870 fell S21 below the
figures of 1869 For ten years previous to
1867, the permits for three-story houses
ranged between 800 and 500, only once, in
1868, exceeding 1000. In 1867 the permits
for dwellings, of this class numbered 1l69,
and since then there has been a steady an
nual increase of about 500. 1t is the people
whose means will not suffer them to own or
pay rent for any superfuous room that
constitute the bulk of the population of a
great city. In other large communities, and
in New York city especially, this class is
generally crowded into enormous tenements,
where life is in constant risk from disease
and fire, and crime and discomfort go hand
in hand bS reason of the absence of all sem
blance of true and wholesome home life.
New York is accustomed to sneer
at Philadelphia as huge, overgrown
village; but, while contemplating the
comfort and morality which prevail
among the bulk of our poorer classes, rs the
direct result of the ability of nearly every
family to have an entire dwelling to itself,
we can well afford to ignore the sneer, and
be thankful for the dispensation of Provi-
dence which suffers an indefinite extension
of our city, and permits us year by year to
provide for multitudes of honest and indus
trious families by the erection of vast num-
Der of small and comfortable dwellings.
In this connection, il is interesting to turn
to the building reports of New York city for
the year 1870, which have just been pub.
lished. During the year permits were issaed
for the erection of 21S9 buildings, a number
far from equal to one-half that of our own
city. OF the total number of permits, 75l
were for frst-class dwellings, nearly all with
brown-stone fronts, 352 for second-class
dwellings, and 600 for third-class dwellings
and tenements. The great accessions which
New York is constantly receiving to its popu-
latiOn are from the poorer classes of emf
grants; and yet, as shown by the official fig
ures, the number of buildings intended for
their habitation is but little over one-third of
the number erected, and nearly all of these
are necessarily of the overcrowded tenement
class. After all, huge, overgrown village
has some manifest advantages, especially il
the eyes of honest folk who are obliged to hi
industrious to keep soul and body together.
pEPCY n SPEAR