Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1871-07-06

Tenement HOuses-street Music.
lFEoN OUR REGULAR CORRESPONDENT. ]

BOSTON, July 4, 1871.
The subject of tenement houses always ex-
cites more or less interest in a crowded city /;
yet they are complained of and talked about for
years before anything is done about them. Not
until they become nuisances. aud hot beds Of
crime and disease does city government inter-
fere. The evil is allowed to grow, the "ounce OF
prevention" is never used, and the pound of
cure" is costly and difficult to obtain. The hor-
rible condition of many of the tenement houses
here has at last stirred the city government TO
action. No new legislation was necessary. The
board of aldermen have had for some time suffl-
Gent legal authority over such houses, only
they could not be induced to exercise it. Merely
enforcing the law, requiring the name of the
owner OF a tenement house to be placed con-
spicuously on the outside of such house, would
have made great change in the condition of
affairs, and even threat of enforcing it caused
large sales of such property, by men here who
are willing to own, and collect high rents from
the worst places in Boston, but very unwilling
to be known as siders and abettors of crime,
filth, ignorance and pestilence.
In July, 1870, the state board of health called
the attention of the board of aldermen to the
fact that "a large proportion of the unfortunate
poor are crowded into buildings whose construc-
ton sets at defiance the laws of health, whose
yards and out-buildings are filthy in the ex-
treme, and whose general condition is such as
to render them liable at any time to become
centres from which pestience may extend in
every direction" The consulting physicians
- ~.
houses were Sin a condition discreditable to a
civilized community" These remonstrances
like hundreds of others, produced no visible eff
feet, and the last report of the state board OF
health, declares that in cleanliness, "there has
been progressive deterioration during the past
year," that the tenement-hOuses are a disgrace
to our civilization. Through their squalor and
=, wretchedness they foster crime as well as dis.
ease. Moral and physical health must equally
suffer under their shadow. The rent extorted
from their unfortunate tenants is far larger in
proportion than is paid by the prosperous. A
single room, fifteen feet by ten, sunless and
damp, UNFINISHED and entirely out of repair
brings 81. rs to $3.50 week. Two rooms fairly
above ground, but equally sqti&Hd in all other
respects, bring double this sum. All such
premises are at the present time crowded to over
flowing at the above rates." The accounts OF
the filth are too horrible to be copied, and lest
the statements should be regarded as exaggera-
tons, list of nearly seventy of the worst places
is given. New houses are still built without the
beast regard to health; there is on Portland
street house of seventy rooms, built only last
year; half of the bedrooms are ten feet by eight,
are absolutely dark, opening on both sides of
long passageways only four feet wide,
through which they have their only
supply of air. 1t makes one gasp
even to think of it. In the same re
port is published "a nght-stroll with an in
speetor of the London metropolitan police, and
q similar walk in Boston," showing that Bos-
ton is hardly behind London in all conceivable
and uncomfortable misery. The writer calls the
condition of the houses Simply infamous" and
says, "More especially am indignant to think
that some Of these houses are at times owned by
men living in luxury, in our most fashionable
places, men moving in political power, nay, men
of irreproachahe religious appearances, who
talk of Christianity and perhaps listen with be-
coming gravity to the beautiful teaching of the
sermon on the mount Sunday after Sunday"
The report of the state board of health is full of
statements of these horrors, and of the sickness
and death resulting from them, and they seemed
to produce some effect. Last May the board of
aldermen ordered tenement house on Cross
street and one on Second street to be vacated
within ten days, and declared them unfit for
human habitation; they ordered some other
Duisanees abated, and required woman to
have made clean and safe a house which she
owned on fremont street. Last month orders
were issued for cleaning and repairing ten or a
dozen of these houses, but the other sixty or
seventy remain as vile, as crowded and as dis
graceful as ever. To give aims to the inbabi-
tants Of these houses is a useless extrayapauce.
all the money they can beg or earn goes for rent
or drink; good clothes are pawned sold or m.
iDed at once in the dirt Of these horrible deps
decent people, or those who want to
be decent, are utterly demoralized a,
soon as they move into these houses
they can't keep clean, they can't be de
cent, their neighbors drink, steal, swear, lie ant
riot; and they first endure, then pity, then EN-
brace that way of life. There are only thre
ways Of curing this evil one is TO convert Il
decent honesty the owners of bad tenemen
houses, another TO punish them so severely By
fines and imprisonment that they can't afford Il
be so abominable. Neither of these things will
ever be done, of course. The third is TO provid
so many clean and convenient tenements a
reasonable rents that there will be no deman,
for the poor ones. This has been done, to som
extent, in and near London by the Peabod,
buildings, TO which no tenant who earns NOR
than thirty shilings a week is admitted; by Mis-
Bnrdett Coutts market house, lodging hous
and reading room; byshe buildings of 'The irn
proved industrial dwelling company; by tn
"Jarrow building company" by which tenan
becomes the proprietor Of the house be lives in
and by the labors amongst the poor Of Miss DC
taFia Hill, assisted by Mr.. John Ruskin, ant