Smyrna times., 1871-08-30
The Poor of New York City.

Says New York Correspondent: | stood
in front OF a small lot, 240 by $50 feet, upon
which were twenty tenant houses. | saw
through buildings as if they had been but
phantasms, and counted Ill families, 600 per-
sons in all and from half dozen stables
rocked fetid vapors and here was a soap fac
tory whence radiated a thin, offensive mist
there a candle factory; and beyond a tan yard.
1t was a still, Sultry, breathless, August day,
with that peculiar tremor Of sunshine that
comes only in August.
| stood in trCnt of another block hard by,
and counted there also over 5000 persons dis
posed in layers, story upon s:Ory. In one
building alone | registered thousand, with
ration Of POO feet (cubic) of air per capita
less :han the ration at the penitentary.
The block is the property of a wealthy gen.
tleman, and the rent of it constitutes his Sara
tOga money. The rent of the room | have Just
looked into is $l4 per month and so with all
the rooms an that floor Rooms on the next
the next $40, on the seventh 50. The total
per month for the front building is 5000, for
thu rear $l50-the owner income from these
rookeries $3.50 month, or $4,000 year"
[ seemed to stand in front Of a shell Of a
building labelled with four numbers-33, 35,
81, 49, 1t is still Baxter street. and the shell
| am examining is a Baxter street shell, 100
feet by 30 and two stories high. Roof and
floors have sagged down six feet out Of level,
and the old shell cracks as | look at it. Split
and rotten shingles admit long blades of day
light, ancient and powder posted timbers trem-
bic nervousy at every football of the pallid
host that revel within. Three dingy halls,
with men and women dancing jig to the
quaver of fifty cent fiddle and a battered
harp, pay the proprietor a hundred dollars a
month. In the rear stands another building of
the same general form and tout ensemble, even
to the sagging of the rickety roof. There are
creatures moving about within, which | at first
take for insects Of some sort, but which Men
tor, seeing my quandary, cOrrects with the
single word,
" Rag -pickers."
These two shells rent for $4,000 year.
Look - calculated Mentor, "aud you
shall see how they sleep in Malthusia."
1t was night, and seemed to be standing in
front of No. IL New Worth steet, a tumble
down old wooden edifce, standing there in the
night, like goblin in the shape OF house,
with lodgings, ten cents night, written all
over and needing not to be intimated in un-
mistakable Roman. An old Groom scurres up
and down by rank of hunks arranged against
the rear wall, and peers into face after face as
she passes. All full-twenty dodgers at ten
cents apiece, and her crockery store In the
frcnt room all day long. The old Groom will
turn out millionaire one of these days, or
would if she didn't have to pay her landlord
fifteen dollars month out of the profits. The
second floor is occupied by twice as many
dodgers, but has another proprietor, and rents
for twelve dollars month The third edu-
Gates mostly little Italians by day, and lodges
mostly Italian adults at night-rent, nine dol
lars month. The walls are cracked, the
castings out of joint, the floor sags here and
there, the tinbers are too rotten to creak even,
and simply sway to and fro or up and down,
with the kind of noise that q ship makes crawl
ing through the water.