The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1878-05-02
T.NEMENr HOUSES.

The New York World has been giving
some attention recently 70 the infamous
tenement house system of that city, and
the facts which il presents not only are of
great imPortsnceto the citizens of New
York, bu, possessconsidersble interest for
thoughtfllSpersons everywhere. II sp-
pears from the statistics collected by the
World that nearly three-sourths of the
entire population o! New York are
crowded into one-fourth of the houses, no
less than twenty. one thousand out OF
eighty six thousand buildIngsin the city
containing an average OF more than
forty Inhabitants apiece. In Wheeling,
where a dwelling is occupied by
more than one family is an exception to
the general rule, it will appear almost IN
credhsble that there are in New York
but l., ga dwellings each occupied by
single family, and ranked in the official
schedules as "hrst class" OF the second
class" dwellings, occupied by two or three
families each, there are 1888, not IL
Guiding the Ais apartment houses or
French fats; while OF tenement houses,
contsiuirg tour or more families, there
are 2l,27O. The violation OF all sanitary
laws involved in crowdipg together
dozsn or twenty families in single mar
row dwelling is too obvious TO mead dem
orstration, although the statistics may
serve to draw attention to the evil. 1t is
shown, for example, that in one ward,
having population of 25,529 and an
area CT 1913 acres, there were $50 deaths
in year, while il an ad-
Joining ward, with almost the same
population, 26,35S. crowded into about
one-hslf the area, or SO acres, the deaths
in the same period were Col. But what
is far more important than all this is the
social DISCRIMINATION tina! must result
from such u system. Not only does the
tenement house breed disease, which
spreads into the costly dwellings around
it, but it breeds crime, which spreads
abroad everywhere OF 487 juvenile
criminals whose cases were inves-
tlgated by the New York Prison
Association, All lived in tenement
houses and only 81 in houses of all
other classes. Such figures, however,
cannot show or can but family suggest
the demoralizing influence of the tene-
ment-house system, where twenty or
thirty families are herded together under
one roof, to the utter destruction not
only OF domestic privacy and home COM
fort, but even Of common decenCy. Hap
plly such state of things as here des-
crlbcd exists or is likely to exist in this
country nowhere out Of New York, for
nowhere else is there the same geo
graphical necessity for crowding large
population into small space; bat the
same tendency exists in every city, and
It will be found everywhere that in these
crowded nests Of disease and crime are
propsgated those elements Of social dis
order that once and again have threat
ened to destroy our civil institutions.
Such surroundings cannot produce good
citizens, and there is no higher or more
imperative duty for the lswmsker or the
philsn.hropist or for those who seek the
safety of society than that Of lsborlng to
improve the dwellings of the people,
There can be no content except where
people are well housed, and where there
is discomfort there Is danger.