The New York herald., 1879-03-01

houses The hallOwed circle or the family Is all
powerful in its influence throughout the social
world it sweetens the bitterness OF life. it
softens all the asperties of rugged nature.
homes must consider tonight. The subter-
ranean caves where fugitives hid in the early ages
in the walls and grimy and broken down garrets set
aside as homes for one,half Of our population
There the demon intemperance is nursed
fever and pale famine are lodged; there
the first instincts Of childhood and innocence are
stihed; there the young girl is robbed of her mod
esty The sobs of the wife are drowned by the
clamor the brutality and the violence OF the hell
poison of the adjoining gin mill q sort OF temporary
oblivion from thought and reflection. Up from these
dens arise nightly clammy exhalations OF human
moral decomposition. vocal ribaldry and basphemy
THE INFLUENCE HOME
As out of the heart issues the springs of the ind-
vidua life. ont Of the home well up the healing
death dealing waters OF society. The home is
mightier than the school, than the pupt-nay, even
the press It moulds the ductile mind OF the child
with power and authority that it shares with
no other influence. The last impress on the mind of
the dying man comes from his home. You expend
large sums on your public schools but what can they
avail in influence against the myriad private schools
OF debauchery and drunkenness which 900 people
attend night and day Three hundred spires stretch
forth their toward Heaven in this city and
three hundred preachers lift their eloquent voices
each Sunday to the Most High The cloud still hangs
over the slnms the fetid exhaations poison the air
of the Sabbath. II was cheering omen last Sunday
when the churches began to take interest in the
material welfare of mankind. 1t was. indeed:
time to make preaching practical. Social
problems should be the principal subjects OF
discussion by clersymen. st. Paul directed the at.
may become temples of God. In St. John we learn
the importance OF attending to the material wants OF
home Of genial warmth, The walls OF the home are.
perhaps adorned with the works of the skill
ful painter and landscapes smile upon You
you enter. On the table. the shelves of the
library, are volumes in which are the embodied
spirits % OF the great and good OF all generations
They converse with you: they relate to you
the wonders of science, the touching tales of
history. Upstairs in their little cots repose
dew OF sleep. or murmuring i'll their
slumbers sweet converse with the angels. All! for
m Ss In 0sR
100000 fellow beings in this city creep their rest
in cold and darkness IN grimy and gloomy cham
shame.
SPECIMEN DENs.
Dr. Edw in l.. Schaeffcr the next speaker. He
said that representative OF the State Charities Aid
Association he had occasion to make personal in
vestigaton of the New York tenement houses. He de-
scrbed the average specimen of these dens Herc is
q six story house. with front Of twenty-five feet and
a depth Of seventy-hve. The ground floor is lager
beer saloon in which at ten o'clock in the morning
there may be found nine men and two women begin
ming the days orgic. STAIR about three and half
feet wide, leads up to hallway forty feet long
Another stair brings you to the next story in which
you will ut once recognize all the vices and defects
that architecture or it's representatives is capable Of
known the WELL through which a few CLEANS
escape from the roof and are lost in the filth and dark
ness OF the tenement Midday and midnight are alike
in these Railways There are four suits OF apart
ments for tenants on each floor. Step to the front
room and knock. woman opens the door. She
has all the insignia Of poverty, but also the ndeli
BILE impress OF the true lady. Her inva-
lid husband and her three children are her
care in the sQualid quarters of the tenement The
inner room for the children knows neither draught,
nor fresh air. light. In the lives widow,
who let's out her rooms to female dodgers at ten cents
q night. In this house sixtysix rooms, of which
twenty -one tolerable twenty-five unhealthy and
twenty three poisonous On the upper story dwes an
habitual wife beater and in the next room deserv
ing family Thus the best elements of the working
classes often compelled to associate with the
most degraded OF criminals On the same street.
other house still lower in the scale OF decency Venture
up the rcketty staircase in the rear and you will there
find three men and three women living together in
one room in open violation of the commonest laws
of nature. In the next room dwell nine
the only furniture. They are literally packed as
sardines in box. Across the street, mind. the
same owner. You will find room which was origi-
nally II by IA feet From this space Of six feet is
partitioned of and this space is again subdivded into
two rooms. each hardly containing the cubic
four people. Cau sught result from this but mental.
physical and intellectual degradation? Why ii there
have described to You. its fate would be Quickly
sealed But there are 10000 such dens and, there
fore. the number of additional reasons for the
people to rise up against such horror. Let this
movement go on as It has begun, acquiring greater
strength and proportions until in the breath
indignation the last plague spot Of the metropolis
disappears.
LIGHT, MORE LIGHT.
Mr.. Frederic A. Coudert said that the question
particularly interested women. whose sisters were
lost in the moral grave of the tenement house The
children raised IN these deps most to
be piti,d Gods sunshine more to them than
anything else. How they understand the Divine
precept Honor thy father aud thy mother" when
their parents are only objects OF terror to them!
temptation. is. perhaps. confirmed nebriate. This
is the mockery of home. We cannot close our eyes
to the Importance of this question You VIII tell those
people to go West toward the gorgeous setting sun.
They don't want TO go: they prefer to live i'll civ
the political and social body The last words of the
German poet. Goethe. may well be re-echoed by the
poor sufferers in these ,pestilental dens-'Light,
Mr.. Jackson $. Schultz said that before abusing
the owners of tenement property it would be well
president Of the Board Of Health he was di,
ants Who had places below o the level level Of the
up, get out and get away. They crowded his office
and asked him where they should CO. The will
be the now. Show the tenement landlord how he
make his property valuable and profitable by
keeping ii in decent condition and the question is
Mr.. Joseph II. Choate said that the Covert House
is the first of the tenement houses of the city which
should be overhauled Seventy per cent OF the chill
houses. II man uses his property to the detri-
ment Of his neighbors he should be punished for it,
He recommended the strongest measures and active
agitation.
REMARKS RABBI JACOBS.
Rabbi Henry >. Jacobs OF the Thirty street
Synagogue, said that IL afforded him pleasure to state
to such large and influential assemblagc that he
heartily in sympathy with the object of the meeting.
In endcdvoring to solve the problem of ameorating
the condition Of the tenement house population lie
said have to think Of those degraded creatures
brothers and sisters, whose lives continual
violation of every moral law that God the Father
Of us all has ordained for the well being
Of His creatures He said he had come
to the meeting with his heart fully In sympathy with
the noble principles which the project aimed at in
tends carrying out. and he had there to
his hearers that every with whom he had inhu-
cncc enlisted heart and soul in the object the
meeting was intended to promote. The question OF
doing something to better the condition of those
poor people aid not alone appeal to sympathics.
but to the selfish part OF nature well. espe-
cially when consider that all those diseases of
zymotic character which found in this
city during certain seasons have their origin
IN these pesthoes known tenement houses
While tho loving mother in her palatial
abode bends with breaking heart and fearful eyes
tho cot of her child. who is pcrishing with
scarlet fever. does she pause to think where the
disease that is consuming her dear one has