News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1884-05-29
IN A CITY'S SLUMS.
WHAT A REPORTER SAW IN THE
MOST NOTABLE TENEMENTS FOR
THE POOR IN NEW YORK CITY.
The FIVE Points, with its Gatherings of
Italians and Chinese-Water and Front
streets. and the Dens In which Human
Beings ExIst.

Italians and Chin ese-Water and Front
streets. and the Dens in which Human
Beings Exist.
The worst slums in America, saws the
Dial, are in Baxter, Mott and Null
berry streets. They began to be the
abode of the shiftless, the lazy, the
drunken and the dirty fully fifty years
ago. Go into Mulberry street at what
is called the Bend, just above the Five
Points: You will get no hint of what
the walls OF the houses hide. You will
see people swarming on the sidewalks in
numbers that will amaze you-men,
women, girls and boys and babies, all so
clustered together that you must brush
against them to get along. The smallest
babies are in arms, those of the
next size are playing in the filthy street.
Would you believe that they are in the
street because there is not room for them
IN the houses? Look again. The stoops
are crowded, there are people in the
railways, every window four or five
stories up has its lounging occupants,
the alleyways have people in them,
others are in the courts behind the
houses; aye, and behind the courts are
other houses just as full. There is room
for these persons to lie down upon hunks
IN the closets and mattresses on the
floors, but there is not room for them to
move about, and so good half of them
drift out of doors and crowd the streets.
They are nearly all Italians, and retain
In great degree what we are informed
Is their native pieturesqueness; that is to
say, they wear the filthy, greasy clothing
that they imported on their backs. Here
and there we see woman with a clean,
plump face under plentitude of glossy
jet-black hair, with big black rings in
her ears and aEsavy brooch at the point
where her gay colored kerchief is
crossed on her breast. But such spec
tacle is an exception. These people live
upon the poorest wrecks of all the other
nations, whose sons and daughters have
gone to the bad on our shores. They
are the tramps' landlord, and the hotels
they keep are their own eating, sleeping
and living rooms turned into stale beer
dens.
Walk in; you are in the filthy hallway
of a fve-story brick tenement. The
bare board hall has grimy walls; the
stairs, all patched and ragged, threaten
to fall as you mount them. Throw open
the door of each room as you come to
it. All are alike. All are horrible be-
yond belief, almost. In each one are
rows of pine benches placed around
stove. On these benches, shoulder to
shoulder, six ragged, blear-eyed, swollen
faced, dirty tramps, Each one has paid
two cents, and one can of stale beer after
another, one of which each tramp has
purchased, is passing around the
benches. See the faces of the men and
women-spiritless, sodden, stupefed-
ten thousand times worse than dead.
They are not Italians. Oh, no; there
sits the Italian, like lord, smoking a
cigar; at rest on a cushion or bundle of
rags in the corner, No; they are Irish
men and women, German men and wo-
men, Swedish and Prussian and English
and Scotch and American And every
room Is full of them. And every room
IN the tenement in the rear is full of
them. And they and the keg-drainings
and the pickings from swill barrels, and
the rags you see drying over the heads
of the tramps, are what these italian
parasites live upon, smoking their cigars
and lying off in comfort, with their
wives and children out in the street to
make room for the tramps. At midnight
the tramps must turn out and sleep in
the parks, empty wagons, lumber yards
and store doorways.
The Cinnamon live better. Some of
them rent their beds to opium smokers,
and all of them are packed away like
sardines, in grease and dirt, but their
quarters are so per cent better. Would
any but an Italian live upon the misery
of his kind like that? Why, yes. In
Roosevelt, Water and Front streets there
are five-cent lodging houses, filthy be-
yond description, just one stage bet,
ter. There 1 cav the tramps whose
s.sssi1,, rzI.sssss.ss l,eA .ast IN okeu=up,
that each dirty bed was the home
think OF 1.-THE sole and only home of
drunken father, drunken mother and
one, two or three aged-looking, thin,
hungry children. These are the five,
cent lodging houses. The beds stand
side by side and foot to foot, as many as
will go into room. The sexes are not
separated. At that stage sex hardly
exists. The trembling wretches come in
from lounging around the streets beg
glng or working for rum in the liquor
stores. If they are not too drunk al
ready, they buy poison whisky of the
landlord, who charges five cents for
bed and five cents for rum, and packs
them together till there is not room for
another soul in the house. Almost every
night the police are called in to take out
q W1fe-beater, or a man with delirium
tremens, or some one who has tried to
stab his companion. will not tell you
what IS the nationality of the landlord.
have some respect for that nation.
though l do not think should have.
But while / was hunting for slums, I
went through scores of small tenements
where each family had two or three or
four rooms; distinct, separate homes,
however small. l saw some cheerful
sights, learned lessons in humanity, and,
again, had my feelings touched as they
had not often been before. noticed
two things very alarming and sad to see.
One was that in certain districts where
are assembled the poor of three or four
European nationalities, the most money
went for beer. | am not speaking care
lessly, more money was spent for beer
than for clothing, or for food, or for
rent, in the majority of the houses I
speak OF. Down the stairs and through
the Railways were continual professions
of children with pitchers and pals, 60
ing in and coming out. 1 came upon
families tailoring orzcigarmaking, with
glasses of beer by their sides. | came
upon others eating meals with beer on
the table. l came upon women chatting
together, with beer glasses on their
laps. Beer, beer, beer, beer was the
chief expense, the chief sustenance, the
chief article of merchandise, the chief
aim IN life. / found that these people
buy everything in the most expensive
way. They got coal by the pailful, at
ten cents pail. weighed pail in my
hand and found it weighed little more
than ten pounds. A cent pound;
twenty dollars ton. They pay at the
rate of ten or twelve cents a pound for
sugar, though by getting seven pounds
they could get it at six cents pound.
They pay at the rate of seventy or
eighty cents pound for tea by getting it
an ounce at a time, and get the poorest
quality, of which pound could be got
for thirty-five cents. 1t is so with nearly
everything. Stand in grocery in a
poor tenement neighborhood and note
the orders Give cents worth of but
ter, "three cents worth of crackers"
zone bundle of kindling wood" ''a
lampful of kerosene" can ounce of COT
fee, ''a pound of -four" etc. This is
not matter for sympathy. 1t is shift
lessness. The weekly wages, well ad-
would go twice as far. A lit
tie beer is a good thing. A great deal
Of beer is very bad thing. Moreover,
1 wish to remark, as one who knows