Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-08-03
KsTHErro1sM IN NEW YORK.
The Effect of the Craze on the Saloons
The Pestilence-B Breeding Tenement
Houses.


that the aesthetic seed which he sowed so
literally when in this city is yielding its
most plentiful crop in barrooms. Not
only swell wine rooms, such as Ed.
Stokes up and down town resorts. but
barToOms of the cheaper kind are fitted
up with an attempt at aesthetic elegance
which is none the less evident because it
is, as is natural, far from being in correct
taste. All over the city-in the BOwery
and contiguous streets, in the Fourth
ward, on Third and Eighth avenues-sa-
looms are scattered whose every feature
shows an uncultured reverence for early
English and subdued, or, at any rate,
harmonious coIors. AS they are alike as
two peas, as rule, a description of one
is a description of all. Stained glass, or
an imitation of it, is the first feature one
notices in cheap barrOom on the Oscar
Wilde pattern. 1t fills the smaller win
dOws, If there are any, and the upper part
of the larger. The incongruity of using
what is considered peculiar to the win
dows of ecclesiastical edifces for bar
room is, perhaps, subject to criticism, but
let it pass.
A barroom of this character generally
has its ceiling and walls pannelled with
dark wood which is apt to be diamond
SHAPED. Where the walls are papered,
the paper is of a rich red hue when the
color is not decidedly dark. To compen-
safe for the sOmbre effect produced by
this assemblage Of dark colOrs, the bar
room is always brilliantly lighted with
multitude Of chandeliers whose gas burn
| ers are made in the form of candles or
| tapers. The big mirrors and pyramids of
| glassware behind the bar also serve to
| dispel the appearance of gloom. How
! ever much in bad taste, a great deal of
! this mode of OrnamentatiOn may be it is
| still sufficiently aesthetic to cause the bar
! tender and average customer to appear
very Philistine by contrast. Although
the rows Of panels, which also ordinarily
ornament barroom of this character,
are hardly in keeping with pretence to
Rstheticism, yet they. too, are subdued in
color, and so far are harmonious, while
the bartender, with his cropped head and
often pugilistic appearance, is not bit
''early English"
Not only cheap barrooms, but cheap
stores and restaurants are initiating their
betters in the matter of aesthetic decOra-
ton. In general the imitation only con-
sists in having small, old-style window
panes, but even that is a straw which
shows that the wind blows in an aesthetic
direction. In the same way, in the homes
of all but the very poor, there is.a tendency
to indulge in dadOs and have pOrtieres
take the place of doors. But the bar
rooms, after all, are more aesthetic, in
proportion to their lights, than either.
shop, eating house or dwelling.
THE HOMES OF THE VERY POOR,
of course, are proportionately PhiIistine.
Comfort as well as aesthetic taste is want
ing. There is nothing aesthetic in dirt
and misery, heat and bad odOrs. The or
thodOX hell indeed would seem almost pre-
ferable to even an average New York ten
ement in midsummer. Consider how
horrible it must be for man and wife and
half a dozen children to be crowded into
three small rooms, two of which are gen.
orally without windows, and are there
fore both dark and airless. These latter
are half the size of the larger room, which
averages perhaps twelve feet square. The
dark rooms are used for sleeping pur-
poses, while the light room is the parlor,
dining room and kitchen Of the
establishment. Being the kitchen,
it contains stove in which fire burns
all the year round. Think of six or
eight persons eating meal in a room
containing z a fire in midsummer! How
hot must such room be when the Their
mometer is 80 degrees or perhaps higher,
outside? Then consider the other cireum-
stances under which the coarse, poor
food is eaten. Even if the premises them
selves are clean and inoffensive, which,
owing to the presence of so many in so
small a space is exceptional, the feeble
breeze which finds its way through the
windows is often laden with unhealthy
| Odors from ungathered garbage or ill
| kept vaults. A walk in midsummer
through a street in the more densely
populated tenement district sickens one
who has not strong nose; yet this SEEM
ingly pestilential air is breathed night
and day by tens of thousands of people
for a large fraction of the year. If the
cholera comes, and once gets foOthOld in
this quarter of the city, the most strenu-
Gus efforts of the health officers will
hardly be able to stay the epidemic. Our
best hope of exemption from pestiIence is
certainly the enforcement of a rigid
quarantine.
THE TENEMENTS WHICH ARE PERHAPS
THE MOST CONSPICUOUS
for filth and pestilence-breeding odors are
those inhabited by Italians. New York
is apparently the Botany Bay-to borrow
an expression from James g. Blaine-of
Italy, if not of Europe. All nations, ac-
cording to Blaine, try to export their
poverty and crime to America; but the
Italians who come here seem to be nearly
all criminal or poor because of their lazi-
ness and bad habits. 1t is an ordeal to
go through any of the streets where Ital-
ians are congregated, and property near
one Of the districts inhabited by them has
actually deprecated in value because of
their proximity. The principal Italian
colonies in New York are to be found at
and about ''the Bend" in lower Mulberry
street, in Jersey street, and in Harlem,
where several blocks are known as "Little
italy," Italians, too, fill the tenements
called "the Barracks" on which the win
dows Of the Board of Health look in Mott
street. The health officers, therefore,
have under their noses a fragrant speci-
men of the very worst class of tenements
inhabited by the worst class of tenants.
If they fail to appreciate the evil effects
of dirt and decay it is not because they do
not have personal warning.
Tenements in general are a standing
menace to even people who do nOt.live in
more ways than one. Everybody whose
washing is not done at home runs the
risk of infection from their linen being
laundried in houses where contagious
complaints Of some sort exist almost the
entire year. Doubtless many dire dis
eases have been spread in this way. Rich
people often wonder at their children's
having diseases to which they have, so
far as is known, never been exposed.
Finally the discovery is made that the
nurse took one or more of the children
with her when she visited her relatives in
a tenement permeated with contagionl
Wishing to see for myself what manner
of men attended what was generally
called the dynamiters' meeting, breath
ed pestilential air for a few minutes at
Chickering Hall on Tuesday evening.
The hall was crowded with class of
people whom the Democratic party can
well afford to lose. The Irishman who
will support the Know-Nothing Blaine,
enemY of his race and religion, is GER
tainly so unintelligent as to be better out
of the party than IN it. The sentiments
which heard uttered were well calcu-
lated to make peaceable people think
twice before they voted for Blaine. His
Inauguration is apparently to be the
signal for aggressions of all sorts against
England. The conspirators whmthus
wish to embroil the United Stat With
England, as well as their tools, do
the Republicans more harm than good by
their adhesion to Blaine.
AN ACQUAINTANCE WHO RECENTLY
VISITED
his home in Pittsfeld brought me a cheer
full report from that section of the coun-
try. 1t is generally supposed that Repub-
ican disaffection only exists in the east
ern part of Massachusetts, around Boston
and Cambridge. This is a mistake
Western Massachusetts is alive with dis
affected Republicans. and, whether Butler