Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1884-11-07
MIDSUMMER NIGHT.
How the Miserable Sleep in the City
During the Hot Season.
Conditions of Galore Utterly Cn-
bearabIc-Asiccpi in iao Cutter
New York Mud-Noyv
Children Herd.

New York Herald
Listen to the story of the gutter, story
utterly foreign to the understanding Of poo
pie who live in comfortable homes and
known to the denisenS IF the roofs only by
hcarsay Twenty thousand people ON the hot
nights of last week snprrl upon the stOops,
swoltcred in ash-hins, slept in the cutters of
New Works streets Within an eighth of
mile of the city hail are many hug" buildings
called tenemcnts, in which score, Of families
live, breed and die. Dirt and slualur are
their normal conditions; untidur-, foul
odorS, and indccency arc things familiar to
young eyes and the everyday surroundings
of old age. In winter time it is possible for
tine degraded creatures who burrpw in 30
kennel, to exist, because the more cruvuAl
they are the warmer they are, and in the
winter the two Times most needed ere
shelter and heat Utterly reckless as to al-
pearance, careless of what may happen to
one another in the way OF immortality, with
no preiuiiccs in favor of clean faces or
tidy linen, these families hive together as
bugs do, literally rolling one over the other,
content SO long as their lowest physical ne
cco>itie- are even partially met. In the sum
mer all this is changed Shelter to Zoe sure,
is desirable, Tut there are conditions of
calorc utterly unhearable which even these
people unaCcustOmed to case or comfort of
any sort or kind. insist upon far as they
are able to control affairs 1t requires no
very great stretch of iInas nation to updcr
stand that the close. unventiIatcI houses in
which these people bulrow. where children
are born. the sick are cared for the dead lie
waiting burial where cooking and washing
and thousand and one domestic economics
necessary to every household, however
humble. arc carried on. cannot La
very desirable places for anyone ia
sleep in during the frirhtrul NIGHTS Of
torri,iity. What then. must they lie when
not only one. but dozen, are cxt ectel to
find nature, sweet re,torer, Lalmy sleep. in
the contracted. foul. SMELLING almost lnath-
soma ,lorcs in which +he.4. ,,ro,la st,vt
They can not 20 to the roof. if i, already
occupied: So 1Lrv swarm uuon fine stre,ts
First coma first sorvel * THAR motto AZ
soon as the evening shades rreyail these
creatures emerge haIf.clotbed dirty COM
fortress to the last degree md wind their
way through the crooked passeces down the
stairvays to thc unrrow street Tho stems
are soon taken possession of. Every point
where a ter.on can rost his vearv heod is
occupied Far in the evening hours when
children of people in moderate circumstances
are asleep. these streets are noisy. echoinp
with the erie, and SPORTS the fights the
broils the rcmps of wretched little children
whose dirty faces are stained with tears. To
whom a crust isa bounuet aud n inflow an
unheard of luxury. There is ,omsthinp
about New York mud which detss ANALYSIS,
II has a ueculiar puneent sicLenine odor 70
which the frirh-rul smells from Hunters
point and Barren island are like tho prsfumeS
from a ln.ly's boudoir. There are streets in
which this mud has grown gray in the ser
vice 1t nestl.s in the cutters, it hides
leneath the stones it rises in foul vapors
from the roadway and is AS familiar To eyorv
one Of the bows and girls and abies on the
block As the rnp of n nolicelnnn' club or thn
veil of a vendcr of fish
4 walk through one of these streets at Il
O'Clock OF a frightful September ni,ht would
do much to aliay the dscoRt.uyeI fever
which eats the very hearts of So many of
New YoIk's well-to-do people. Children arc
seen there by the hundreds who haven't
been in bed for weeks. who haven't changed
their clothing in months. TO whom a GOOD
wash would be a revelation more absolute
than the most startling sentence in the
apocalvpse Curly hea,led bovs and Girls
with bright ewes and sturdy figures. literally
ronp in the street and pelt each other with
its dirt Miserable bic hesdsd woal eyed
pallid faced. wasting babies lie upon the
laps of slatternly women and roll their
heads from side to side in pitiable weakness.
All manner Of costume can there be seen
Barefooted men and women balf-prown
bovs and girl. with hut n single gormeut be-
tween them and the outer mir di,appointad
Looking men and Observation-Disclosures
women form the motley grou,,s of every
possible age and every imapinable condition
of trouble md distress Recentlv fine very