Daily Honolulu press. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1886, 1885-09-14
MIDSUMMER NIGHT.
How the Miserable Sleep in the City
During the Hot Season.
Conditions of Caioric utterly Un-
bearabIe-Aslecp In tho Gutter
New York mud-How
children Herd.
New York Herald

Listen to the story Of the gutter, story
utterly foreign to the understanding Of PEG
pie who live ia comfortable homes, and
known to the denizens Of the roofs only by
hearsay. Twenty thousand people on the ho
nights Of last week snored upon the stoops
sweltered In ash-bins slept in the cutters Of
New Yorlts streets. Within an eighth Of O
mile OF the city hall are many huge buildings
called tenements, in which scores Of families
live, breed and die Dirt and squalor are
their normal conditions; untidiness, foul
odors, and indecency are things familiar to
young eyes and the everyday surroundings
Of old age In winter time 1t Ia possible for
the degraded creatures who burrow in the
kennels 10 exist, because the more crowded
they are the warmer they are, and In the
winter the two things most needed are
shelter and heat Utterly reckless as to APP
pearance, careless OF what may happen to
one another In the way of immortality, with
no prejudices 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 no.
cessities are even partially met. In the sum-
mer all this is changed. Shelter, to be sure,
Is desirable, but there are conditions of
caloric utterly unbearable, which even these
people, una,customed to ease or comfort Of
any sort or kind, insist upon SO far as they
are able to control affairs. 1t requires no
very great stretch Of imaginstions to under
stand that the Close unventilated houses In
which these people burrow, where children
are born, the sick arc cared for, the dead lie
waiting burial, where cooking and washing
and a thousand and one domestic economies
necessary to every household, however
humble, are carried on, cannot be
very desirable places for anyone to
sleep in during the frightful nights Of
torridity. What, then, must they he when
not only one, but dozen, are expected to
lind natures sweet restorer, balmy sleep, in
the contracted, foul-smelling, almost loath-
some places in which these people stayl
They can not go to the roof 1t Is already
occupied; so they swarm upon the streets
First come first served. is their motto AS
soon as the evening shades prevail these
creatures emerge half-clothed, dirty, COM
FORTRESS to the last degree, and wind their
way through the crooked passages. down the
stairways to the narrow street, Tho steps
are soon taken possession Of Every point
where person can rest his weary head il
occupied. Far in the evening hours, when
children Of people in moderate circumstances
are asleep these streets are noisy, echoing
with the cries and sports. the fights. the
broils the rompc Of wretched little children.
whose dirty faces are stained with tears tn
whom a crust IL n bououet. aud inflow an
unheard of luxury. There Is sometbinO
about New York mud which detles analvsis'
It has peculiar. pungent sickenine odor To
which the friqhtfuI smells from Hunter,s
point and Barren island are like the nrefumes
from lady's boudoir. There are streets In
which this mud has grown gray In the ser
vice. II nestles in the cutters. Il hider
beneath the stones. II rises in foul vapor.
from the roadway and IL ms familiar IN evarv
one of the BOYS and girls and babies ON thu
block as the rap of a policeman club or the
veil of a vender of fish.
A walk through one of these streets Mt 1,
o'clock of friehtful september night would
do much to allay the discontinued fever
which eats the very hearts of so many OF
New Yorks well-to-do people. Children ara
seen there by the hundreds who haven't
been In bed for weeks who bavsn,t changed
tboir clothing In months. 10 whom a oooa
wash would be a revelation mora absolute
than the most startling sentence in tbs
anocalypse. Curlv-beaded hovs and GIRLS
with bright ewes and sturdy figures. literaIlv
romp IA tho street and nelt zach othar wifi,
It's dirt. Miserable bic headed weak avsd
pallid faced wasting babies lie upon the
laps of slatterniy women and roll their
heads from side to side in pitiable weakrsss
All manner of costume can there bo ..an
Barefooted men and women. half prown
boys and girls. with but n single parment ha.
tween them and the o,,tsr air disapnoirtad.
looking men and NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
women form the motlav s,,o,,,,s :, 49,,
possible age and every imaginahla conditioy,
Of trouble and distress Recantlv tho var,
aoms and zenith Of physical disconsort ana
distress was reached '
During the late DAYS NJ axcass,x,a h..+
with no let nm OF any consao,anca ~ ,iott
the cutters Of New Yorks tersrsnt d;st,;,,.'
presented a sad and doleful SIGHT On naor,v
svery corner an attractive Olars sbona fro,,,
: ein-mill. Men who can not AFFORD an artr.
dollar week for a home. apparantlv found
no difficulty In raising a nickel everv haIs
hour or 80 for a Dot of beer Old man and
women, fathers and mothers children and
babies, one and all. partook Of the foamins
beverage from time TO time LITTLE Inv I;,tis
tho wesry children. tired with craving ,acos,-
mixing the utter uselessness of sssino ser
comfort. spread themselves unon tba .,da.
walk. curled M In cutters rested WHARF hast
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