Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1884-1886, 1885-07-15
A SOMBER PICTURE.
THE DARKER AND DTRTIER SIDE OF
THE METROPOLIS.
Vegabond Life Of New York-Where Grim
inals Are Reared and Taught Lessons
of -Crime-Fieids for Pesti-
lence and Plague.
IJoe Howard in Philadelphia Pres. |

/
wick, lunch in gaily decorated apartment,
take in a matinee or a picture gallery, look
at the happy throngs upon Fifth avenue or
| the main artery Of our town and whisk back
again. thinking you have seen New York T"
Well, perhaps you have seen its comfort,
its opulence, its ease, its jollity, but there
Is a darker and dirtier side you have not
| seen, about which you know nothing, its
slums, its squallid homes, its gaunt and
haggard poor. its filthy streets its reeking
alleys, its pestilent novels, the dirt of dis
ease, the death which exists on the sunless
side OF this great and glorious metropolis
The worst parts Of London and Constanti-
nople and Lisbon are concentrated here.
Your senses ache and your gorge rises at
the scenes AMI objects before you. Invol-
UNFAIRLY your handkerchief goes TO your
nostrils, and your feet carry you away from
tho social carrion into which you have
stepped. But if, like young student in a
dissecting-room, you have come to see and
learn, you will stay your flying feet
The first thing that impresses you is tho
swarm Of children in every street, before
every house and shop and at every corner;
children Of all ages and colors, though the
general hue is dirt The offspring of vice is
prolific as the offspring Of poverty, and both
are there. From the coarse or cadaverous
infant in its hard featured mothers arms to
the half-grown girl or boy, unkempt, I'M
washed, unrestrained, the period Of early
youts-is represented Even maternity is
not sacred or tender there, and there is no
soft light in the mothers face as she gives
nourishment from the gross, all-exposed
bosom to the already infected babe. What
should be the innocence Of childhood is ban
NJ inn.
Those boys and girls have no childhood, no
youth, no freshness, no sweetness. no limo
cence. They have never eaten a mouthful
OF wholesome food, inhaled breath Of I'M
tainted air, heard the tones Of a pure afYec-
ton. They are accused from their birth,
formed to evil by association, bound to vice
by a chain Of necessary events they cannot
break
Look at their novels Twelve feet square
Is about the Average size of very many Of
their rooms. Walls and ceiling are black
with the accretions of filth which have
gathered upon them through long years Of
neglect 1t is exuding through cracks in the
boards overhead; it is running down the
walls. it is everywhere. What goes by the
mare Of window is, half Of it, stuffed with
rags or covered with boards to keep out the
wind and rain; the rest is so begrimed and
obscured that scarcely can light enter or
anything be seen outside. As to complain
ing OF the dilapidated, filthy condition of
the room, these peoTle, chiefly Italians,
know better. There are dozens of other;
who will jump at the accommodation. and
the landlord is well aware of the fact The
streets Of certain districts are in frightful
condition
Some Of the cheap eating houses in the
district have courts which the sun never
penetrates, which are never visited by a
breath of fresh air, eni which rarely know
the virtues of a drop of cleansing water.
Years ago We heard much of tine deep cellar
lodging house, in the ferry district That's
the district whose streets run down to South
street and thence to one OF half dozen
ferries, whose boats ply regularly between
Brooklyn and New Yorl: Tn ,>e infamies
are done away with, but Italians still live in
what are called basement-, sometimes sub
Easements, in that same district In many
of these houses both sexes are allowed TO
herd together, without any attempt to pre-
serve ordinary decency.
But there il a lower depth still; hundreds
Of those who roam about the street. during
the day can not even scrape together the
10 cents required to secure them the privilege
of resting in one OF the filthy basement loig-
ing houses, and they huddle together |
upon the stairs and landings. where it s no |
uncommon thing 10 find four or five in the |
early Forming. The passages and unten- |
anted cellars Of the lodging houses, with |
their doors open night and day, are, during |
the summer season. nightly filled with these |
wretched people. Thus not only are many |
of the cheap lodging houses and homes of |
the poor in this district breeding houses in
for crime. disease and filth, but |
they are, for lack of proper inspection. re-
ceptaclss for that which has already been |
bred elsewhere, and which is deposited gratic
to swell the collection.
What sunshine there is in these lodging
houses stops on the roofs among the chin.
neys, and is the sole property of the cats OF
the neighborhood, who may be seen doing
about in dozens. Many of the streets in
this neighborhood are stenchfuL Tn are
at no time pleasant promenade, but when
a bright sun pours down upon the putrefy
ing garbage, when dirty, sickly-looking,
barefooted children play steamboat in the
thick, Shiny waters Of the cutters; when the
ruts in the badly paved streets arc filled
with scraps and GLORIOUS @weepings-well.
one bite Of a rotton apple, perhaps, is all
that is needed.
Dau as tnese streets are, Their NTH ana
smells are nothing compared to the inside Of
'ome Of our tenement houses. The mission
,ry desiring to enter these rookeries must
pass through narrow alleys, deep in dirt and
horrible with escaping sewage gas. The
rotten staircases are 50 dark that one has to
,rope and guide himself by means of the
walls, the walls themselves black and grimy
with the filth gathered by years of neglect
Room after room is filled with men and
women, tailors. shoemakers, hollow chested
md consumptive. Dirty, pale, ragged chill
iren are stumbled over at every step. Tho
lick and the well, the idle and the industri-
US, the vicious and the well-meanins are
lose together, while dodgers come in at night.
making still more dense the population of
hese hives, in the unventilated rooms of
which women cook and wash and iron and
at and drink and sleep the sick lying unat-
ended in pallets on the floor all day, and at
light the sick and the well, men and women,
'oys and girls, pig in together, as hest they
nay.
In some of the cellars mon, women and
hiidren. geese, dogs and cats struggle for
lodging Broken waste-pipes
llow water and whatever 10 drip, drip until
little streams are formsi IN which the chill. |
ren play. Roofs leak. pla ter cracks sinks
Ire connected directly with Improperly kept
ut-hOusss, bogus plumbing rsmities the
ouse the halls are dirty, the ,tarcases are
icksty, the fire escape, are obstructsi the
mells are uncomfortable.