Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1885-07-27
C0RPSESA THERMOMETER
NEW YORK'S CHASTITY WAY OF
GAUGING THE HEAT.

| Sleeping GothAmiteE TumblinR from
/ Roofs and Windows at the Rate of
Three Per Night During the Recent
Hot Spell 90 Unfortunate Merchants
WhO Cannot Leave Town.
NEW YORK, July 25.-Buckle, if he
were alive and had posted himself as to
this city, would probably add to the sta
| tistics in his "IIistOry of Civilization
the figures showing the number of people
who fall from roofs or windows here every
summer. AS so many persons in the hun
dred annually commit suicide, aud even
1 the number of letters misdirected In the
| course Of the year Is nearly the same In
every community, SO he might set forth
the persons who annually tall from eleva-
tions in New York is the same, or IN
creases prOportlonately to the population
II he acted on his usual theory, he.would
ascribo the fact to the regularity OF law,
not that of gravitation, but a mysterious
rule, interchangeable as the law Of the
/ Medes ana Persans, which altereth not
that causes poor human creatures to shut
| ile off this mortal coil by self-slaughter
and wrongly direct letters containing
money orders despite all their efforts TO
sustain cOurageously the slinRs and ar
rows of outrageous fortune, and To write
addresses correctly.
! Buckle, however, would be rs wrong in
ascribing the propensity of New Workers
to tumble from roofs and windows to his
! taVOrite law as he Is, in the opinion of the
orthodox, in attributing suicides to the
same resistless fatality. 1t is another
law, although apparently an equally re-
| sistless one, which proves so detrimental
to the lives and limbs OF New Workers. II
is the law, evidently still little understood
! by Old Probabilities which regulates the
weather. AS the mercury rises New
Workers. fall. The heat Of the tenements,
frequently aggravated by fire kept per-
petually burning, like the flames on the
altar of the vestal virgins, for laundry
| purposes, if not for cooking, drives the
unfortunate denizens TO sleeping on the
| roofs or in the windows. OF course more
/ or fewer fall of or out. During a cool
| summer fewer fall than In hot summer.
| The rise OF the mercury the past fort
night can be traced in the casualties OF
! this kind. One can tell, if he has been
out of town, by looking at the list OF acci-
| dents in the papers, what the weather mas
! been IN bis absence quite as well as II
4 he looked at the figures which furnish the
| druggist in the Herald building, whose
| thermometer is apparently the official one
/ of the city, with a perpetual advertise
ment. SO true is this, that conversation
| about the temperature at the witching
| hour when graveyards yawn viii per-
/ haps, in the course of time, take this form:
/ Somebody who has been out OF town;
"Was it hot here last nightY very"
"HOw h0t?" ''Tmee." "Three wbatY
seThree persons fell of roofs, or out Of
windows, AS the case may be. The man
| from out OF town will at once understand
that the mercury must have marked over
80 degrees at midnight.
IT HAS BEEN NEARLY THREE AT NIGHT
HERE FOR THE PAST
! ten days. So many persons have fallen
! from high places that the safer, If less
! pleasantly smelling, streets are now quite
| generally used as sleeping places. Many
/ an uneasy slumberer may be found in the
east side streets these hot nights. A
west-sider who went TO sleep on the stOOp
| of the tenement where he lives, on Satur-
| day night, found it as dangerous, in diff
Ierent way, as sleeping on the roof would
/ have been. Somebody, as playful
practical joke, poured kerosene on his
| clothing and then set fire 10 it. The man
/ awOke in time TO escape serious injury,
/ but he is now suffering from painful
| burns in Bellevue hospital. Had be been
heavy sleeper he might have played the
| part of those. Christian converts whom
| Nero had saturated with pitch and then
set on fire TO act as torches to light the
/ imperial gardens.
/ have before spoken OF the rich men
who, unable to leave their business, roast
| in town while their families enjoy life IN
| the cool country. have never mentioned,
/ however, a number who spend their hot
/ days I'm Offices surrounded by tenements
/ so that they suffer from the unhealthy an
noyances 10 which the poor are subjected.
\ There are many such, Down in what is
called ''the swamp" there are offices as
unhealthy apparently, owing TO their sur
roundings, as the tenements which sur
| round them. There is rich hair importer
whose warehouse is near what used TO be
called the Five Points. The Office win
/ dove in the rear look out on the yard OF a
/ tenement. The importer has been years
/ a sufferer from chronic rheumatism. Is
not the necessarily unhealthy place in
which he spends his days the causey or
what use is it TO have "A handsome house
/ in Forty-second street in which 10 sleep
| If the day is passed in what is equivalent
| 10 a tenementy
| THERICH MEN WHOSE COUNTRY HOUSES
ARE on THE BANKS
/ OF the Hudson do not gain much by ex-
! changing the town for the country when
/ the country Is in the Hudson river valley.
1 passed last Friday night at hotel In
/ TarrytOwn, which Is on bluh towering
/ high above the river and open 70 every
breeze that blows Until / p. m. the air
was still and the heat intOlerable-eye
| on the veranda. A slight breeze then
sprang up, and 10 was for the first time
/ possible 20 sit out Of doors with some
comfort. This was only by contrast,
I however, for the mercury marked Is deg.
at midnight. In the hotel It was nearer
/ 30 deg. ! doubt whether II was much
hotter here, and yet within mile or two
were the houses Of Jay Gould, +. y.
Jeffray and other mllliOnalres whose
millions, whatever else they may do for
them, evidently do not keep them cool. II
the persons named did not have their own
/ yachts in which 20 90 70 and come from
/ their business, they probably would not
care 10 pass the summer away from New
/ York, and yet not away from the heat.
/ You may judge how hot II was here on
| Friday when / tell you that the bath
/ house AZ the Battery took In $1,000. That
! is, H. 600 persons, at Die. head, indulged
/ in bath 10 yet some relief from the heat.
/ The crowd was 80 great that policemen
| had great difficulty IN Keeping people out
when the bath was full. The free baths
show higher figures pr0porti0nately, but
the hgures are not 30 reliable, for the hair
Of the street arab apparently dries with
tho most extraordinary rapidly, ana
/ policemen, be- thev ever 80 ylgilant. some
4 times un oittingly permit the same boy %
/ bathe twice within the hour.