Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1888-04-01
STORY OF THE GUTTER.
HOW THE WRETcHE0 OF NEW
YORK SLEEP ON HOT NIGHTS.

Snoring Upon the Stoops, SwelterinS in
Ash Bins and Sleeping in the Cutters.
Startling Revelation ON = Midsummer
Night.
You have imagined the story OF the fool;
now listen to the story of the gutter. story
utterly foreign to the understanding OF peo-
pie who live in comfortable homes and known
to the denzens Of the roofs only by hearsay.
Twenty thousand people on the hot nights
snored upon tine stoops. sweltered II ash bins,
slept in the cutters Of New York's streets
The cleansing processes OF civilization long
since brushed away the foul and dirty pest
places known as the Five Points, ana socletles
devoted to the prevention OF cruelty to chill
dren and to the children's aid have done much
in their good evangelical ways. but there are
now streets upon streets In this falr metrop-
oils on which stand rickety buildings, dirty,
unkempt, uncared for, filthy beyond descrlp-
ton, where crime goes hand in hand with
suffering, and poverty is the bed fellow OF
utter wretchedness and despair. Within an
eighth of a mile of the city hall are many hugo
buildings called tenements, III which scores OF
families live, breed and die Dirt and squaior
are their normal condition; untldineSs, foul
odors and indecency are things famlilar to
Young ewes and the every day surroundings
of old age.
WINTER AND SUMNER.
In winter time it is possible for the de
graded creatures who burrow In these KEN
nels TO exist, because tine more crowded they
are the warmer they are, and in winter the
two things most needed are shelter and beat.
Utterly reckless as to appearances, 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 live
together as bugs do, literally rolling one over
the other, content SO long as their lowest
physical necessities are even partially met
In the summer all this is changed. Shelter,
to be sure, is desirable, but there are condi-
tons OF caloric utterly undesirable, which
even these people. unaccustomed 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 imagina-
ton to understand that the close, unvenhIated
rooms in which these people burrow, where
children are born, the sick are cared for, the
dead lie waiting burial, where cooking aud
washing and thousand and one domestic
economies necessary in every household. how
ever humble, are carried on, cannot be very
desirable places for any one to sleep in during
the frightful nights of torridity. WHAT, then,
must they be when not only one, but dozen,
are expected to fad natures sweet restorer,
balmy sleep, in the contracted, foul smelling,
almost loathsome places III which these people
stay?
SwARMING ON THE STREETS.
They cannot 60 to the roof; it is already
occupied. So they swarm upon the streets.
First come first served, is their motto. As
soon as the evening shades prevail these crea-
lures emerge half clothed, dirty, comfortless
to the last degree, and wind their way
through the crooked passages, down the
stairways to the narrow street. The steps
are soon taken possession OF. Every point
where person can rest his weary body is
occupied Far i'll 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 romps of wretched little children,
whose dirty faces are stained with tears, to
whom crust is q banquet and a pillow an
unheard of luxury.
walk through one of these streets at II
O'Clock of frightful midsummer night
would do much to ally the disconnected fever
York's well to do people Children are seen
there by the hundreds who have not been in
bed for weeks, who have not changed their
clothing in months, to whom a good wash
would be a revelation more absolute than the
most startling sentence in the apocalypse.
Curly headed boys and girls, with bright
eyes and sturdy figures, literally romp in the
street and pelt each other with its dirt.
Miserable. big headed, weak eyed, pallid
faced, wasting babes lie upon the laps Of
women and roll their heads from
side to side in pitiable weakness All manner
Of costumes can there be seen. Barefooted
men and women, half grown boys and girls,
with but single garment between them and |
the outer air, disappointed looking men and |
looking women, form the motley |
groups Of every possible age and every |
imaginable condition Of trouble and distress. |
Joe Towards Letter in Detroit Free Press. |