Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-10-12
THEY WILL REMAIN.
The Prospect for the Removal OF
East Liberty Stockyards
GONE ENTIRELY OUT OF SIGHT.
Natural Gas is Discussed at Meeting OF
Iron end Steel Experts.
WORKING WOMEN IN THE LARGE CITIES

main indefinitely at Torrens. This is the
opinion of real estate broker doing busi-
ness in that neighborhood, who said yester-
day: 'The recent Improvements in the
yards, consisting of new pens and buildings,
and the talk of enlarging them as soon as
the railroad shops are removed to Wilmerd-
ing show pretty clearly that they are to re-
main where they are. They spoil one Of
the finest districts in the East End, for
people do not want to live near them. Ii
they were taken away the ground occupied
| by them would sell with rush, and would
soon be covered with houses. As it is, lots
in that vicinity are slow sale, and do not
bring anything like their value as COM
pared with other East End property. The
railroad company could get great deal OF
money for the ground occupied by the yards,
and it seems to me they would make money by
selling out and going to Walls, where they own
| a large tract of land.
Zone of the objections to this is the alleged
difficulty of securing sufficient supply OF
| good water. but it might be obtained from
Braddock or Williamsburg, both OF which places
have waterworks, or from artesian wells. This is
| only an excuse. The fact is the company hnd
| the yards so profitable that they are afraid to
run the risk of removal. since the greater DIST
| ance that butchers and drovers would have TO
| travel might cause diversion in favor OF the
Allegheny yards. So, as they are coming
money, 1 suppose the yards will be kept where
| they are. and the people thereabout be com
PEELED to submitto the nuisance or move away
At the Paris meeting of the Iron and Steel
Institute. the natural gas of the United States
was alluded to by Sir Lowthian Bell in the
course of his address. On this point he said,
as specially reported in the american Manu-
Jdcturer and Iron World
"As regards the American gas, which saw
in use so long ago as 1875 in Pittsburg, any
comparison between it and a facrltious gas il,
in my Judgment entirely illusory In Penn
sylvania a mere hole is bored in the ground;
this taps the subterranean store which rushes
to the surface under pressure OF 2OO to 3OO
pounds on the square inch, and the gas is then
lmpelled along a pipe by its own elasticity to
the very furnaces at which it is to be consumed
To obtain producer and water gas much
larger and infinitely more expensive hole, or
holes have to be dug and fitted with costly and
powerful machinery. Besides working coal at
great cost, vast volumes of air and great
weights of water have to be set in motion. The
coal has then to be transported, often for many
miles, along railway, and converted into gas,
mixed with an enormous volume of inert nitro
ger, instead of an almost pure combustible SUBJ
stance like that found in America"
Such was Sir Lowthian's comparison be-
tween water gas and the Pennsylvania natural
gas,
HIS figures as to the cost of manufacturing
water gas and the amount of heat derived from
it for metallurgical purposes were severely
criticised by Mr. Wildly, the engineer to the
Leeds Forge, and Mr.. Head, of London, who
appeared to be of opinion that while water gas
was better than producer gas for metallurgical
purposes, it was very much more costly. Mr..
Kupelweiser manager of Baron Rothschild's
works in Austria), thought the inventors OF
water gas were little too sanguine. Mr.. Dow
SON thought there was no general rule in prac-
tice as to whether solid fuel was more econom-
ical than gaseous fuel. In some cases it was
better to have one and in other cases it was bet
ter to have the other:
Water gas projects in America was the stand
point from which Mr.. Loomis approached the
subject. At the works with which he was con-
nected they got 35,0O0 to 10000 feet of water
gas from ton of slack coal. The producer gas
was under two inches. 1t was made with an
exhaust instead of a blower. Everything was
taken down through the coal. The air
passed down through the Goals and the tar and
everything was converted into gases and it
went off as a fixed producer gas with not over
so to IS per cent of hydrogen in it.
In large works in Massachusetts, the entire
forging was done by water gas at saving of 30
per cent of labor and so per cent of coal. At
another works near Boston the whole of the
establishment was run with water gas. In this
case the water gas was passed into pipes to do
fine work of all kinds. The discussion was
continued by Sir Frederick Abel. M. Pourcel,
Mr.. Frederick Semens.
DISCREPANCIES in figures, with reference to
cost of water gas production, were so marked a
feature of the discussion that no decided ad-
vantage can be said to rest with either the ad-
vocates of solid fuel or water gas at the insti-
tute meeting. For instance. Sir Lowthian Bell
set down I2s 215d as the cost of Classifying ton
of coal, whereas at the Leeds Forge the same
work is declared being done at as low cost as
2s. Sd.
The fourth annual report Of Carroll D.
Wright. United States Commissioner of Labor,
is an addition to existing information and sta
tistics on the subject of labor in America The
work deals entirely with the question of work
ing women in large cities. Original investiga-
tions were made in Brooklyn, Buffalo, Chicago,
Cincinnati, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Louis
Vile. Newark, New Orleans, New York, Phila-
delphia, Richmond, St. Louis and San Fran
cisco, Relative to the condition of the work
ing women in New York City, the report says:
Two features in the condition of New York
City so largely affect the working women there
as to dwarf all other considerations-the tene-
ment house and the influx and concentration
of foreign immigration. The existence of
separate homes is a rarity, even among the
welI-to-do industrial classes. The crowded con-
dition of the poor and struggling is beyond be-
lief, unless actually witnessed. This brings
with it disease, death, immortality, etc. Tall
rear tenements block up the small air spaces
that ere insufficient even for the front, and
often a third house stands behind the second.
Sewerage is lacking or defective, and stenches
of all kinds prevail in the poorer quarters.
The new tenements are built with more atten-
ton to air. light and cleanliness, and there is
growing movement toward securing better
homes for the working population. Ground
being so dear, rents are enormous. The neces-
sar1es of life are high, and many of the poor
live on the refuse of the markets.
son the other hand, the comforts of life are
foupd in the best tenements. Carpets and
clean beds, lace curtains, upholstered furni-
ture. pictures pianos and organs are not in
frequent. Among the foreign settlers illiteracy
is very crest. Ambition tolearn English, how
ever. fills the night schools with eager pupils.
''Working girls born in New York are alert
and worldly wise rather than well educated
even according to the standard of public
schools. The pressure of necessity drives them
early into the workshop. The moral condition
of the working women is influenced for evil by
the tenement house home in way too vast for
discussion here. One noteworthy cause for
immortality is the taking of men as lodgers for
the sake of extra income; another is the long
distances girls are compelled to traverse after