Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-12-20


of sudden violent disorder which shatter
and break down nervous and vital force by
their rapidity, so we must admit that the
fact that the evil in New York in its worst
form should exist after less than 100 years
of civilization, is in itself greater symptom
of deep seated mischief and threatens more
ultimate destructive i'll than that which is
the slow growth of cumulative misery.
The Great Pressure of Population.
The actual pressure of population in New
York is admittedly greater in-the conCested
districts than in the older city, and this is
the more serious because as London spreads
her immense network of houses until grad
ually she encroaches on four counties, New
York bv her geographical position is sea
limited as to her existing compass.
1t is undoubtedly her foreign population
which has produced the existence of s'dark-
est New Yori.' Difficult as is the task,
she has set herself to deal with this outlook
TO the best of her ability. 1t is well that
she is watchful for the future, but the past
cannot be retrieved, and within her pre-
cincts are quarters inhabited by an alien
population who have now TO be provided
for and whose existence has to be rec
ognized.
Possibly such a scheme as that BY which
Baron Hirsch proposes to solve the Jewish
her Chinese and Arab invaders, but this is
subject too large to enter upon.
To woman who has once visited China
town that fostering sore must present itself
rs an evil against which her whole woman
hood revolts-opening an abyss of evil
which is drawing its victims from among the
daughters of New York-a problem which
she is bound to solve if she is true to the
roval preroSative of mother love in its
widest and truest sense.
The Tenement House a Failure.
The tenement house system in New York
is admittedly failure. Whether possibly
by cheaper locomotion, smaller, more home
like dwellings could be procured for the
laboring classes in the future it is
impossible for stranger to predict. The
lodging mouse difficulty remains, so far as
have been able to gather, still untouched.
The family lodging house is always the very
stronghold of vice and sin. The 5-cent bed
is also an unmitigated evil. In London
lodging houses have been opened with great
success, not only philanthropic, but pecuni-
arv, TO meet this necessity, providing bed
and locker in a cubfcle, shut in by door
with lock and key, for s cents night; in
the basement there is large kitchen in
which tine occupants may sit, providing a
place for meals and possibilities for cooking.
The Salvation Army shelters in London are
also OF untold value, and no more success
ful work has been done by that indefatiga-
BILE body.
Perhaps the distinctive feature that strikes
a stranger most in first visiting the slums of
New York is the absence of the constant
stream of life which renders our great Lon
don thoroughfares almost as crowded bv
night as by day. The law which allows no
vagrant to pass the night on a doorstep or
under railway bridge clears the streets of
the visible signs OF homeless misery which
impress themselves SO indelibly on ones
mind in London.
London Poor More Degraded.
The difference which, however, should
unhesitatingly emphasize lies mainly in the
fact that the London poor, apart from the
distinctly so-called criminal classes. are,
should say, more degraded than the average
iEhabitant of corresponding quarters in New
York. This distinction is chiefly due to all
absence of public sentiment against female
drunkenness and the extreme leniency with
which the most open immortality is regarded
drunkards nor immoral The utter lack of
any standard produces a state of society
from which the most ordinary self-respect
is conspicuous by its absence, even among
those who are comparatively virtuous.
In working among our factory girls the
real struggle is to give them the most ele-
mentary notions of propriety and decorum,
and it has often been almost despairing to
know how to persuade them that the first