The morning call., 1892-12-04

than one family and not few Of the poor
est oil the renters take roomers. L visited
some OF the tenements. They seemed 10 be
clean, but they were small, and there was a
couple Of beds in nearly every room. There
were about 100 families living around each
court, and these courts were not as large as
the average city back yard. Attn entrance
TO each court there were biIboards, like
those you find in large Office buildings in
America, upon which were registered the
names of the tenants aud the plumbers of
their rooms. Upon tia ground floor there
were little stores. and dropped into bar
ber-shop at the corner OF one of the courts
and cbatted with The barber. His room was
about FIVE feet wide by six feet deep. and he
had sign on the outside Of it stating that
his prices Tor shaving were pfennigs, or a
little more than cent, and he cut hair for
about double this rate. He told me that hs
had often hundred customers day and
that he had double this number on Satur-
days. He sold matches and cigars and made
wigs as well as barbered, and he said that
his rent for this room was 81 80 month
and that he slept here at night.
Rents are, am told, continually rising in
Berlin. and the smaller the income the
bigger the proportion of rent. The most of
the laboring people like to live near their
work, aud large majority of the penplr
engaged in the different industries here live
within twenty minutes Of their places of
employment TIE most OF them pay more
than one-fourth of their income for rent
and landlords find it Lays to build bic
houses and crowd them rather Than 10 erect
small ones. The people here get so liz lie
that they cannot think of building hnmes
for themselves, and they expect to pay rent
from their birth till their death. The poll 9
regulations T, qIlire that the rgOms stall lie
OF certain SIZE, and within The last few
years the new houses have bssB doing
better as TO their cellar lodgings. The older
parts OF The city, however. have many rooms
which are not at AL sanitary, aud it Is as
tonishlng how many people live here under
ground. There are more than hundred
thousand men, women and children who
are living In cellars in Berlin to-day, and a
number OF these have rooms In their cellar
tenements which cannot be heated Itmust
be remembered that the surface of Berlin is
fiat and the fall as to drainage Is very
cellar rooms are damp. and as they are in
the heart OF the city they are very I'M
healthful.
IL is wonderful how much business is
done In cellars 10 Berlin. About ne-third
OF the immense manufacturing of Germany
is done IN the shape OF house industry. that
is by people taking their work from factor
les to their own homes or making some prod
Uct OF their own in them A great many Of
these cellar rooms form the working places
Of the people by day and their sleeping
places by night. Many OF them are so mad Q
that draft cannot be sent through the m,
and when IL is remembered that some of
them are six feet below the sidewalk il will
easily be seen that they are not fit for the
residences of human beings. have visited
quite a number of the cities OF Germany
and / find that this fiat system prevails in
all the large towns. Hamburg, which has
been so BADLY hurt by the cholera, Is a
whited sepulcher. 1t has beautiful build
fngs, bat some of the streets are so narrow