The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1894-01-10
GoThAM,s DISGRACE.

GoTHAM's DISGRACE.
Where Rent and Death Rates Are High an(
Everything Else II Low.
The North American Review contains
q strong article from the pen of Edward
Marshall, editor of the Sunday edition
Of the New York Press, on New York's
tenements. Following are excerpts from
that article:
New York is breeding a mob in her
tenements-a mob that, so far docile, will
some time rise unless their wrongs are
righted and right them for itself Three
fourths of New York's population live
in tenements, and one-half in tenements
OF such unhappy character that their
baleful influence cannot help but be
marked upon their crowds so
overcrowded that on their doorways
might be tackled this paraphrase, All
ye who enter here, leave decency behind;'
where only the rent and the death rate
are high, and the standards of virtue,
cleanliness and comfort are so low as to
scarcely merit consideration; where self
ture-may be said to reach the vanishing
point.
"There are in New York 34,967 front
tenements and 1891 rear tenements,
with population given by the board of
health as 276,565 families, composed of
1,225, All Individuals The total popula-
ton Of the city is 1913, sol. Six small
down town wards may with confidence
be spoken of as forming the most crowd
ed spot on earth. No obtainable Stats
tics of English or continental cities show
q population approaching that of this
district of New York. Nowhere else on
the face of the globe are human beings
packed together in such compact layers.
Nowhere are there SO many of the lay
ers. The population per square mile in
the Tenth ward is 357, 1888, and the aver
age for the whole district is 258, 1884.
'New York, confronted in it's tenements
with the gravest danger of the sort that
ever periled a community, has taken no
steps to eradicate it. What has been
done has been defensive, never aggres-
sive. In this neglect this city stands
alone, and thus mocks it's own preten-
sions to the van of progress. Every great
center Of population in 'effete and back.
ward Europe has done more. London
cleared at one time AZ acres, at a net cost
of 81, 211 1886; at another time 1000
square feet, with an expenditure of G27O,-
600. In Liverpool, 90, 72O square yards
in one of the worse districts were pur-
chased for e67, 900. Edinburgh dispos-
sessed 1900 families from grossly imper-
feet dwellings at a cost of $3.50 900.
Glasgow cleared and largely rebuilt SO
acres. Birmingham bought and brought
about the improvement of her 43 worst
acres. And so the European record
goes. Paris, Berlin, even Hamburg, Co.
logne and Buda Pesth have done much.
New York, with all it's boasting, has
done nothing.
81 have for three months been carry
ing on an investigation of the tenements,
principally in the six wards specified.
This examination has included a cellar
to garnet search Of 319 or more buildings.
selected at random as typical, and study
| of the people in them-their moral, men,
tai and financial condition. The result
has been an appalling revelation of ex-
tortion, overcrowding, immortality and
filth.
1.-The first phase Of the investigation
concerned rents. Of all real estate in
New York. tenement property pays the
highest profits. Business buildings and
high class residences and apartment
houses here yield yearly from A. to per
cent. The latter is considered high. The
ordinary tenement pays 10 per cent, and
. have found houses which return a
profit Of 20, % and 25 per cent on a rea-
sonable estimate of their actual worth
mot their market price,, based on their
| assessed valuations. l am assured by
real estate agents that profits of 100 per
cent are not unknown. A dirty, ill ven
tilated and rickety tenement on Essex
street, where even running water is not
plenty and where the commonest neces-
sites are all but neglected, costs it's ten
ants 40 cents per square foot per year.
private greed has wrought most of
the evils of the tenements, which must
, be undone by public philanthropy. The
board of health through it's sanitary laws
can improve the sanitary condition of
the tenements, but with high rents and
resultant overcrowding it can of course
do nothing.
Instances Of the crowding of from
) seven to twelve persons into two small
rooms are not unusual discoveries. OF
course, in such circumstances, morality
and cleanliness are impossible. Crowding
like this is almost always necessity, not a
willful act, from a tenants point of view.
It cannot but tend to wipe out, not only
the conventionalities of civilization, but
the very instincts of common decency.
Homes cannot exist, and without the
home the marriage relation is sure to
languish and drunkenness, vagrancy and
kindred evils to increase"
Whited Sepulchers.
A dispatch from Denver says: Mr..
Richard Collins of this city recently
wrote to Governor Waite reproving him
for using so much profanity in his public
utterances, to which the following IT ply
was sent:
DEAR SIR-It grieves me to learn that you
are troubled on account of what you consider