New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1895-06-08
THEY NEED MORE FRESH AIR
CONDITION OF CHILDREN IN TENEMENTs
SUMNER HEAT OUT OF SEASON CAUSES GREAT
Observation-Disclosures LIVING OUT OF

HEAT OJI VI SEASON NAtSHS 1isrAl
Observation-Disclosures LIVING OUT OF
SIGHT OF GREEN SPOT
chudren with dull heavy eyes filled the streets
nd dozed upon almost every stoop during the
~,remely hot days just passed. They moved
w.,Isssly. At school they leaned languidy against
.vsrv prop that offered support They the
.hidren OF the tenement-houses, and showed the
terrible strain put upon them by days of
,rame heat and nights OF restless struggle for
,sen In the dispensaries the doctors. noting
,hs dark shadows under their eyes, guessed
cholera infantum, the summers dread scourge, and
guessed wrong. For that II was too early. The
children were not sick; they were sleepy and worn.
whitening summer heat entails always suffering
IN the crowded tenements. but when Il out
n season. like that of the last few days 1t is
additional hardship The schools. stuffy and III
ventilated are still in session; the fresh-air
cursons are yet far away. The long. hot days, the
killing nights OF which these a sample.
30 ntermnable in the prospect. with the summer
hardly yet begun. that patience gives out and the
suffering which later on is borne patiently pro-
yokes an Irritation which finds expression in fire.
Quent brawling
HOT WAVE CAUSES TROUBLE FOR POLICE.
One day recently dispatches from the precincts
10 Headquarters recorded the falling of five chill
dren from fire-escapes, four of them In the tene-
ment districts the East Side. the fifth in the
region o. the mixed-ae fat. on the far West Side.
One OF the five killed, the others terribly hurt.
As night is added 10 night of scorching heat in mid
SIMMER the roll Of such accidents is swelled.
Whole families half the popula ton Of the great
barracks camp out the fat roofs Every fire.
escape becomes a bed .chamber. the only in the
fat where breathing is possible. 1t is not possible
for those who have not been in tenement. with
perhaps a hundred sous, through summer night.
10 conceive Of the misery endured there The brick
walls the stone pavements of street and yard have
absorbed heat until they have become Ike huge
ovens In which thousands of wretched victims
vrlthe and are baked. gasping and helpless. With
in the squaor and misery. the steam and the stew
OF the furnace Join the added heat of range of oil
stove and countless fires fol- the pressing and the
Matching the labor of the handworkers that pays
the rent Without skv of brass al, day long.
nanting heat from sunset sunrise. on such
nights when the police reports have begun
chronicle suicides from sheer desperation. one may
watch the most pitiful procession in all the world
moving through New-Yorks slums. The march of
angushed mothers. in the gray of the dawn, trying
10 stir in their passing. with their bodies.
breeze to cool the brow of the wang babies dying
from heat and from the tenement Cholera in
fantum the doctor calls it, The other is just the
English Of II.
AGENCIES OF RELIEF ARE AT WORK
There go the mission workers. with their fresh
air tickets. their rounds; the summer corps of
doctors Climbs the endless stairs. Every agency Of
relief and mercy is at work, exerted TO the ut
most All of these in May and June are yet IN the
future. Not until the schools close do they begin.
Hence the misery OF such early vfsitations as the
one We have just endured; Is increased Iwof9id
over in that most-crowded district IN the w2ril on
the East Side where the Tcrcment-House commits,
sion found 5000 persons living out Gi peac cer ana
man wrote 70 the Police BOARD recently That II was
i 10 h n noise 10 mace by the chdren in the
street and to him the matter-of-fact police cap,
ia'" the sePi immediate H neighborhood who had
other place to play'-over there the crowds 10 not
60 TO sleep at all some nsh a5d the rr,u wa
OF the children are not stilled before me H@ry
arouse the tenement echoes Stops and sidewalks
are lined with mothers grading tneir chllnren on
IN me street in defance Of Colonel WarinS and his
raiders holds from two TO dozen haf-ead men
There is a district there bounded by Second CO
lumbia. Rivington and Clinton 5iS ana avenue y,
harbor nearly thousand sous-and bodies; 1nsl
row that is the important thinC-io every one OF a. a.
short of that showing. The whole Tenth Ward
has half again dense population as the MeGs'
stadt. OF Prague The Tenth Ward alone Is hvc
times the size of Josefstadt
TWENTY PERSONS LIVE IN THREE ROOMS.
Into the already large families that MI these
tenements crowds the boardor. who is there TO help
paw the rent and Increases the packing with con-
their midnight rounds. upon fats like one Of
three rooms in Essex-st which held father.
mother twelve children and six boarders; or one ne.
OF two rooms In Allen-st, which was occupied ny
three separate families OF tailors. The original
tenant had let out the dark bedroom to another
hung sheet through the middle of the room. mus
dividing il in two, and let the vacant haI 10 sun
another tailor and child. The writer. on one stew,
Ing hot night. found thirteen persons sleepihg IN
. room about twelve feet square. There was bareiy
room for them all on the floor 49,
In all sorts Of odd corners on starways ana JUST
inside the doors throughout the sweaters dens;
naked children found seep!ng. as II they nai
been dropped there and forgotten in the general
discOuragement. ,,,r
on the Wet Side, uptown. in the region OF HEIRS
Kitchen and Murierers' Row. the misery OF rum
and drunkenness is added. and makes the neat less
endurabe than in the stew Of Lui-ow-st ne
statistics OF the Burial Permit Once snow tne al
ference in the quality Of the two neighbornoo1s.
Ludlow-st has the lower death rate. or the ruHer-
ing tc which death happy ending the bureau
records do not speak The doctors say mat therc
are at least twenty-eight persons SICK f0r every
one who dies: but they do not speak at All OF the
sleepess desperate throng 20 whom life in the ex-
cessive heat OF summer becomes burden We hien
unbearab!e: or Of the hundred thousand helpless
children getting warped physically ana mentally
body and soul. in such tenement environments cHs
cept 10 that they die In shoals for want oi
air and light that is the only cure for ther Az
ments.