The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1896-12-01
THE BETTER NEW YORK.
Reforms That Have Been Adopted In
the Metropolis.

Upon the read which New York has been
troading this half-scoro years there Is at last
no turning naolt The streets evacuated by
the trucks have been occupied by the child
ren, the truelymum's with the rest, for the
want of better Fairgrounds, md the truck
man has abandoned the fight; and where
they crowd thickest. Fairgrounds OF their
own are being fitted up for them in schoo.
and park Hereafter no schoofhouse shall
be constructed In the city OF New York with
out an open playground attached to or used
in connection with the same, SAYS one of
the briefest but most benefcent laws ever
enacted by the people of the State of New
York. II is all there is of IL, but IL stands
for good deal. No child of New York. poor
or rich, shall hereafter be desroiled OF his
birthright-a chance to play and as for the
streets, does any one imagine that New York
ers will ever bc persuaded TO barter away
their clean and nois less pavements and pure
air for the whirling dust-clcuds, the sum
mer stenches and tbe winter sloughs OF old,
seasoned with DO matter what mess OF poiiti-
cal pottagoY IL So he Is Crievously mistaken
Colonel Waring ha, show rs that the streets
of New York can boz cleaned, and any future
city government, no matter how corrupt or
despotic, will have to reckon with him. Ana
right well the enemy knows IL: he may not
refrain from picking our pockets in future
bat he will at least have TO do IL with due re-
gard 20 the decencics of life.
Mulberry Bend Is gone, and in its place hsve
come grass ANA flowers and sunshine. Across
the Bower. whore $4,000 human beings were
shown TO live out Of sight and reach OF
green spot, four of the most crowded blocks
have been seized for demolition, 10 make room
L.. 1..l thn
tenement house commission. Bone Alley, re-
dolent of filth and squalor and wretchedness,
is TO go, and the children Of that tcoming
neighborhood are 10 have a veritsbie little
Coney Island, with sand hills and shells, estab-
hshed at their very doors. Who can doubt
the influence il will have uvon young lives
heretofore framed in guttersf
question whe her the greatest wrong done
the children of the polr in the past has not
been the .esthetc starvation of their lives
rather than the physical injury. Agai st the
latter, provision has been made by stringent
tonement-h house laws, by the vigorous war
fare upon child labor, by the extension of the
laws protection to stores as TO factories, and
by the restriction cf the sveatshop evil In
the park TO be laid out by the Sthiff foun-
tain in the shadow of the Hebrew Institute
one of the noblest of charities-a great pub
| lie bath is to rise upon the site of the pres
| ent rookeries harbinger of Others 20 come.
| All about new schoohouses are going up on
a plan Of structural perfection and architec-
| tural excellence at which earlier school
| boards would have stood aghast. The first
battle for the schools has been fought and
won, and though there be campaigning ahead
without stint ON that score, the day Is in
/ sight when every child who asks shall find a
seat provided for him in the public school,
ana when that scandal of the age, the mixing
IF -truants- and thieves in "A jail shall have
| finally ceased, even as il is now forbidden by
| law.-"Light in Dark Places" by Jacob A.
| Riis, in the December Century.