El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1899-10-21
TENEMENT HOUSES.
The Problem of the Poor Mans Homo
In the Big Cities.

In the Big Cities.
For 60 years there has been a tene-
ment house problem in New York
city. Since the first assembly commit
tee was appointed in 1856 there have
been various commissions selected to
| investigate tenement evils. All of these
have agreed, 1 am informed, that the
building of tenements on single lots 25
feet wide by 100 feet long is the source
of all the evil conditions that exist"
You can see how this is if you will
draw a parallelogram one inch wide
by four inches deep and think how you
could occupy a space of this shape with
building six stories high, arranged
to have four or more families on each
floor and to draw all the light and air
from the front and rear ends, 100 feet
or 90 feet apart. Naturally the law
requires light and air shafts, but even
when the shafts of two adjoining tene-
ments are united their combined width
is less than three feet. l think two
feet four inches is the common meas
urement. These narrow, long pockets.
six stories deep, are said merely to
assist III the dcCum uldllOu VI IOul oil,
the destruction of privacy and the
communication of nauseous odors and
diseases. The rear tenement evil, as it
is rapidly growing up in Chicago, one
building crowded behind another on
the one building lot, is fast disappear
ing from New York city. Instead are
coming the modern double decker,
dumb bell type" of buildings, whose
name you will understand by conceiv-
ing buildings 90 or 100 feet deep and
six stories high, each with sides hOl-
lowed out a foot or two and all stand
ing together in a close row. In Paris,
within its Notifications, where land is
especially costly, houses are almost
all built on plats 70 by 100 feet, with
q large, open court in the center. In
London, eff the lots are narrow, the
buildings are low and shallow" In
New York city tenement house COM
mittee appointed by the Charity Or
ganization society has bravely struck
at the root of the trouble by suggest
ing new ordinances with the view of
making the construction of tenements
on a single % foot lot so Improbable
that builders will commence building
on lots of greater width.
Forty thousand tenements there are
said to be in New York city. AS it is
difficult to distinguish where FLATS" or
departments" begin and tenements
cease, these 10000 are said to be
''homes occupied by three or more fam
lilies using halls, ETC., in common" The
tenement population Of New York city,
as based upon the census of 1883, was
1,O93, 7O1 persons, including 143,243
children under years, who were liv-
ing in dwellings which contained each
three or more families. Miss Lillian D.
Valid of the Nurses Settlement, who
has lived seven years in the tenement
house district and nursed tenement
residents, said, ''The houses which
should have no compromise with i'm
provements' are innumerable. and their
complete demolition Is demanded by
all who have knowledge of the only
life possible within them" She went
on to describe tenements as she sees
them daily: 1.-The halls are SO dark that
1t is quite common to go In on a bright
day and feel along the hall until you
find a door. Often in going up stairs
the only knowledge one has of some
one coming down is seeing a white
hand on the railing" Any person can
imagine the filthy halls and personal
immortality to which such obscurity
would conduce. 1.-The odors and the
poor plumbing in the houses are the
chief causes of complaint, and it seems
to us that these conditions are largely
productive Of phthisis."
Bitter things might be said concern
ing the merciless greed of many who
have money and crave more. Together
with the wealthy there are many per-
sons of comparatively small means
who invest their savings in tenement
houses because the latter, in return
for the physical and moral degradation
of their inhabitants, yield large finan-
cial profits.-Charles Frederick Weller
in Chicago Record.
Growth of Labor Unions.