New-York tribune., 1900-11-19
TENENENTS AND TUBERCULOSIS.

The first public hearing of the State Tene-
ment House Commission was devoted largely
to a phase of the tenement house question
which concerns not merely the workers who live
in these wretched dwellings, but the whole com
munity. This subject Of improved homes for
the poor is often discussed as If 1t were work
of philanthropy, well enough for missionaries
and faddsts, who must now and then have
little consideration at the expense of the pre-
dominant commercial interests which must
control the character of tenement house build
ing Such Improvement, indeed Is a work of
philanthropy which appeals to common humani
ty, and should be prosecuted even at the sacri-
fee of the business interests Of the natural
man. But it is something more than this. 1t
is work which appeals to the highest COM
mercal instinct not indeed Of every individual
who may want to get from unsanitary property
an income which Is the price of disease and
death to his fellows, but of the whole community
which suffers actual money loss Of vast pro-
portions from miserable and overcrowded tene-
ment houses.
The testimony given by Dr. Biggs and by DR..
Pryor, of Buffalo, to the prevalence of tuber-
culosis in the tenement houses should arouse
the whole city to demand a sweeping reform
and a destruction Of the hundreds of plague
spots where the tubercular germ lives on from
year TO year, injecting family after family
successively occupying these death chambers
which the law permits to be rented out for
human dwellings. We take the greatest pre-
cautions against smallpox yellow fever and
cholera, yet we permit to exist in the heart Of
this city standing sources Of infection of more
terrible disease which causes greater misery
and money loss in a year than would one of the
epdemics the mere rumor of which drives
people into panic.
The peril Of infected houses which should be
destroyed Is not confined to their particular
tenants. 1t extends to the whole city. Those
places breed the poison which Is disseminated
everywhere to attack persons who themselves
living with the utmost regard for sanitation, are
at the mercy of the worst conditions permitted
to exist about them. Consumption Is one of the
most potent causes of pauperism, attacking as
it does largely the wage earners among the
poor, stopping their work to the loss of the COM
munity. and in addition leaving great numbers
or dependents who must be cared for by public
and private charity. Radical attention to onh
of the greatest preventable wastes of life and
property existing in the city is impera tivel,
called for as much in the name Of business as
In the name of humanity
solution Of the problem before the Tene-
ment House Commission is not easy. 1t must
provide for tenement houses which will be safer
more healthful. and offer more decent lives to
those compelled to dwell in them. At the same
time it must make its requirements so practical
as not to discourage building and SO drive the
working population to worse herdng than ever
IN the old rookeries. 1t must also secure reme-
dies for the evils of the existing buildings ANY
attempt to do this is met by talk about vested
rights but there can be no question of the power
and duty of the State to take such measures ne
| are necessary to abolish in the common ,nteras+
| the plague spots in the tenement house districts
! The work of condemning unsanitary buildinps
which made such progress under Mayor Strong
| has for three years been practically SUSPENDED
| though DR.. Biggs tells of blocks where tho on.
nual death rate from consumption alone is fortv
! per thousand, and says that three houses IN
Cherry-st. have in the last four years each TO-
ported twenty two deaths from tuberculosis ord
are evidently centres of disease which should ba
! demolished. Clearly more adequate measures
to secure condemnation of such danoarors
structures and more thorough inspection ard
! enforcement of the law IN all tenement housas
must be taken, even If the present official reen-
lat1on has to be supplemented or superseded hv
some system analogous to the factory ipsnec-
| ton.