New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1903-09-13
CHERRY

This is not ALL When the next housekeeper
came to this same room with his wife. both
were strong and we'll. The man took the plague
In 1899. He still fought for life when all knew
he was hopeless; he still lived on when he could
not rise. could barely speak. but only lie alone
IN one of these closet bedrooms There are no
less than twenty such rooms in this rear house
-windowless. six feet by eight. The winter of
1900 brought memorable blizzard. While il
was raging, Settlement visitor came to this
room and found the water pipe burst the room
flooded The plucky little wife had carried her
husband upstairs on her back. few days later
his struggle ended. The wife is stiIl here"
The need of the dweIer in the tenement house
Mr. Poole illustrated in the following story
which he called The Prayer of the Tenement
"Breath-breath-give me breath A Yiddjsh
whisper, on a night in April. 1908, from the
heart of the New-YOrk ghetto
AT No. Is Clinton-st. back in the rear tene-
ment- a young Rumanian Jew lay dying Of con-
sumption. 1 had come in with a Jewish doctor
With every breath felt the heavy. foul odor
from poverty, ignorance, filth disease. In this
room, ten feet square. six people lay on the
floor packed close, rubbing the heavy sleep from
tired eyes. and staring at us dumbly. Two
small windows gave them air, from noisome
court-a pit twenty feet across and five floors
deep. The other room only closet six
feet by seven. with a grated window high up
opening on an airshaft eighteen inches wide.
And in that closet four more were sleeping,
three in a bed. one in a cradle.
Observation-Disclosures me breath The mans
disease was infectious and yet for two long
weeks he had lain here dying. From his soiled
bed he could touch the one table. where the
two families ate: the cooking stove was but six
feet from him; the cupboard, over his pillow;
he could even reach one Of the cradles, where
his baby girl lay staring frightened at his
strange position. For his wasted body was too
feeble to rise; too choked, too tortured. to lie
down. His young wife held him up while the
sleepers stared silently on. and that flddish
whisper came over and over again. but now with
a new and more fearful meaning Breath
breath-breath. Or kill me; oh. kill me"
Two years ago this man had come to America
one of the 4SS0O0 in 1901. He came young
and well and hopeful, with his wife and their
baby son. Two more had been born since then
II was to be a new country a new home. fresh
start a land TO breathe in Breath-breath-
give me breath. He had breathed no air here
but the close, heavy air of the sweatshop from
6 in the morning until 10 at night Sometimes
he whispered-he worked on until II.
He was not alone In New-York to-day and
tonight are over fifty thousand like him work
ing And late in the night. when he left the
feverish labor at the hour when other homes
are sleeping he had come in through the 1oul
court and had sunk into restless sleep in the
dark closet feet by Z. There are 3ol.ooo sueh
closets in the city. And this was his home
"Iuft-siebt mir Iuft' He spoke only fid-
dish The new country had given the plague
before the language. For the sweatsnop ana
the closet had made him weak; his weakened
body could make fight; the plagne came IN
and fed swiftly. Still on through the winter ne
bad worked over the machine in the sv-eatshop.
Injecting the garments he sewed-feVerlsn'
tired. fearful-to buy food and coal TO keep ms
home alive And now, on this last day OF he
ten times he had whispered to his brother beg
o, b,y, 10 care for the wife and the three little
| children
The struggle now is ended The home is scat
tered. The snothered whisper Is forever husheo-
-'Breath-breath-give me breath'
TN the Lung Block are four hundred oarA
/