The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-10-27

SITUATION that cannot fall to ap-
 "A peal to every one not wholly indif-
 ferent to the surroundings of others was described in an editorial in Sundays Age-Herald, which called attention to con ditions that have existed for several years in the Thomas school.
 In this school five hundred negro ehil- dren are housed in damp, almost floor less basement in a negro Methodist church at Third avenue and Twenty-fifth street About eight or ten years ago the school building was burned and the insurance money elsewhere appropriated. This base ment, which has since served the purpose of a school building has been designated a scarlet fever factory" in which are crowded daily hundreds of negro children.
 It opens on Third avenue through small, low entrance, like an aperture cut into a wall. The sunlight makes brave attempt to shine through this entrance, but once within those walls, darkness must come very early these winter days. Fresh air, anything like ventilation or suf- ficient heating facilities are impossible. There is a broken cemented floor, dry only at long intervals, and through which the water seeps some times to a height of nearly two feet. When conditions become so bad as this, when there is high tide in the Thomas school, some sad experiences could be related in addition to the stop- page of the school
 The cemented floor is at present about as dry as it ever gets and the dampness that arises is productive of enough throat and lung troubles to provide open air clinics for years to come. It IS pen etrating. like the unwarmed air in tuh@ nel There are about one hundred chli- dren in each room who get the benefit to be derived from these frightful sanitary conditions.
 Now that public attention has been called to the condition of this basement it is reasonable to suppose that immediate action will be taken to prevent the crowd- ing of hundreds of children into quarters which are menace to.health. visit to this basement into which are damned so many children of race ignorant it is true, of the importance of proper sanita- ton, Will convince one that lHe ItSpoHSi- biity lies outside of those walls.
 In this instance there is no race ques- ton. The situation narrows itself down as to whether We can look idly on or not look at all at deplorable conditions that concern us far more than we think. The five hundred negro children housed in that basement in the eastern part of ba ,it fro us, but the conditions surrounding them are such as to alarm even the most in- different and to call forth persistent ef- fort on the part of those whose interest may be aroused on a subject that is 'close at home"
 In this fragrant instance of neglect Bir- mingham women have an opportunity to bring such pressure to bear as will dc away with this scarlet fever trap that may effect their own households.
 | Just in proportion as there are unsani- tary, unwholesome conditions existing in the poorer parts of, the city, so are the homes of the wealthy in danger of ab- sorbing disease through contaeion. The very fact that .the white. children of the south are in such close contract with these negro nurses should bring this question of protection very close to southern women. So much of the domes- ~ -eachinery is necessarily intrusted to the servants that the southern woman has to concern herself about conditions affecting these people employed in her household. And when there is both a pathetic and alarming condition existing, and for which there is a remedy the women of Birmingham should take part in an issue that from the very nature of things affects their own children. That there are striking contrasts within a l stones throw of Thomas school vicinity need not be introduced. A school build ing erected on the opposite corner from the present quarters is all that is asked