The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1905-04-20
THE LODGING HOUSE EVIL
Conditions Good for Spread of
Consumption, Says Report.
DIRT OF BEDS APPALLING
1o1 Lodging Houses In New York
City-Sanitary Conditions Preju-
dicial to Observation-Disclosures
Crumbllns to Pieces-Not Uncom-
mon to Sleep With Boots on.

Crumbling to Pieces-Not Uncom-
mon to Sleep With Boots on.
A lengthy report has just been made
public by Mr.. Paul Kennaday, secre-
tary of the Committee on the Pre-
vention of tuberculosis, relative TO
the sanitary condition of New York
city's lodging houses. Mr.. Kenna-
days investigation, which was search.
ing and thorough, was undertaken
with view to discovering to what
extent the city's cheap lodging houses
were responsible for the spread of
consumption in the community. The
result of his inquiry Mr.. Kennaday
sums up as follows:
IF the course of this inspection has
given no direct evidence of tubercu-
losis among the lodging house popu-
lation, nor of house infection, it has
sufficiently demonstrated that in not
a few instances conditions are abso-
lutely inimical to health and quite
ideal for the rapid progress and COM
munication of disease
According to Mr.. Kennaday's sta.
tistics there are in the Borough of
Manhattan 101 lodging houses, with a
licensed capacity for 16,470 beds.
The prevailing type is four story
brick structure, used as store in
front. There are two recognized kinds
of lodging houses, those with individ-
ual rooms and those where the in
mates are all herded together. In
both classes Mr.. Kennaday has found
the ventilation, as rule. excessively
bad, although the ventilation in the
second of the two classes is apt to
be better than when the rooms are
separate. The sanitary conditions are
usually prejudicial to health, he said,
and only forty.nine of the lodging
houses were found to possess free
baths.
The dirtiness of the beds in ordi-
nary use was appalling. The mat
tresses in many instances were
crumbing to pieces. "As to the blan-
kets." says Mr. Kennaday in his re-
port, eight houses were found to be
very clean, fifty-fve clean, twenty
three dirty and fourteen very dirty
| was assured many times that the
blankets were washed at least twice
year: no thought of cleaning them
oftener seems to have occurred to the
proprietors, although dodgers often go
to bed with their boots on, and the
floors are swept in such a way that
the dust at once settles on the ban-
kets, which, as a rule, are unprovded
with coverlets.
by requirements pf the Board
of HEALTH Mr.. Kennaday continues
each lodging house must have an iso,
lation or hospital room which must
not be used for other purposes than
the reception of such persons as may
become sick while lodging in the
house. In twenty-four houses the
room was either used as a general
storeroom for blankets or used as q
sleeping room by the day or night
clerk"
The remedy which the tuberculosis
expert suggests for the present state
of affairs is more stringent and fire.
quent inspection of the lodging houses
by the Board of Health
In defining his position, Mr. Ken.
naday remarks:
While the city charter provides
that it shall be the duty of the Board
OF Health to cause careful inspec-
tion of every lodging house at least
twice year, inspections of some
houses are actually made much often
er than this. But the character of
these inspections must be faulty IL,
despite the fact that the majority OF
the houses show an adherence to reg
ulations, so many positive violations
can be found and conditions of such
shocking character permitted to exist.
In addition to more thorough inspec-
tions, q higher standard of needful
cleanliness should be adopted by those
inspectors who it would seem, have
sometimes adopted the theory, often
advanced by lodging house keepers
themselves, that the condition Of the
men they harbor Is a sufficient excuse
for the truly abominable conditions
sometimes found"