New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1910-07-02
CHILDREN WHO NEED CARE.
Plea for Reduction in High Death
Rate in Tenements.
To the Editor of The Tribune.

To the Editor of The Tribune.
Sir: It is to be hoped that the opposition
offered by certain parties to the granting
of $4,000 for the expenses of the Con.In!s-
sion on Congestion OF Population lately ap-
pointed by Mayor Gaynor will be with
drawn, for the members of the commission
are men Of ability and as they will receive
no pay for services requiring great care
and much expert ability, their expenses 1t
least should be borne by the city.
In locking over some statistics sent 10
me by one of the commission as to over
crowdng in the city. I note that while Ill
Continental cities two hundred people n
the acre is considered congestion, We have
now in Manhattan more than thirty blocks
with density of one thousand, and 12S
blocks with $50 OF population TO the acre,
and this invariably means an increase in
sickness, a higher death rate and a lessen
ing of moral restraint and decency. OF
course, these conditions, even where there
is overcrowding. are better where the peo-
pie have clearly instead of uncleanly hab-
its.
In block on the lower East Side N
1905-'06. mostly populated with Jews.
with 945 persons to the acre, the death rate
a thousand among children under five from
diphtheria was $40, while in the whole
city the rate for children under five was
49, although the general death rate there
was slightly lower than that of the city as
a whole, but still higher than London 5
death rate, while the chiIdrens death rate
was practically the same"
Now, as a startling contrast, in the Jew
Ish settlement OF Woodbine,- n. J., there are
practically no deaths except from infantil2
lon
as a thousand, as against 1906 in the
block of Jews in Manhattan And che
other thing is noticeable in this last named
district, as well as where there is MKT
ure of Jews and Italians-the death rate
for men and women is much higher between
the ages of twenty and forty-four years.
when people should be at their best, than
almost any of the other overcrowded blocks
Congestion surely works havoc among the
Jews Italian children show the highes~
mortality, says DR.. W. H. Guilfoy, from
scarlet fever and whooping cough, with He
brew children a close second, and the death
rate from broncho-pneunlonia among italian
children was more than seven and one-haif
times that among American children. The
death rates from overcrowding in rooms, as
well as crowded districts, are almost as
serious and apply with equal force TO al
races and all nationalities.
In Finsbury one OF London's crowded
boroughs. in 1906. the general death rate L
thousand in one-room tenements was 80;
this is six times as high as in tenements 81
four rooms and upward; while in Herr
stead, a garden suburb for the poor in Lon
don. the death rate q thousand in 1906 was
only "a.
DR.. Antonio Stella, an italian physician
in this city, says: due exception being
made of extreme cases, We are as nearly
correct as one can be when we assume thai
the lack of fresh air and the congestion Of
houses of New York is at the base of all
their ills And these ills are continually
making an environment which, as The
Medical Record puts it. are tending to
produce a mentally and physically infer or
stock al a rapid rate, and the average abh
ity and capability of the whole community
are being lowered.
The most prolific urban inhabitants are,
generally speaking, wretchedIy poor and
frequently vicious. The question presents
itself whether the next generations of the
city dwellers are to be recruited from the
fve-cent show, the music hail. the unsan-
itary dwelling and factory, or from =
healthier. purer and more elevated envir-
onment and class"
Should not our efforts he toward race
Improvement and not toward race degenera-
ton, JOSIAH c. PUMPELLY-
New York, June SO, 1910.