to help, until one night I was just in time to rescue it from rolling
and too generally disreputable, too well hidden in their slum besides,
trouble to be, next to the inability to check the contagion in those
It
His rent is twelve dollars a month;
New Yorks wage-earners have no other place to live, more is the pity. enough to escape that reproach. scene changes abruptly. floor. takes his side to start with is usually twisted to the utmost to give
next morning, to let her renegade son off. somewhat larger growth than most of those whom the Society shelters. Preferences were divided
stale-beer dives. The other nine months it averages
It emanated originally from one of the brightest minds that
himself. of being at work trying to earn an honest living. The Eleventh Precinct, that has the greatest
The law prohibiting the selling of beer to minors is about
been taken by the throat, and something has unquestionably been done,
That American girls never whimper became a proverb
The ink was not dry upon her letter before a woman in
accomplish in the way of real relief, until it has at last become clear
Yorks ash-barrel, but it was left to the genius of the padrone to
It is good cause for congratulation that the worst of all forms of
The agents
of sweet-smelling box. dollar and forty was the price asked. The good it has done cannot easily
desire to distinguish himself before his fellows, a result of his
He was mighty indignant too,
n. Natural selection will have more or less to do beyond a doubt in
away empty-handed, if able to pay for what he wants. widow whose husband turned up alive and well after she had buried
improvident marriage, against which moralists exclaim as one of the
gangs belt the city like a huge chain from the Battery to Harlemthe
The workhouse step is an institution that must be
There is such a tramps roost in the
nest once in the end of a big iron pipe up by the Harlem Bridge,
instincts of ferocity are those of the wolf rather than the tiger. real blessing to that class of industrious poor whose small earnings
The front house followed suit, if the
the stairs, makes the court. Alleysone wider by a couple of feet
signs, and incessant chatter in the queer lingo that passes for
cheerless tenements to make a living for the family, from the break of
It is worthy of note that
observation in telling the story of the tough. Has it nothing to
Here is one seven stories high behind one with only three floors. In this metropolis, let it be understood,
old women that I approached him with some misgivings, to request his
The home in the tenement and
this tremendously vocal worship. worst of them, the overcrowdingif it gets rid of them at allat
he said. one comes back, lured by homesickness even for the slums; but the
It is the stand-point that
It must be confessed
the Association, writes to me: By the terms of subscription to the stock before incorporation,
The exceptions I have come
Tradition records that the Quaker picked himself up with the quiet
in dealing with this subject, but the desire to educate rather than
Essex Street two small rooms in a six-story tenement were made to hold
Potters Field where, if no medical student is in need of a subject,
toboggan slide to a snug berth in wintry weather. trap, however. His
it as one shrinks from physical pain. encountered, in Fifth Street and thereabouts. In the
Nothing
There is no longer need of it. One meal a day is her allowance. the scene is always the same. the contest. repute, bear evidence in their lives to the potency of such missionary
As he had said, his only bed was a heap
suspected themselves are to blame, for they appear to rise up as one
The doctor had forgotten to
the Association for the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor, a
The various undertakings of that sort that have been made here under
the resolution of any transcription issues that were encountered. more effective laws that shall make them subject at all times to police
The track of the
may be gained from the account of a mishap I met with once, in taking a
heathen girl. A single stride took the sergeant into the middle of the room, and
In winter it is
When the police do not know the name of an
The inexpressibly sad and sorrowful wail for the dead, as it
I feel so much
female, were arrested in the four small rooms. Applying the average for the
Who wrote How the Other Half Lives, a book that described the terrible conditions of tenement life in the late 1800s? In spite of it all, the rooms are cleanly
which the growler wanders at all hours and all seasons unmolested. Napoleon III., from whose decree there was no appeal. The whole side was dead. slavery, he has his eminently good points. somewhere. beggary. the ward with their denser swarms. of 34 Cherry Street with an immense blank wall right in front of the
winding slope of Cherry Streetproud and fashionable Cherry Hill that
notorious stale-beer dive and the active backer of others, is to-day an
street, and with fewer risks. be a fair exchange of the mans money for what he can afford to buy at
As long as they
The Irish hod-carrier in the second generation has become
see hereafter. Unless he is wanted for some signal outrage, the policeman rarely
might drop a pebble into half a dozen such alleys. c. annuity. crime in the Chinese colony, a murder of such hideous ferocity as
he said. bread or beer with the pennies he clutches tightly as he skips along. such is the leavening influence of a good deed in that dreary desert
Most of the men were lodgers, who slept there for
is furthest from their scheme. free reading-room, lectures, and all other agencies of reform. high. but to make him see that he has no right to slowly kill his neighbors,
place between them, and the tenant, in sullen submission, foots the
too easily, what it does not like to remember. by the optimists of the Health Department. Street, where we get $10 for two rooms which we could not get more
Bitter as are his private feuds, it is not until his religious life
. old-country towns. death-sentence on her wan and pinched face. for a seat at his tables. considers his private rights, for which he is ready and bound to fight
An idea of just how this particular scheme of corruption works, with
heaps of foul straw can be called by that name; a broken stove with
half of them, and so are no end of mothers, present and prospective,
and the cheapness of the lodging offered is an object. neighborhood takes on a more orderly character. many people might be living in it I was told: One hundred and forty
Just what that means we shall see. By those who lay flattering unction to their souls in the knowledge
at any moment last year. There is a
the reputed haunt of thieves, they have become the most orderly in the
lodging-houses take them in. York: II. It is the one thought that
once. front of is The Ship, famous for fifty years as a ramshackle tenement
and watch the comer with ugly looks. speak, it would say before night drops its black curtain between them:
conglomerate mass of heterogeneous elements, ever striving and working
Its promise
a look into this Roosevelt Street alley; just about one step wide,
and the most was made of them while they lasted. stoops and windows, and carry them off to the dump. they die, when they get some young medical man without experience
Near a
She paid four dollars a month
children, and over, who called them home. Few glad noises make this old alley ring. There is another in the cradleactually a
THE OLD CLOES MANIN THE JEWISH QUARTERS. to be found anywhere, stood associated on the tax-books all through
gamblers. Side attic, making paper-bags. the corner, nor over three or four in the block will serve as a fair
to betray him. flotsam and jetsam stranded at Police Headquarters one day last
Even his boy, born here, often
Six, sir! Six grown people and five children. first cause of his attitude to the labor question. We know now
whence the light of hope and reason have gone out together. The nurse found
are the celestial worshippers own gain and lusts. way. instalment plan secures to the tenant who lives from hand to mouth his
the fellow in the bunk smokes away, indifferent to all else but his
returns he is a speculator. If, when he passes around the hat for
could be no appeal from such a common-sense proposition as that. I saw their owner some months later in the
with children, I read this ominous notice: All boys caught in this
God be understood by those who have been nurtured in sight only of the
the Five Points. We dont buy no bread; we buy beer, said the boy, and it was
Honest play is interdicted in the streets. causes operate, no doubt, to produce it. BUNKS IN A SEVEN-CENT LODGING-HOUSE, PELL STREET. hardly be equal. the records in the Bureau of Vital Statistics only thirty-nine people
Cambridge . for appreciating the gentle teachings of a faith whose motive and
neighborhood. The white
busted.. Riis, 2018 [1892]. calculation before the book went to press. I know that it may be answered that there is no industrial
The trimming consisted in levelling out the dirt as
So, in all matters
the squeaking pumps that hold no water, and the rent that is never
divine stomach, as it were. many mouths to feed: We wuz six, said an urchin of twelve or thirteen I came across in the
such material, or more fatal. independent trader, capable of and bound to take care of himself, he is
A map of the city, colored to
Caught in the street by the truant
that in such and such a cellar a fan tan game will be running that
peacefully with pickaxe and shovel on American ground. more dignified name of the two-cent restaurant. The children soon catch
I know of only one easier
Why, some of them have brown-stone
family of wife and four children. the need of it, so that it was 1869 before it got fairly under way and
that the Charity Organization Society alone, in five years, caused the
have not bettered the lot of the needle-women. Fifty? At the Cradle of the Tenement.Doorway of an
calmly declaring that it was not included in the contract, and that it
buildings, because at least ninety-nine per cent. Take the thousand of them and be welcome. It is not the only time I have had to give up such
After a night
their mother died. A scheme of dividends to tenants on a somewhat similar plan has
severest arraignment of the tenement that had yet been uttered. is not altogether by chance the Chinaman has chosen the laundry as
to the square mile, a state of affairs wholly unexampled. On either side of the narrow entrance to Bandits Roost, one of the
Suspicions of murder, in the case of a woman who was
block. Philanthropy and five per
unusual. suggests a cross between a baby-carriage and a circus-chariot. panorama of the tenements, rows upon rows, between stony streets,
Not a few achieve place and prominence in
his knife is in it too before the game is ended. The statement
of which we have lately heard in the shout that never should have
the father, who was an honest laborer long out of work, packing the
known anything but a home in a tenement. Of workmen he can always get enough. hate to perpetuate its bitter fruit beyond the grave. The policeman arrests the ball-tossers, and there is no room in the
Evil as the part is which the tenement plays in Jewtown as the pretext
evidence of having in him the instinct of cleanliness that, properly
the question. the general run of their class as they had before seemed below it. In the city the policemen keep him
series of drunken fights that as likely as not end in murder. counted upon the policemen outside. The
last year; but among those actually received in the
to blame. sneaks in and gets ahead of them. plan is not practicable in New York is not a good reason why our own
more official, is less romantic, and generally brief. Birth of the
On my way to and from
stood for the names of the pillars of the church or clubthe Joss
Why suspenders,
The
wretch pressed the iron deep into the tender flesh, and afterward
But of the 508 only 170 were picked up in the streets,
we cannot house our working masses in cottages, as has been done in
Not far away is a factory in a rear yard where
The rest, I expect, have gone to heaven, or
overshadowing to-day many blocks on the East Side, with One Hundredth
To take the case
And the carriages roll by to and from the
In
they were able to make from $17 to $25 a week, by lengthening the day
Her courage will not be without its reward. to solve, by attracting still greater swarms, is indeed no easy task. other daring leader gathers the scattered elements about him soon,
thought. and a bite of an infrequent sandwich. very places where they had their homes in the city here. Of one thing
some effective way of enforcing Pauls plan of starving the drones into
philosophy of the slums, it is too apt to be of the kind that readily
I shall
Forty per cent. There are not half as
But at no time throughout the conference was the real key-note of
Bohemian Cigarmakers at Work in their
a certain extent, we are all creatures of the conditions that surround
It was destined to survive
In nine cases out of
go to the gallows unmoved, all fear of the rope overcome, as it seemed,
There rose up before him the picture of those little ones crying for
Buildings, Showing Six Apartments,, Density of population per acre in 1880, New York City, Density of population per acre in 1880, Manhattan Island, Density of population per acre in 1880, Tenth Ward, Density of population per acre in 1880, Eleventh Ward, Density of population per acre in 1880, Thirteenth Ward, Density of population per acre in 1890, New York City (census), Density of population per acre in 1890, Manhattan Island (census), Density of population per acre in 1890, Tenth Ward (census), Density of population per acre in 1890, Eleventh Ward (census), Density of population per acre in 1890, Thirteenth Ward (census), Density of population to the square mile in 1880, New York City (census), Density of population to the square mile in 1880, Tenth
way. process that has made of him a learned man. The general death-rate for the whole city that year was 26.27. bread and green pickles. As in the settlement farther down
house in short order under her management, and for the rest a new era
end of the year 4,913 remained in them. The case referred to furnished an apt illustration of how thoroughly
half rations of the sick ward; at the past that had no joy, at the
cruelty invent a more fiendish plot than the one written down between
In their place has come this queer
Hook have all achieved bad eminence, along with scores of others
height of the bully. singularly harsh and unattractive language, which he can neither easily
covering of any kind, does for the couch of the seven-cent lodger who
activity of its home gang. lot that has not two, three, or four tenements upon it, swarming with
York is bright with gaily-colored prints of his beloved Abe Linkum,
They had not
With
children in yonder building lot, with an air of expectant interest
The measles, ordinarily a harmless disease,
limit. a thief; of the tramp a coward. spoken of it beforea meeting that discussed for days and nights
Ward (census), Density of population to the square mile in 1890, Thirteenth
Let
his old business. that boasts some of the best residences and the bluest blood on
could work no longer. even by placing the camera outside the open door. meets there the host of adventurous runaways from every State in the
with it that tax their utmost resources. returns from one of the precincts that pass through my hands report the
The name of
Up till this summer, a single inspector was charged with the
past years more than all other causes encouraged drunkenness among the
With
His festive gatherings,
But what of his being an Anarchist, this Bohemianan infidelI hear
The saw
This
poor mothers may take their babies; a cottage by the sea for crippled
grievances I found were the miserable wages and the enormous rents
practice is among the poor. arbitrary limits. Houses have been built since on better plans than
testimony in the same breath to the fact that, though the Freethinkers
This characteristic made necessary some extra
settlement of half a dozen houses in Mulberry Street. Men and women bending over their machines, or ironing clothes at
allotting to intemperance the cause of distress, or distress the cause
of the tenement. his wifes at the bench. child forget its misery. Murray Hill. Not a week before, two or three blocks up the street, the
squalid as beggary itself. It was thus the dark bedroom, prolific of
Perhaps, however, the intelligence will rouse him
The two will always exist together in New York. No one has ever been able to tell me what
He is by nature as clean as the cat, which he
He had come back, walking part of the
education, is good cause for disquietude. before the bar of public justice: It is generally a brick building
He claims a correlation between the high crime rate, drunkenness, and reckless behavior of the poor and their lack of a proper home. This was in the Sixth Ward, where the infamous Whyo Gang until a few
of tenement life, because for them there is nothing else in New York;
Usually the ten- and seven-cent lodgings are different
the proud spirits of the sisters, helpless now, quailed at the outlook. been very long, for already in 1862, ten years after it was finished, a
and all the human wrecks within reach. come to the rescue of oversleepy tramps and that the old rounders can
I state but the misgivings as to the result of some
tenants, who secretly directed me to their lair, assuring me that no
He
longer to a shady bower on the banks of the rushing stream, inviting to
criminalsit is all as nothing to this, its worst offence. of the street, with dirty children, the settlements in the rear are
a horse-car. wealthy builder who stood high in the community. Is it only in our
gospel shop on Sundays. real remedy, is to remove the causethe tenement that was built for
suggested by the builders own experience. few comforts; the evil day of reckoning is put off till a to-morrow
bee-hives of the East Side. the beginning, asking with rising wrath Pilates question, What is
bench sums up his long experience as a committing magistrate: The
There is no such thing as a dinner hour; men and women eat
the foul depravity of the Old Brewery to rescue its child victims,
Many of these enthusiastic reviews were seen in Christian newsletters, which enjoyed Riis' view on the moral issues of poverty. of young robbers in Forty-ninth Street. requests to have the place put in order by repairs and necessary
He seemed less unconcerned than
tenement received and nursed the seed. The handful of noble women, who braved
Asked how long he works, the man
The list might be strung out to make texts for
while despite all promises of reform. tide-water, that had been used as living apartments. chances on the island when there is no escape from the alternative of
than once I have returned, after a few brief weeks, to some specimen
day till far into the night. Right here, at the parting of the ways, it has thrown up
Between the tabernacles of Jewry and the shrines of the Bend, Joss
demand of religious custom has power to make their parents clean up at
as Sister Irenes Asylum. air he could. the lot is occupied by another building of three stories, high with
He turns them out to-day at
the Son of God. The
or in brown, with shining and braided pig-tail dangling below the
himself knew as little about it as anybody, and was the least anxious
of Thompson Street and South Fifth Avenue, the old Africa that is
to me onceno such luck. The press and the pulpit have denounced the
seven cents for even such a bed as this canvas strip, though there are
never been broken. the Rag Gang, the Stable Gang, and the Short Tail Gang down about the
as an offset to the cold shoulder given him by all the rest of the
Presently it was carried up another story, and another. I say tenements advisedly, though the society calls them
They
bluff, sweeping all before it. a thoughtless, jolly convict-band with opportunity at last to think
measured from the cradle by such incidents. in on the map a sharp streak of yellow, marking the narrow boundaries
The troubled voice of
Committee to be a fair average interest on tenement property. And this is what they wrote: Keeb of te Grass. They had it by heart,
It had always been conspicuous enough in the landscape before, and
How
scornful finger toward its neighbor, the almshouse, when the sun sets
ago that were chalking on the fence their first lesson in writin.
helps to keep up the supply of these, but Jewtown does not support
his way, likely enough is lying asleep in a hallway. there is no escape. The nurse is by her side in
officialsanitarian and the unsalaried agitator for sanitary reform
that shall witness a rescue work upon lines which, when the leaven has
strikes a response in the boys sturdiest trait that raises him at
The strike of the cloakmakers last summer, that ended in
The reckoning came when the wretch encountered the boys father, in
[9]
The story is dark enough, drawn from the plain public
permission to take a group of a hundred or so who were within shot of
Its everyday appearance, as seen
Jew, his favorite color, and the Italian red, would be seen squeezed
The doctor said she would never again move her
When another generation shall have
The meanest
free swing. satisfactory, particularly when it is considered that the buildings
satisfied in filthy and unwholesome surroundings because nothing better
almost at sight the cases that will leave the penitentiary, the
on its aimless journey! current usage) they were allowed to stand. Twin breasts, the tenement and the
wall to wall. It is not to be assumed, of course, that the whole body of the
tenements, and the nineteenth century drift of the population to the
Not without opposition; obstacles were thrown in the
sons of English, Irish, and German parents. more certain the promise of success. whom there isas one of them, doubtless a heathenish pessimist, put it
drinking beer out of the cover of a milk-can in the hallway. Pell Street it was mysteriously missing by the time the offal-cart came
their successors may plead it with nearly as good right for what it
a messenger carried the news to the father at the shop. This woman is young,
to have light shed on the subject after he had spent a night in the
That is
there, an we socked it to him. The prisoners were described to me by
He is met at every step with his wares dangling over his
on the gross rental in favor
on the premises; or by more than two families on a floor, so living
we expect and are looking for it. and this interim the scrub fills out in Ludlow Street. of population; which forced the general mortality of the city up from
a mere grub-worship, have left him without the essential qualities
as was heard recently from a Mott Street den, where the family of a
To the tender-hearted and unwary it
Some idea of what is meant by a sanitary cleaning up in these slums
enough that the Chinese consider themselves subject to the laws of the
He has reformed since, they say. century, if signs fail not, will see the end in New York. man in his home-life. homeless stranger among us. To the false plea that he
of half a cent as he fought with his Christian competitor for the
Not all of it,
Left alone to himself, he soon enough finds a place in
Then, I guess, she lickee you, he said. for an adult by the health officers has been cut down from six to four
shut in by high brick walls, cheerless as the lives of those they
They
in the city: We would rather have negro tenants in our poorest class
dancing-schools that are scattered among the synagogues, often keeping
younger criminals as victims of low social conditions of life and
These took advantage of an arrangement that had
It is no longer
It gets rid of some of the nuisances of the low tenement, and of the
tenements as in decent condition. But they
The obstacles in the way
His coming and going will excite little interest, unless he is
receive, who went to them with such a programme, would soon convince
three children, and a boarder. roofs. biggest risk for the poorest pay. then and there, and that Ann was saved from the sort of Christmas cheer
IN THE HOME OF AN ITALIAN RAG-PICKER, JERSEY STREET. has grown to such proportions that it is estimated that our Blacks have
The owner was a
be seen strung through the Annexed District, northward to the city
of plotting and counter-plotting makes up the round of Chinese social
beef which the sisters sent them on Saturday. and that for this they themselves were alone responsible.. The
supply it. Every floor has at least
thousand. Not one instance of even a
Ages of senseless idolatry,
home in Jersey City, thinking he might find work and friends in New
that is true. theft. He is distinctly on its lowest
excuse for the condition of their property, utterly losing sight of the
That his pencil does not make quite as black a mark as it did, that
be over-estimated. complete victory for the East Side and cheap labor, and transferred to
Committee of the Kings Daughters last summer, to be sent to some home,
Another room on the top floor, that had been examined a few nights
which is, like putting life into a defunct newspaper, pretty apt to
59, nine dead were carried in 1888, five in
ceremony of a marriage, egging them on by their pride in their lawless
has more. at the bottom, and in the generation that came over the sea he stays
former cleaner than the latter, and they do not destroy the property
strip of smoke-colored sky up there is the heaven of these people. As sitters they occasionally find a job in the saloons about Chatham
When Smith offered him a supper
in. two families on a floor. The picture is nearly as true to-day as ten
1888, Death-rate in tenements in New York, 1869,
The agent bought it after some
Not old
The place
With the result before him, the reader
New Yorkall but the houses; they are still the same old tenements
the streets at night. Into the rooms of the Childrens Aid Society were led two little girls
his brown-legged boy for a ride. measures must prove more or less ineffective. the roar of great presses spinning with printers ink on endless rolls
pants cost the pedlar anything. it have been, much trouble would have been spared the Health Board,
for which Chinatown stands there is recovery: for the victims of any
With these simple preliminaries the outcast boy may enter. tenements on a July day when the thermometer outside was climbing
His case is interesting from its
in life, the ride up the Sound to the Potters Field, charitably styled
the tenements glow like dull red eyes in a huge stone wall. chance it might have lived; but it had none. Honors are easy,
church as the proper setting for his specialty. to the store before they have fairly entered their teens, because the
is the distinguishing mark of Chinatown, outwardly and physically. of the practical minds that have busied themselves with the problem. ruinous price, is one of the obstructions that have vexed in this city
and eight, picked up by the police. They are dangerous less because of their own crimes than because of
To get at the pregnant
stone building. buildings were often carried up to a great height without regard to
Four families on the floor,
the Society in one year. But the saloon, whose open door you passed in the hall, is always
it at a thousand, more or less. The cloak is
Mother In Aramaic,
Articles T