They are now generally built for this purpose. As pecuniary investments they pay well, the rents sometimes yielding thirty-five per cent. on the investment. The following description will convey a fair idea of them to the reader. One of the houses stands on a lot with a front of fifty feet, and a depth of two hundred and fifty feet. It has an alley running the whole depth on each side of it. These alley-ways are excavated to the depth of the cellars, arched over, and covered with flag stones, in which, at intervals, are open gratings to give light below; the whole length of which space is occupied by water closets, without doors, and under which are open drains communicating with the street sewers. The building is five stories high, and has a flat roof. The only ventilation is by a window, which opens against a dead wall eight feet distant, and to which rises the vapor from the vault below. There is water on each floor, and gas pipes are laid through the building, so that those who desire it can use gas. The building contains one hundred and twenty-six families, or about seven hundred inhabitants. Each family has a narrow sitting-room, which is used also for working and eating, and a closet called a bed room. But few of the rooms are properly ventilated. The sun never shines in at the windows, and if the sky is overcast the rooms are so dark as to need artificial light. The whole house is dirty, and is filled with the mingled odors from the cooking-stoves and the sinks. In the winter the rooms are kept too close by the stoves, and in the summer the natural heat is made tenfold greater by the fires for cooking and washing. Pass these houses on a hot night, and you will see the streets in front of them filled with the occupants, and every window choked up with human heads, all panting and praying for relief and fresh air. Sometimes the families living in the close rooms we have described, take "boarders," who pay a part of the expenses of the "establishment." Formerly the occupants of these buildings emptied their filth and refuse matter into the public streets, which in these quarters were simply horrible to behold; but of late years, the police, by compelling a rigid observance of the sanitary laws, have greatly improved the condition of the houses and streets, and consequently the health of the people. The reader must not suppose the house we have described is a solitary instance. There are many single blocks of dwellings containing twice the number of families residing on Fifth Avenue, on both sides of that street, from Washington Square to the Park, or than a continuous row of dwellings similar to those on Fifth Avenue, three or four miles in length. There is a multitude of these squares, any of which contains a larger population than the whole city of Hartford, Connecticut which covers an area of seven miles. [Footnote: Annual Encyclopaedia, 1861] There is one single house in the city which contains twelve hundred inhabitants.
FALLEN FORTUNES.
You will see all classes of people in these tenement houses, and, amongst others, persons who have known wealth and comfort. Alas! that it should be so. You will see them stealing along quickly and noiselessly, avoiding the other inmates with an aversion they cannot conceal, and as if they fear to be recognized by some one who knew them in their better days. They live entirely to themselves, suffering more than those who have been used to poverty. If they can get work, they take it gladly and labor faithfully. If unable to procure it, they suffer, and often starve in silence. Only when driven by the direst necessity do they seek aid from charitable persons or associations. There are many of these men and women, persons of worth and refinement, in the great city, whose poverty and sufferings are known only to the eye that sees all things.
A ROMANCE OF A CHIGNON.
Many a fine lady, as she pauses in her toilette to admire the effect of the beautiful locks, for which she is indebted to her wealth rather than to nature, would shrink in horror from the glittering coils, could she know their whole story. We will tell it.
A poor sewing girl, whose only riches consisted of a "wealth of hair," died in a tenement house in one of the most wretched quarters of the city. Her life had been a fearful struggle against want and temptation, and death was a relief to her. She died alone, in her miserable home, with no one to minister to her last wants. Her death became known to the inmates of the house, who notified the city authorities. Preparations were made to lay the body in the "Potter's field," and until these were completed it was left in the silence and loneliness of the chamber which had witnessed its mortal sufferings. While it lay there, the door was noiselessly opened, and a man, roughly dressed, with his face partly concealed, entered, glancing around carefully to see if he was noticed. Then closing the door quickly, he approached the body, and produced a pair of large shears; lifting the lifeless form roughly with one hand, with the other he severed the long tresses quickly from the cold head, and gathering them up, departed as noiselessly as he had come, taking with him the only source of happiness the dead woman had ever possessed. The braid was sold for a mere trifle to a fashionable hair-dresser, who asked no questions concerning it, and when it was seen next, it was worn by some fine lady, who, in, her thoughtless vanity, never paused to consider its history.
CHAPTER XXVI.
POOR GIRLS.
We cannot hope to do justice to this branch of our subject. To treat it properly would require a volume, for it is full of the saddest, sternest, and most truthful romance. A writer in Putnam's Magazine for April, 1868, presented an able and authentic paper on this subject, which is so full and interesting that we have decided to quote a few extracts from it here, in place of any statement of our own.
Where the Bowery runs into Chatham street, we pause, and from within our close-buttoned overcoats look out over our mufflers at the passing throng. There are many novel features in it, but let them pass. Note these thinly-clad creatures who hurry shivering past, while the keen wind searches, with icy fingers, through their scanty garments, and whirls the blinding snow in their pitiful, wearied faces. We count them by tens, by scores, by hundreds, as we stand patiently here—all bearing the same general aspect of countenance, all hurrying anxiously forward, as if this morning's journey were the most momentous one of their whole lives. But they take the same journey every morning, year in and year out, whether the sun shines or the rain falls, or the bleak winds whistle and the snow sweeps in their faces, with a pain like the cutting of knives. The same faces go past in this dreary procession month after month. Occasionally one will be missing—she is dead. Another: she is worse than dead—her face had beauty in it. Thus one by one I have seen them drop away—caught by disease, born of their work and their want, bringing speedy end to the weary, empty life; caught by temptation and drawn into the giddy maelstrom of sin, to come out no more forever.