White Slaves; or, the Oppression of the Worthy Poor

by Louis Albert Banks

Very different is the result of such knowledge when obtained through an earnest sympathy and a holy ambition to assuage the sorrows of the distressed. Shelley never wrote anything more beautiful, perhaps, than this:—

"In sacred Athens, near the fane
Of Wisdom, Pity's altar stood;
Serve not the unknown God in vain,
But pay that broken shrine again,
Love for hate, and tears for blood."

I put this emphasis on the need of searching out the wrongs of the poor, because I am satisfied that one of the greatest factors in the present tenement-house situation is the ignorance and indifference of the people as to the condition of things in the slum tenement house. I am sure that nothing but good can come from an honest attempt to "let in the light of day upon the landlordism of the slums, as you have let it in upon Mormonism, and other hateful things that prefer darkness rather than light."

We need to bear in mind constantly, in considering this question, that society is a whole, and that an evil in one class of our citizenship cannot help but have its vicious influence, in a greater or less degree, upon every other portion of society. We must also remember that the bad tenement house is the birthplace and cradle, and to a large extent the schoolroom, of multitudes of boys and girls who are to exert their influence on every phase of our city life in the near future. Modern scientists have pursued the study of disease microbes with such diligence, that they claim to be able to recognize beyond mistake the germs of certain diseases. They find them in the atmosphere almost everywhere, and they prove that these microbes are real germs of disease, by their experiments with the lower animals.

The soil under our feet is full of these micro-organisms. The smallest quantity of earth put in water reveals, through the microscope, besides the organic and mineral matter, a mass of beings more or less complex, moving more or less rapidly. A German author, Mr. Reimers, has calculated that every cubic centimetre of earth may contain several million germs.

[Illustration: EXTERIOR OF A NORTH END TENEMENT HOUSE.]

Among these microbes some have not been studied, and the part they play in the economy of life is not known to us, while certain others have functions which have been well determined. Carbuncle, for instance, is one of the most terrible maladies which can attack cattle, and sometimes even men. Now-a-days, thanks to the labors of the scientists, this malady had become quite rare, and tends more and more to disappear. For a long time it has been known that carbuncle has been due to a particular microbe, but it was not known how it was propagated. M. Pasteur has demonstrated that this propagation was due, in part at least, to the longevity of the germs.

Thus it is, if you bury the dead body of an animal which has died of carbuncle, in a ditch five or six feet deep, and cover it with earth, the carbuncle bacteria will be found in the neighboring soil several years after the interment. We can understand, then, that cattle put to graze on this land, or fed by provender from it, may contract the disease. So when the cause of this malady was unknown, it is not to be wondered at that superstitious country people called these places "cursed fields."

There are social microbes no less potent and mischievous than those with which Pasteur deals. Some of those who are infected with the contagion are put away in pest-houses or in prisons; many more walk the streets, and spread their dangerous infection through the social, business, and home life of the people. My claim is that the bad tenement house in Boston, as everywhere else where people are herded together in crowded filthy quarters, where sanitary laws are neglected or defied either by landlords or tenants, or both, furnishes a breeding-place for the microbes of nearly every sin and vice that infest our modern society. The editor of the Portland Oregonian, commenting on General Booth's scheme for the rescue of the London poor, says: "Its most hopeful features are those which propose to provide the lowly with means to help themselves, in the building and maintenance of homes. Thousands of women belonging to the 'submerged tenth' need almost as much instruction in the simple acts of housewifely thrift and neatness, as the squaws belonging to the North American Indian tribes.

[Illustration: WIDOW AND TWO CHILDREN IN UNDER-GROUND TENEMENT.]