Memoirs of a millionaire

by Lucia True Ames Mead

“That is just what I think is the worst of it,” said Mrs. Rollins, as the speaker paused. “The fact that they don’t know anything better, don’t expect anything better, don’t want anything better, is the frightful thing about it. As to whether things are getting better or not I can’t say, but I know this, the tenement house has come to stay; it cannot be eliminated from the modern problem of living. Thousands of our well-to-do people are living in flats and suites simply to avoid the burden and expense of having to entertain so much company, and these buildings, like the Spanish flats or the Dacotah, are really only another kind of tenement house. As I say, the tenement house has come to stay. Separate houses for separate families are going to be fewer and fewer in our large cities, where land is becoming more and more valuable. The thing that remains for us to do is to build with more skill and wisdom, so that while the separate house must more and more give way, the home need not be sacrificed.”

“Miss Brewster,” said a gray-bearded man whose name I did not learn, “as to the question whether the charities and sanitary improvements of the city have amounted to anything in the last twenty-five years, it seems to me it is not well for us to rely wholly on personal impressions. There are figures at command which can abundantly show that in two respects at least—the lessening of the rates of mortality and the reduction of arrests for crime—we have made an immense advance on twenty-five years ago, in spite of the fact that the population has nearly doubled. Permit me to state a few facts.”

“Good; this is just what I want,” said Mildred with keen attention.

He continued: “In 1864, when the sanitary examination of the city was made, some wards were found to be peopled at the rate of 290,000 persons to the square mile, while in the most densely populated part of London the number was less than 176,000 to the square mile. To show what sanitary regulations will do, let me say that the number of deaths in London previous to a good sanitary government was one in twenty, and in New York one in thirty-five, while after such regulations the number in London was reduced to one in forty-five, and in New York to one in thirty-eight and a half.

“We think our tenement houses now are bad enough, but let me read you a report of the condition of things in 1866. ‘At this time the cities of New York and Brooklyn were filled with nuisances, many of them of years’ duration. The streets were uncleaned; manure heaps, containing thousands of tons, occupied piers and vacant lots; sewers were obstructed; houses were crowded and badly ventilated and lighted; stables and yards were filled with stagnant water, and many dark and damp cellars were inhabited. The streets were obstructed, and the wharves and piers were filthy and dangerous from dilapidation. Cattle were driven through the streets at all hours of the day in large numbers. Slaughter houses were open to the streets, and were offensive from the accumulated offal and blood, or filled the sewers with decomposing animal matter. Gas companies, shell-burners, and fat-boilers pursued their occupations without regard to the public health or comfort, filling the air with disgusting odors; and roaming swine were the principal scavengers of the streets and gutters!’

“Moreover,” the gentleman continued, “owing to the general indifference and ignorance concerning sanitary construction of houses, tenement houses used often to be found having on one floor ten or twelve interior rooms, with no means of ventilation or light except through other rooms; and at night, when these rooms were occupied and the doors closed, one may imagine the amount of poison which each person was compelled to breathe. Now, all that has been remedied to a great extent. No such houses are allowed to be built, and in lodging-houses there is a wholesome regulation as to the number of cubic feet of air-space allowed to each individual. Sanitary inspection is conducted by competent officials at regular intervals. The public conscience has been aroused in this matter.

“As I look back thirty-five years, I find that among the better class of people there is far more fastidiousness in regard to all matters of personal cleanliness than there used to be. There are more bathing facilities, a greater delicacy in manners at table, a greater tendency to isolation and privacy in personal matters of the toilet, and so forth, and therefore among every class of people a better sentiment in regard to the enforcement of sanitary regulations than there used to be when I was a boy. But those who are helping these things, although many absolutely, are relatively pitifully few. Yet no one who knows the condition of affairs twenty years ago can question that an advance has been made. We are learning to organize charity better, we are spending our efforts in more profitable directions, and we are training our public not to increase pauperism by the old-fashioned, pernicious methods of indiscriminate giving. In regard to the lessening of juvenile crime I think Mr. Brace can give the most valuable opinion of any one present.”

All eyes were turned to Mr. Brace, and there was a hearty hand-clapping as he prepared to speak.

“Since 1852,” he said, “the society which I represent has been doing its best to rescue the little wanderers of this city from lives of suffering and degradation. The value of its work is too well known for me to enlarge upon it. We are met here this evening to discuss tenement houses, and I will therefore take the time to make only two or three statements in reply to Miss Brewster’s inquiry as to whether the morals of the community have improved, and whether charitable and reformatory work is of much value. Now, in spite of the fact that the overcrowding in the poor quarters is greater than ever, that the lowest of the European population are pouring into our city to an alarming extent, that our municipal government has often been notoriously corrupt, in spite of all this, I say, by means of the efforts which have been put forth, there has been a steady and most satisfactory decrease in crime during all these years. Allow me to give you a few figures. In 1859 there were more than five thousand five hundred commitments for female vagrancy, and in 1886, notwithstanding the general increase in population, there were less than two thousand five hundred commitments for the same cause. In the eleven years preceding 1886, the decrease in arrests for drunkenness among males was just about fifty per cent. I will hand you a table, Miss Brewster, giving you the report of juvenile crimes since 1875, and also the Police record containing the general report for the city, the details of which you can read at your leisure. I will simply say now that the net summing up of these reports shows a remarkable decrease in crime of all sorts of twelve and a half per cent. This, I think, will answer your question as to whether, on the whole, our city is any better.”

“There is another thing to be noticed,” said a little lady over in the corner. “People of all classes think more of going into the country and getting fresh air than they used to. Thousands of families who thirty years ago would not have spent two or three weeks in the year out of the city now think they must have two months at least. They have come to consider this a necessity for themselves, and it makes them through sympathy appreciate a little the needs of the very poor during the fierce summer heat. The lovely charities of the Flower Mission, Country Week, and the harbor excursions have grown out of this sympathy for others.