But the most striking illustration I can give you of the state of the working-class dwellings in New York is by placing side by side the figures of the population per acre in the slums of New York and Manchester.
The Manchester slums are bad—disgracefully, sinfully bad—and the overcrowding is terrible. But referring to the figures I took from various official documents when I was writing on the Manchester slums a few years ago, I find the worst cases of overcrowding to be:—
| District. | Pop. per Acre. | |
| Ancoats | No. 3 | 256 |
| Deansgate | No. 2 | 266 |
| London Road | No. 3 | 267 |
| Hulme | No. 3 | 270 |
| St. George's | No. 6 | 274 |
These are the worst cases from some of the worst English slums. Now let us look at the figures for New York—
| Density of Population Per Acre in 1890 | |
| Tenth Ward | 522 |
| Eleventh Ward | 386 |
| Thirteenth Ward | 428 |
The population of these three wards in the same year was over 179,000. The population of New York in 1890 was 1,513,501. In 1888 there were in New York 1,093,701 persons living in tenement houses.
Then, in 1889, there died in New York hospitals 6102; in lunatic asylums, 448; while the number of pauper funerals was 3815.
In 1890 there were in New York 37,316 tenements, with a gross population of 1,250,000.
These things are facts, and our practical politicians love facts.