ILLUSTRATIONS
| Public School Adjoining Slaughter-Pen, 1865 | [Frontispiece] |
| Plan of Rookery Holding 1000 Persons | [60] |
| A Crowded Section of the City | [61] |
| A Tenant-House Cul-de-Sac Near City Hall | [70] |
| Cul-de-Sac Near Slaughter-House and Stables | [71] |
| Plan of Cellar—“Worse Than a Stygian Pit” | [73] |
| Slaughter-Pens in Rear of Tenant-Houses | [77] |
| Sixth Street Cattle Market, 1865 | [78] |
| Region of Hide-Curing, Fat-Gathering, etc. | [79] |
| Region of Bone-Boiling and Swill-Milk Nuisances | [80] |
| Plan of Rookery Between Broadway and Bowery | [83] |
| Plan of Cellar Occupied by Two Families | [85] |
| Plan Showing Rear Tenant-Houses Near a Stable | [89] |
| Rivington Place, 1865 | [92] |
| Gotham Court, Cherry Street, 1865 | [95] |
| Transverse Sectional Elevation of Gotham Court | [96] |
| “The Great Eastern” | [98] |
| A Perpetual Fever-Nest | [106] |
| Region of Smallpox and Typhus Fever | [111] |
| Plan of Fever-Nest, East 17th Street | [114] |
| Bird’s-Eye View of Fever-Nest Near Fifth Avenue | [115] |
| Plan of Monroe Street Fever-Nest | [117] |
| A Sixth Ward Fever-Nest | [126] |
| Plan of Typical Fever-Nest, 1865 | [130] |
| Plan of Rear Cul-de-Sac | [134] |
| Fever-Breeding Structure Near Central Park | [139] |
| Stagnant Water, Central Park West | [148] |
I
A Blind Metropolis and Her Dying Children
A great problem was left for the first civilized inhabitants of New York to determine. Nature had made ample provision for the metropolis of the western hemisphere. But two possibilities were attached to its occupation by man—it could be healthy or unhealthy, at the option of the people.
The conditions which made for health were: two large rivers of pure water, from the mountains and the sea, flushed its shores, carrying the outflow of its waste far away seaward; its soil could be thoroughly drained; its sewerage could be so Healthy or Unhealthy:
Which? constructed as to convey to the sea all forms of domestic waste and surface filth; its southern exposure towards the ocean insured sunlight and sea breezes; its inland situation supplied to its atmosphere the life-giving virtues of abundant vegetation; the climate was temperate.
The conditions which made for unhealthiness were: large areas of sodden marsh lands; a rock formation of shale, having a dip of the strata, nearly perpendicular, admitting the flow of surface water to great depths, thus poisoning springs and wells; numerous streams flowing into the rivers; large ponds of stagnant water; fierce summer heat.
From the year 1622 to the year 1866, a period of two hundred and forty-four years, the people elected that the city should be unhealthy. The land was practically undrained; the drinking water was from shallow wells, befouled by street, stable, Two Centuries and
a Half Unhealthy privy, and other filth; there were no adequate sewers to remove the accumulating waste; the streets were the receptacles of garbage; offensive trades were located among the dwellings; the natural water courses and springs were obstructed in the construction of streets and dwellings, thus causing soakage of large areas of land, and stagnant pools of polluted water.