Imagine rows of such houses, so close to each other as to shut out the air and sunlight from their inmates, and you have a picture of the condition of some portions of the lower wards of New York City. Of the 18,582 tenant-houses. Dr. E. B. Dalton, the Sanitary Superintendent, reports "52 per cent in bad sanitary condition, that is, in a condition detrimental to the health and dangerous to the lives of the occupants, and sources of infection to the neighborhood generally; 32 per cent are in this condition purely from overcrowding, accumulations of filth, want of water-supply, and other results of neglect." Dr. E. Harris, the efficient Register of Vital Statistics for the Board of Health, informs us that, although the Fourth ward has given up nearly one half its space for mercantile purposes, it still retains the population it had in 1864. This is effected by driving the poor tenants into smaller space and more miserable dens, which they are obliged to accommodate themselves to, as there is no rapid transportation at their command by which they could reach homes in more salubrious districts, and still retain their employment in this section. The result is, that in some locations the people are packed at the rate of nearly 300,000 to the square mile. Here are congregated the vilest brothels, the lowest dance-houses, and other dens of infamy. It is doubtful if throughout Europe, and certainly in no other part of America, in the same amount of space, so much vice, immorality, pauperism, disease, and fearful depravity could be found, as some of the worst of these locations present daily for our consideration. Our readers must not suppose, from our frequent references to the Fourth ward, that it contains all of this character of trouble existing in New York. This is not the case. In portions of all the wards in the lower part of the island, as well as up-town by either river-side as high as Fiftieth street, will the same condition be found, but not in so concentrated a form as in the Fourth Ward and its immediate surroundings, which has for a long time held the unenviable reputation of being the worst locality on the island.
Practical hygienists give 1000 cubic feet as the standard amount of air-space for each individual. Dr. W. F. Thoms, in his pamphlet on Tenant-Houses, thinking that quantity impracticable in this character of building, gives 700 cubic feet as the minimum in which a person can live and not be injured by the carbonic acid he constantly expires. With many of the 'fever-nests' not more than 300 to 400 feet to the individual are given; and Captain Lord's report shows that in 289 houses the quantity allowed each inmate is only between 100 and 300 cubic feet.
The zymotic or foul-air diseases, as they are termed by some, formed 29.36 per cent of our total mortality during last year. [Footnote 165]
[Footnote 165: Dr. Harris's Report.]
Belonging to this class are the diarrhoeal maladies, Asiatic cholera, cholera-morbus, typhoid and typhus fevers, small-pox, measles, scarlet fever, and others of this kind; also the dietetic disorders, inanition, scurvy, etc. It will be readily seen that, in such locations as are above described, a very large proportion of the mortality from this class must arise. Consumption also, which might properly be termed the constant scourge of the human family, assists largely in running up our death-table. The late Archbishop Hughes, in speaking of this disease, said "it was the natural death of the Irish emigrant in this country." This remark is equally true of persons coming from all other countries, partially on account of foreigners not being acclimated to the vicissitudes of our climate, but more particularly because so many of them dwell in damp, leaky shanties, or in cellars which are frequently below the level of high water. Here the seeds of the disease are planted by which the miserable victims of hectic fever, night-sweats, and other attendant evils are hurried to their untimely graves. In the fifteen months ending December 31st, 1867, 4123 persons died in our city of this disease. The largest number of these were between the ages of 25 and 40. One thousand seven hundred and sixty-five were natives of Ireland, 1430 were Americans, 600 Germans, and 328 from other foreign countries.
Upon the infants, however, of these polluted districts death fastens his relentless grasp, and from their ranks under the age of five years he claimed last year over one half the entire mortality of the city. The blood of these innocents is poisoned from birth by the noxious influences of bad air and adulterated food; consequently their nutrition is defective, and the majority of them are found frail, puny, and miserable. In this condition they are little able to stand the irritation attendant upon the process of dentition, and during this period a large number of them rapidly sink from diarrhoea, marasmus, or some kindred disorder.
Seven thousand four hundred and ninety-four of these little ones died last year under twelve months of age. This is supposed to be little less than one fourth of all the infants born alive during the same period. Is it not enough to send a thrill of horror to the breast of every mother, to think that one out of every four infants born, must perish before it reaches its first birthday?
"This is well known to be twice too high a death-rate for the first year of infant life, and experience demonstrates, that the infant death-rate is a safe index of the general rate of mortality, both in the total population and in the adults of any city or district. That is, if in the Sixth ward we find a high death-rate in children, and if it is vastly higher than that in the children of the Fifteenth ward, then we shall find (as we actually have found) that the death-rate is excessively high in the total number of adult inhabitants of the Sixth, while there is a very low death-rate in the Fifteenth that buries the smallest percentage of its infants." [Footnote 166]
[Footnote 166: Dr. Harris's Report.]