The arrests for the same period between the ages of ten and twenty years amounts to the fearful number of 13,660. Is it not melancholy to contemplate these little creatures, "made to the image and likeness of God," allowed to develop in such haunts of crime, every faculty as soon as awakened blunted by the atmosphere of sin surrounding them? If not rescued from their fate at an early age, we know they are the embryo criminals who will in the future fill our prisons and grace our scaffolds. How can it be otherwise? Nurtured in a hot-bed of crime from infancy, educated in pilfering and beggary in childhood, it is but human that they should develop these accomplishments in rank luxuriance as they grow to manhood. It seems strange that Mr. Bergh's attention has never been drawn to the condition of the miserable tenants and the homeless children. He and the rest of his society take every means to remedy the complaints of ill-used quadrupeds; but unfortunate biped humanity may be stalled in filthy dens with imperfect drainage and no ventilation, or, the little ones starve and die on our thoroughfares, without finding a humanitarian to raise a voice in their behalf. It is true, our cattle should be cared for, but a just God will demand at our hands some protection for his poor.
"He has said—his truths are all eternal—
What he said both has been and shall be—
What ye have not done to these my poor ones,
Lo! ye have not done it unto me." [Footnote 171]
[Footnote 171: Proctor.]
The radical relief for the evils growing out of the tenant-house system can only be reached by, first, condemning and tearing down the worst class of these buildings; and, secondly, remodelling those which, by their construction, are susceptible of such improvement as will insure the inmates at least the blessings of sunshine and pure air.
These stringent measures are unfortunately, for the present, impracticable, as, should they be carried into effect, two thirds of the inhabitants of these dens would be thrown upon the streets without shelter. Space must be found adjacent to the city where neat and comfortable cottages can be built for the laboring classes, and transportation of such character provided as will enable them to reach these abodes in as little time and at as small an expense as it now consumes to get to their tenant dwellings. The beautiful shores on the opposite sides of the Hudson and East rivers must eventually be dotted by the villages of these working people. It has been reported that a very wealthy gentleman of our community proposes building a number of such houses somewhere in the vicinity of New York. To be the projector of such a philanthropic enterprise would entitle him to the love and admiration of the people now, while in after-years it would be pointed out as a monument of his generosity to the struggling poor. The proposed "Hudson Highland Bridge," the "East River Bridge," and the tunnel under the East River, all of which, we hope, will be pressed rapidly to completion, will form the first of the links which are to bind our Island City to the surrounding rural districts. The location where the first will span the Hudson is near Fort Montgomery, in the Highlands; the second is intended to connect the lower part of the city with Brooklyn; and the iron tubular tunnel is, as its name indicates, a wrought-iron tunnel, to be laid at the bottom of the East River; it also is to connect Brooklyn with New York. In a sanitary point of view, we think these proposed means for rapid communication between our island and the neighboring country vie in importance with the gigantic enterprise which gives us the water of the Croton river for our daily consumption, and the Central Park for the recreation and amusement of our pent-up population. Over the East River Bridge it is intended to run cars by an endless wire rope, worked by an engine under the flooring on the Brooklyn side. The minimum rate of speed is put down as twenty miles an hour. It is such travelling facilities as these structures will afford which are necessary to enable the workingmen to reach healthful and salubrious homes outside of the metropolis. We would thus be able to disgorge the immense surplus of population which it is impossible for us to accommodate in our midst.
But while we keep this in our minds as the great ultimatum which will eventually relieve us, we must in the mean time use every effort in our power to ameliorate as much as possible the misery surrounding us.
Since the establishment of the Board of Health, in March, 1866, strenuous efforts have been made by that body to remedy the most glaring defects in the tenant-houses. Nothing could bear better evidence of the good results effected by the wise sanitary measures they have adopted than the saving in our mortality rates during the last year. It has been asserted that "our present code of health laws are better than those of any other city on this planet;" and had the commissioners, in the execution of these laws, been sustained in their laudable efforts for the public good by the courts of justice, no doubt much more would have been effected. The Sanitary Superintendant, Dr. E. B. Dalton, reports 35,045 inspections made during the last year; 11,414 of these were in tenement-houses, 11,473 to yards, cellars, waste-pipes, etc.; the remainder, to private dwellings, slaughter-houses, establishments for fat-melting and bone-boiling, stables, piggeries, etc. This amount of visitations by the sanitary inspectors shows great activity in their department, and entitles them to much credit. The evils, however, attending the entire of the present systems are so numerous that, without a good deal of active legislation, it is to be feared the root of the trouble cannot be reached. In the first place, no person should be allowed, in the future, to build a house to be occupied by more than three or four families, without its plan of construction being first officially approved of by an appointed superintendent. This would confine the sanitary evils, so far as the internal arrangement of tenements are concerned, to those we now have; and, in the second place, as Dr. Dalton suggests, the erection of a front and rear tenement on the same lot should be strictly prohibited. The importance of these means cannot be overestimated. In addition, many changes apparently slight in themselves can be effected in the existing houses, which would materially add to the comfort and chances of life of the inmates. Miss F. Nightingale says: "It is a fact demonstrated by statistics, that in the improved dwellings the mortality has fallen in certain cases from 25 to 14 per 1000; and that in the common 'lodging-houses,' which have been hot-beds of epidemics, such diseases have almost disappeared through the adoption of sanitary measures." One condition probably more pregnant with disease to the tenants than almost any other is, that so large a percentage of the water-closets in the tenant buildings are not connected with the regular sewers. The consequence is, these places become choked up with accumulations of filth, and give forth noisome and offensive odors, most detrimental to health. This alone is sufficient to cause a large amount of the diarrhoeal diseases which pervade our community during the hot season with such fatal results. The inspector of the Fourth Sanitary District, for the Citizens' Association, in 1864, reported "less than 30 per cent of the privies in his district as being connected with drains or sewers." He also says: "There is a section of my district, embracing at least nine blocks, in every part of which the peculiar odor arising from privies is always distinctly perceptible during the summer months. From this region fever is never absent. I refer to typhus and typhoid, for intermittent and remittent fever do not prevail in this neighborhood, even in the low tract adjoining the river. Such a gentle fiend as paludal miasma flies affrighted from the terrific phantoms of disease that reign supreme in this domain of pestilence." The landlords who grind the last cent of rent possible from their tenants should be obliged, at least, to do all in their power to preserve them from palpable occasions of disease. At a small expense in comparison to the income this class of property yields, the proper connections with the sewers could be made, and thus much suffering avoided.
One great trouble the sanitarian encounters is, the disinclination of a large portion of this class to adopt habits of cleanliness. They seem actually to riot in and be proud of their filthy surroundings. And their example is unfortunately contagious, as it is known frequently to be the case that where neat, clean, and respectable families are thrown in contact with them, they, too, soon degenerate into the same condition. "It would be true of many thousands that, if left to the uncontrolled indulgence of their reckless and filthy habits, they would convert a palace into a pig-sty, and create 'fever-nests' and hot-beds of vice and corruption under circumstances most favorable to health, comfort, and social elevation." [Footnote 172]
[Footnote 172: Report of Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor in New York. 1863.]