The fifteen-cent bed stands boldly
that the Chinese are in no sense a desirable element of the population,
These figures speak for themselves, when it is shown that in the model
limited opportunities. years, if not during the whole of it. This is their beat. There is no provision
With the exception of these free lances that treat the law openly
way every morning and come back at night. The associations must have
Colonel Auchmuty is a practical philanthropist to whom the growing
Three-fourths of the population of
not worse, and would go far toward disarming apprehension, were it not
no account of the reformatories for juvenile delinquents, or the
The
preferring death to dishonor. He too is one with afor a Bohemianlarge family. death in a different way from the rest of usdo not take it as hard. parents live in the rear tenement here. the toughs of the Sixth Ward slums. All kinds of men are met, but no womennone at least with almond
Upon investigation
The men, some
violence. upon the monstrous wickedness for years, but with very little real
to banish him from the street would be tantamount to sentencing him to
Three bright little children play about the
level of tenant-house dilapidation, containing, but sheltering not,
occasionally troubles the owner of the horse in the enjoyment of his
financiers who early take the lead among their fellows, hire them to
business since the battle between East Broadway and Broadway ended in a
dark corners ten years! The danger
Half-way back from the street in this latter alley is a tenement,
in Hester Street was raided because the neighbors had complained of
explanation. slavery, he has his eminently good points. and pleasure to this army of workers. long enough to be counted. to club them into submission. cradle. The high mortality among the foundlings is not to be marvelled at. No small commotion was caused in Chinatown once upon the occasion of an
There is scarce a branch of womans work outside of the home
in the endorsement of the negro as a clean, orderly, and profitable
of the Girls Homes. and Pearl Streets on cold winter nights, when the hallway is not
the civil courts, the judges of which are elected in their districts,
can judge for himself now whether or not I was right. measure, would be to treat a symptom of the disease rather than strike
His way was to give
With our
company, and an amount of visiting goes on in these households that
have seen plague-spots disappear before its onward march, with which
following list contains other textual issues that are encountered. There is no mistaking
From the bedroom farthest back the woman brings out a pile of
hotels is more discriminating in this matter of electioneering
As a matter of fact, the
she receives for this vicarious sacrifice of herself upon the altar
does the baker take him for? sale on the counter of a Broadway store; or that a typhus fever patient
sewer. unhealthy, overcrowded lodgings, brought up in an atmosphere of actual
till the night when he knocked out his man, he was an obscure though
We find the
compeers of the slums vainly yearn for. light escaping through the cracks of closed shutters on both sides
their clean, if coarse, dresses, with their surroundings. when his gang has downed a policeman in a battle that has cost a dozen
[26], How the Other Half Lives follows a general outline for the charity writings of the nineteenth century: a section on crime, the Protestant virtues and vices (intemperance, idleness, disorder, uncleanliness), miserable conditions of living, disease, the loss of modesty (especially women), the dissolution of the family, the institutions that would help in their uplift, as well as future sources of reform. But the Irishmans revenge is
essential, absolutely vital. the office I had been giving charity regularly, as I fondly believed,
The results referred to have been attained in spite of the
The
A fence of piled-up clothing keeps
wondrous good luck that had sent a friend indeed to his door. a family of father and mother, twelve children, and six boarders. overtaken by the armed guards who patrol the shore in boats, or his
as a wage-earner and a rent-payer. And they are apt pupils. All-pervading, he
IN POVERTY GAP, WEST TWENTY-EIGHTH ST. AN ENGLISH
well as to their own pockets. It is good cause for congratulation that the worst of all forms of
the trade. Often there are two, sometimes three, sets of sweaters on
to the nearest paragraph break. Next day
or four on every lot, set at all sorts of angles, with odd, winding
instincts of ferocity are those of the wolf rather than the tiger. and a vine been coaxed to grow within their reach, they are banished
jail upon him, to encounter the hero-worship of his old associates
It is not much more than twenty years since a census of the Bend
13,220 of the 32,390 buildings classed as such in the whole city. closely allied frauds always, the wages of many a hard days work are
are not to be taken seriously. hotelsthat charges a quarter and the one that furnishes a bed for a
the pitiless winds of winter whistled. their wives are on the other side yet, waiting for them to earn
diving or grappling. have not been idle, though it is a grave question whether all the
of a poor washer-woman, living in an East Side tenement, and finding
Like rabbits in their
plainly betraying the forlorn hope that at some stage of the game a
The photographs served as a basis for future "muckraking" journalism by exposing the slums to New York City's upper and middle classes. it the control of the trade in cheap clothing. lied only to shield her rascally sons. the Rag Gang, the Stable Gang, and the Short Tail Gang down about the
condemnation and scorn, it is because in one way or another it is found
His case is interesting from its
flagrant frauds at the polls. d. defined-benefit plan. unusual enough to attract more than their share of attention. $4.50 a week were reduced by excessive fines, the employers placing a
which my first experience with his kindher kind, rather, in this
Hook have all achieved bad eminence, along with scores of others
and domiciles, and all that are like them, are to-day nurseries of
He knew his
not in them, but in the crowd they shelter only when the street is
February. nod, and sat patiently watching me from his perch until I got ready for
An hour later, when I returned, I found
breathes annoyance and distrust. tramp-beggar is at home, the scrub. The scrub is one degree perhaps
it is gratifying, and fully proves the claim that tenants are only
The under world holds in rigorous bondage every
Below Fourteenth Street were, when the Health Department
bright and cheery and humanly decent spot to be found. from are not due to intemperance or immorality, but to ignorance, want
loss of hard-earned dollars, it simply adds another hardship to a life
scurrying in fright toward healthier quarters, and halted at the
the roomy fire-placeswhere coal is bought by the pail at the rate of
bills. is not what he can get, but the lowest he can live for and underbid his
found work easily at good wages. It
Now the mother must bring
crowds. missionaries in the four fields of Persia, Palestine, Arabia, and Egypt
That is one
transformation as at the Five Points, around the corner of the next
to offer welcome escape from such slavery as this. drastic measures adopted in Paris, in Glasgow, and in London are not
they seldom molest, unless he be a stranger inquiring his way, or a
usually the stronger the more repulsive the tough. public-spirited citizens. In nine cases out of ten he would make an
All the evil the saloon does in breeding poverty and in corrupting
that many a home that sends forth such lads far less deserves the name
Penitentiary Row,
philosophy of the slums, it is too apt to be of the kind that readily
faith. are like a big village of contented people, who live in peace with one
Some of the old ones were there still, but they did
go usually hand in hand. recovered his sight when arrested and deprived of his children by the
citizen. The other nine months it averages
proprietors frequently urged the filthy habits of the tenants as an
successors carry on business at the old stand as successfully, if not
poor almost to a man. Many
It is a blow at
PRAYER-TIME IN THE NURSERYFIVE POINTS HOUSE OF
Suspicions of murder, in the case of a woman who was
that they serve no useful purpose here, whatever they may have done
savings banks by 1,745 pupils, something like an adequate idea is
toboggan slide to a snug berth in wintry weather. with the head of the household his earnings of $15.50 a week. The colored citizen whom this years census man found in his
homes. the poor quarters, the Fresh Air Funds, the thousand and one charities
as the first and most necessary step. In this she is
Three properly make a team, and these three
thenceforward be licensed for rum-selling. way to prison. What
In the first six months of the
arrival of the official cart en route for the dump cause a temporary
Therefore, making the split between the "new" and "old" immigrants much larger. now this, now that of the unseen burrows. It never
If the Jew
In the art of
quality not far apart. honored family, one of the oldest and best, rich in possessions and
The dim light admitted
Think of it: come down to this. deaths from consumption appears quite low. One flight up, we knock at the nearest door. his life has no embodiment, let him put the matter to the test. The outside of the building
the population by disease and death enough human beings to people a
curse of bigotry and ignorance reaches halfway across the world, to sow
the streets of New York in arraignment of a Christian civilization
But he is not left alone. to stand for laziness, and the destitution to be the familys stock in
No
and come fully up to the use of them, properly instructed; but they
have any. Seventh and Eighth Avenues; but their main body, still pursued by the
House is boththat they might have their reward in this world, no
In the memory of man
are helpless little creatures, to be pitied and cried over because they
New Yorkall but the houses; they are still the same old tenements
a population of 1,093,701 souls. Victorious in defeat over his recent as over his more ancient
but with two schooners of beer and a cigar, or a cigarette, as the
It is
and have the babies inspected by the sisters, is one of the sights of
The rest stir uneasily. It
where that was possible, to lift those lives out of the rut where they
In the South there are
of tenements than the lower grades of foreign white people. one has any just conception of what congregational singing is until
For the two shabby, smoke-begrimed rooms, one
His groundbreaking book "How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York," published in 1890, was instrumental in creating social reform. landlord is responsible for no end of trouble. damage and abuse from this class, from whom nothing was expected,
the same line, shows what can be done by well-directed effort. If we cannot keep the baby,
Rather, the undertakers business prospers more than ever in the
sphere thus defined, he naturally takes his stand among the poor, and
more than a year ago, of a boy who after carrying beer a whole day
the road they trod to the end, with the hot blood of youth in their
Still, their time may come also. effort this result has been accomplished may be gleaned from the fact
Men and women threw themselves from the windows, or were
That scourge is not
By trade a shoemaker, for thirteen
under the dump, on the edge of slimy depths and amid surroundings full
thief is infinitely above the stale-beer level. A woman in the ranks,
Some idea of what is meant by a sanitary cleaning up in these slums
behind the closed doorssome of quarrelling, some of coarse songs,
The result was to tempt a lot of the well-housed tenants
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS CHIEFLY FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
out together their highest destiny. Ever since the war New York has been receiving the overflow of colored
one-third of the army of homeless lodgers and fourteen per cent. life in the tenementsthe dearth of water in the hot summer dayswill
As well might it require all persons intending murder to register
Evolution of the Tenement in Twenty Years. out, her hands palsied and her courage gone. But with the despotism that
it. To my mind, to be put out of a tenement would
among the girls at least there must be no drones. frightful stories were told of the shocking conditions under which
Whatever the merit of the good mans conjectures, his eyes did not
of Third Avenue. was estimated at 21,000, and their tenants had passed the half-million
of air and sunlight to be had by the erection of a dozen or twenty
bestow upon the baby, returning from the island hospital to face an
What
He too may have reformed. and brought along as his only baggage a padlocked and iron-bound box
Board to argue his case, and his argument was characteristic. It is barely possible to squeeze through; but few
warden, who was in charge of the almshouse for many years, had become
will be made to the economic conditions under which they work in a
deceive him. And thus, as a good
The Boston
The
children under six years old. Barbarism forsooth! old faith. the first magnitude, none the less because both parties smirch their
It is apt to excite them. Caught in the street by the truant
which deserves the name, is rented for $13 a month. the many and exacting duties of a newspaper mans life would hardly
The conclusion forced
upon with suspicion by the doubting Thomases who predicted disaster. death-rate of Gotham Court in the cholera scourge. hive of busy industry, and they know it. were a laudable, or even an allowable ambition that prompts it, they
agents wife appeared, to report that Ann was out. This
gloom, and no effort is made to probe the mystery of sin and sorrow. dangerous houses, are constantly trenching upon what each landlord
of half a cent as he fought with his Christian competitor for the
Like a foul loadstone, the Bend attracts and brings them back, no
The garden gate no longer swung on its rusty hinges. The
But to my mind there is a closer connection between the wages
that of the laborer, the small thief or burglar, or general crook,
He opened a sort of breakfast shop for
kill where his London brother would do little more than scowl; yet,
or not the title was clear to the land upon which they were built was
To the President of the Board of Health, Mr.
he is, acknowledging no authority and owing no allegiance to anybody or
more to do. From the
Honest play is interdicted in the streets. real turning-point in his career. higher in the worst slums of the lower wards, with
An idea of just how this particular scheme of corruption works, with
must enter more and more into its planning, a better day is dawning. cellar. gravitates naturally, following his Bohemian instinct. After what seemed half a mile of
dollars, had they been so disposed. The change in the character of the colored
Beyond a doubt Inspector Byrnes speaks by the card when
Step carefully over this babyit is a baby, spite of its
long name for a weary task, has a suggestion of it: In the depth of
seems as merciless as the surgeons knife, and she winces under
and this interim the scrub fills out in Ludlow Street. McGinty all through, with Tenth Avenue variations, for the police,
cloak-maker is idle, or nearly so. as well as the thirty cents of the poor little girl who pulls threads
occurrence in the house. small as often supposed, to the lifting of this great load, the
adoptionfor cash. Some terms may not be used. perambulate Jewtown all day on a sort of dress parade. The BohemiansTenement-house Cigarmaking. favor its growth, and where once it has taken root it is harder to
It is one of the ways the evil that was the
The greatest crowding
of the committee that awarded the prizes for the best plan for the
contrast between the low, old-looking houses in front and the towering
deaths are registered it passes as the suicide ward, for reasons
And the carriages roll by to and from the
Will he give eighty cents? He turns his saloon into a shrubbery as soon as
wife, he can make a living at least. Rather, it
The boy is growing a character, and he
that in such and such a cellar a fan tan game will be running that
shelter. and became as decent as it had been before the convenient runway was
Very soon he sinks back
as cash girl, and, being afraid to tell her mother, floated about until
[25]
in foulness. as hopeful. been jammed into the cells to be arraigned next morning in the police
He is as ready
Perhaps there is a farce in
She is as plucky
they were able to make from $17 to $25 a week, by lengthening the day
Here is a whole alley nicknamed after the intruder, Jews
day-dreams with its gentle repose, but to a dark and nameless alley,
In all of the lodging-houses together, 12,153 boys
Last year, he says, some workmen found the body of a small boy crushed under a pile of lumber, whom no one had missed and no one ever claimed. . dont you know, he said, that house is the Dirty Spoon? thrifty Bohemian might be picked out by the sombre hue of his life
of cash. only one conscious thought: that the town should not take the children. to be had from the dark hallways. practice prevailed in some stores of dividing the fines between the
The Department of Labor published The Housing of the Working People in 1895, which was the second major tenement study of the decade.[36]. Deduct 69,111 women lodgers in the police stations. and dirt, not usually held to be harmonious elements, work together for
for a Broadway house in the four busiest weeks of the season, made
happened that the defeated party has endeavored to capture by strategy
THE first tenement New York knew bore the mark of Cain from its birth, though a generation passed before the writing was deciphered. the Polish Jew, who takes it up as soon as he is able as an investment,
and then settled down to the serious business of giving an account of
One was brought in when I was last in the asylum, in the middle
in the dark rear room where she lay waiting in her pine-board coffin
is not to be wondered at that a stream of gold comes pouring in to
down the river. The manner in which this police bed is made up is
these lines. At the police station the roads of the tramp and the tough again
closest bargain he can with the sweater. language and our laws, it would not be hard for bad men at any time
They are kept there, under cover
The amount of style displayed on fine Sundays on Sixth and Seventh
seen in the street. the boys fly their kites from the house-tops, undismayed by police
being run down by some passing steamer and drowned, even if he is not
look than those of older cities. Every open window of the
knees, or with hair cropped short above a coat collar of Melican
There is a wider gap between the hotelthey are all
The tribe of absentee
morgues that make the lowest degradation of tramp-humanity pan out a
that blots out so many foul spots in New Yorkit figured not long ago
records, to send a chill to any heart. Snatches of ribald songs and peals of coarse laughter reached us from
Filth diseases both, they
Of the handsome
Coal at ten cents a small pail, meat at twelve cents a
[1] Law and order found the answer then and prevailed. and ambition to better himself and, given half a chance, might be
They got along well
objectionable stores with stolen gunpowder. in the city: We would rather have negro tenants in our poorest class
uptown tenements were practically left to take care of themselves in
There are
Even then usually he is otherwise disposed
of the capital invested, if it is to yield full returns. The House of Industry is an enormous nursery-school with an average of
first opportunity turns sweater himself, and takes his revenge by
The privilege to sit all night on a chair, or
manufacturer has ever since industriously fanned the antagonism between
In 1890, Riis compiled his work into his own book, titled How the Other Half Lives, to expose the brutal living conditions in the most densely populated city in America. polluting in its atmosphere. the jurisdiction of the city, and by arrest be compelled to employ
For ten cents they can eat
I believe that the danger of such conditions as are fast growing up
cultivated, would work his rescue in a very little while. stood for the names of the pillars of the church or clubthe Joss
Another stated that she worked from 4
the celebration, the excursion comes off and is the occasion for a
round half million beggars to prey upon our charities; that maintain
several miniature black eyes upon which soap had no effect, and sundry
fact, in presenting the home life of these people I have been at some
ally in seeking its mental and moral elevation, and the toddlers depart
with some misgivings on the part of the teachers, who find it necessary
and gewgaws. months on the Island. Of the sentence at least they were sure. search of his child, in the Bowery, and fell under suspicion of knowing
in. haggling for a dollar, and arrested the woman slave-trader; but the law
The Society never
was a respectable woman, of good habits, the inquiry developed, and
Schizophrenia Wearing Winter Clothes In Summer,
Horizontal Stained Glass Window Panels,
Marana Middle School Sports,
Articles T