LIFE IN A TENEMENT-HOUSE. As a tenement dweller, I regard carelessness as the greatest evil of tenement-house life. Mothers overburdened with family cares become negligent. Then, step by step, follow laziness and absolute filth. In the ordinary tenement we find on each floor from eight to fourteen rooms divided into apartments of two, three and four rooms. And in the majority of cases one finds four families on a floor. If these apartments were well ventilated and the rooms large and airy, this condition of affairs would not be so bad. But the rooms are small, the halls are dark and narrow, and the airshafts are either so small as to be useless or are closed at the top. On account of their proximity to the kitchen, they soon become receptacles for fruit skins, bones, etc., much to the discomfort of the tenants. Unless the janitor is a careful person the very thing that should be a useful improvement becomes a menace to health. However, it must not be supposed that in many houses improvements exist, or have been made, which the tenants do not appreciate. And we would find that when families demanded certain improvements and when the desire for better living apartments became more general, capital, ever on the lookout for a good investment, would endeavor to supply the wants of the people. But, of course, we should compel the old "mossbacks" who would never improve their property unless obliged to by law. One would really appreciate a bath occasionally, but such a thing is impossible in the tenement house of to-day. Our wives would like to have a safe method of drying their clothes, instead of of the present method which results in so many deaths every year caused by women falling out of windows. The fences. separating the yards could be taken. down and we should have a safe playground for the children; a few trees would provide sufficient shade. And with the establishment of drying rooms, or other suitable method of drying clothes, the necessity for the unsightly clothes-pole would be at an end. Then our back yards, instead of being an unsightly blot, would become breathing spots and pleasant playgrounds for the child ren. In conclusion let me suggest what I think are the legislative reforms which are really needed for the improvement of the tenements. First. Every house should have at least two shower baths; one for males, the other for females. The objections to the tub baths are so many that it is unnecessary to state them here. Second. No apartment should be so divided as to permit a family of more than four to occupy less than four rooms. Third. Fire-escapes, instead of running up and down the house. as they do now and making one's climb a ladder, should extend across chances depend upon his ability to the front or rear of the entire row of houses. Where a house is isolated the ladder fire-escapes might be permitted. Fourth. There should be easy access to the roof. In many cases the ladder route is the only one. This is nearly as bad as the closed airshafts, since it keeps people from where they could easily get a little air. Fifth. Airshafts should be built in every tenement. They should be large and open at the top, and should be cleaned and whitewashed at regular periods. Sixth. The fences in the yards. and rear buildings should be removed to furnish playgrounds for the children and a breathing spot in the evening for their parents. Seventh. Halls should always be lighted and kept clean. Closets, cellars, etc., should be painted or whitewashed at stated periods. These suggestions come from a tenement-dweller who has spent his life in the tenements among tenement people, and who feels that more than anything else simple education and a few practical reforms by the legislature are needed to solve the tenement-house problem. The Commission of Public Instruction of Camden, N. J., has condemned what is rightly termed "the pernicious practice of soliciting pupils to collect money for charitable purposes." At present there are more than twenty thousand stories of unfortunate lives on the books of the New York Prison Association. Thousands of men have been saved by this society through the instrumentalities that it has developed in its half century of work. Out of its work grew the National Prison Association of the United States and the International Penitentiary Commission, and it has organized the prison Sunday observance. This year hundreds of ministers through out this and other states presented the subject of prison needs to their congregations on October 28, and many took collections for the general work of the Prison Association. The Seaman's Missionary Society, which maintains a floating church at the foot of Pike street, East River, has applied to the sinking fund commissioners to have the city take title to the wharfage property owned by this society. It is reported that the dock commissioners had already taken possession of the property. ** * The editor of CHARITIES acknowledges, with thanks, the receipt of the following reports: Rose Ladies Aid Society, Terre Haute, Ind. Society for Instruction in First Aid to the Injured, New York. Farraday Institute of Education and Philanthropy, Brooklyn. Hebrew Technical Institute, New York. The New York Christian Home for Intemperate Men. The Loan Relief Association, New York. The Industrial Home for the Blind, Brooklyn. New York City Indian Association. Lisa Day Nursery, New York. Hospital for Scarlet Fever and Diptheria Patients, New York. Brightside Day Nursery and Kindergarten, New York. The Educational Alliance, New York. Parental and Reform Schools, Chicago. Charity Board, St. Joseph, Mo. Boston. The People's University Extension Society, New York. Congregational Home Missionary Society. Superior Council of New York of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. Charity Organization Society of Castleton. Bulletin of the Department of Labor, No. 30. Charities Directory of the State of New Jersey. Associated Charities of Kansas City. Metropolitan Trained Nurses' Club of the City of New York. Baron de Hirsch Trade School, New York. Brooklyn Methodist Episcopal Church Home. Brooklyn Female Employment Society. Wilson Industrial School for Girls, New York. Statistics of New York, Nos. 4, 5, and 6. Trenton Society for Organizing Charity. Ottilie Orphan Asylum, New York. Consular Report, No. 240. Kansas Bureau of Labor. Young Men's Hebrew Association. Scott's Bi-Monthly, New York. ORGANIZATION SOCIETY Tappeals for $5 a month to help in the care of two aged women (both over 80 years old) living with a nephew and his wife, who also have charge of two orp' an girls, children of a sister. The old ladies supported themselves until incapacitated for work and then lived on their savings for some years. For $5 a month to help pay the rent for two women who have lived together and supported themselves for twenty-five years. Now one is almost helpless from an accident and the other being over sixty-seven years old is unable to earn much and her savings are exhausted. Unavailing efforts have been made to obtain a place in a Home for the disabled, and besides this they of course prefer to remain together. For $150 to help a lady who has charge of her father (nearly ninety-six years old) and of an invalid_brother, neither of whom can be placed in Homes. The lady herself is a teacher and does all she can for the support of the family, and is also helped by friends. The Society renews its appeal for $10 to pay the rent of an Italian family, consisting of the parents and five children under ten years of age. The father was injured while working fifteen months ago and has been helped by friends up to this time. He is still suffering from the accident and has to go again to the hospital. Lately one friend who had advanced nearly $100 to him has also been hurt while working and has been in bed a month, and a brother has lost his arm in a blast. Outside help is needed. For $100 to pay $6 a month rent for an Italian widow with four young children. She has assistance also from another society and works to support her family, but cannot keep them together without additional aid. For $100 to pay $6 rent per month for an Italian widow who is ill and who, with her four young children, is principally supported by a cousin, with whom they live and who has a family of his own. For $60 to continue payments of $5 monthly to an invalid, who cannot enter a home and who has some help from another society. For $60 to continue to help an old widow, who has no relations, but whose rent is paid by a benevolent gentleman. For $100 to pay the rent for one year of a Hungarian woman, just left a widow with three young children, whom she can support if she has this help. For $100 to pay rent for one year for a widow with four boys, all under twelve years. The mother is a Welsh woman, and has been ill and in a hospital for some months when the children were in an institution, but she is now recovered and earns $6 per week, so that the rent must be paid to enable her to keep her family together. For $10 a month to pay rent for a woman whose husband has deserted her and who is trying to support her six young children (all under eight) with the help of a mother who lives with her and has been very generous to her. For $100 to help a widow with six children, all under thirteen years, whom she has done her best to support for the past two years. She has lived twelve years at her present address. Any money for these cases sent to the Charity Organization Society, 105 East 22d street, will be duly and publicly acknowledged. The society acknowledges the following additional contributions in response to the appeals in CHARITIES Of November 3: "C. M. H.," $30; "H. S.." $15; "J. G. H.," and Mrs. E. T. Addicks, $10 each; Miss C. Taylor. Sto a month; Mrs. S. O. Vander Poel and "W. S. N.." $5 each; Chas. J. Chapman, $2; Manton E. Parker, $1. CHARITIES THE OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK. ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE NEW YORK, N. Y., POST-OFFICE. Issued every Saturday. Five cents a copy. Subscription price, one dollar a year, in advance. Three dollars a hundred. ADVERTISING RATES. Classified advertisements, 5 cents a line, eight words to the line, agate measure. Display, 5 cents a line, 14 lines to the inch. Full page, 200 agate lines, $10. Half page, 100 agate lines, $5. Quarter page, 50 agate lines, $2.50. Special position, twenty-five per cent additional. EDWARD T. DEVINE, Editor. PUBLICATION OFFICE: 105 East 22d Street. NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 10, 1900. This is the beginning of the season of entertainments, concerts and other benefits. Several bogus canvasses are in progress. In some instances the name of an otherwise reputable charity has been purchased by the professional charity promoter, who becomes for the time being, and for this purpose only, a member of the managing committee. We respect fully ask the support of our readers in discountenancing such indirect money raising schemes. Any charitable enterprise which is needed in the community should be able to raise the funds for its support by a direct appeal based on a statement of its actual work. ** A correspondent who has a wide acquaintance with the work of the Charity Organization Society thus. expresses her confidence in thorough and systematic investigation in connection with charitable relief; she writes: "It is a comfort to have anything done, and so well done, as this piece of work has been done by your society; whenever I have applied to you, the result has been the same." In the year ending June 30, 1900, the Charity Organization Society obtained cash relief for families under its care amounting to $17,479.91. This came chiefly from private individuals and was in all cases for specific needs which had been carefully investigated. This sum does not include the large amount of relief given directly to the destitute by churches, societies, and individuals at the request of the society. Whenever possible the society refers its applicants, either before or after investigation, to charitable agencies organized to meet the special need, whatever it may be, and gladly relinquishes to any suitable and responsible agency the entire responsibility of providing for any family which comes within the scope of that particular agency. The society does not include in its statement of relief obtained as intermediary, the amounts given under such circumstances. There are many cases, however, which can not properly be adjusted in this way. Some of these are emergent and others chronic. In some instances relatives, employers or others upon whom the applicants have recognized personal claim should be given the first opportunity to aid. All this was clearly foreseen when the society was organized nineteen years ago, and it was made the duty of the society by its charter and constitution to obtain relief in suitable cases from "charities and from charitable individuals." ** * Any who may have believed the Charity Organization Society to be harsh in its requirements, or helpless in the presence of real distress, or unreasonable in placing burdens upon others, will do well to consider the significance of the amount of relief obtained by the society as intermediary in the past year-which has not been a year of exceptional distress. He should consider farther that in the woodyard, laundry and workrooms of the society men and women who were in need but were physically able-bodied, were given an opportunity to earn about $13, 000-which obviated the necessity for almost or quite an equal amount of charitable relief. ** * Preventive work is better than relief, but both are essential. Relief societies have their large and creditable place in the charitable system of the community, but there will always be gaps to be filled by individual contributions of money and service. It is one of the legitimate functions of the Charity Organization Society as an investigating and relief obtaining society to discover these gaps and to see that they are promptly and properly filled. We take this opportunity to express our appreciation of the individual responses to the appeals made on behalf of various individ uals and families. Not a dollar of the funds thus contributed for relief has been used for administrative purposes. The entire amount is used exclusively for the relief of the particular persons for whom it was obtained, except in a few instances, in which more was received than was needed. With the donor's consent, the surplus in such cases was transferred to some other similar case, for which an appeal would otherwise have been necessary. ** Day nurseries stand as exponents of modern charity methods. They not only prevent the otherwise cruel breaking up of families, but keep the children of widows and deserted women from becoming inmates of public institutions. The woman who has suddenly been called upon to be both father and mother can not successfully support her children and give adequate care besides. The day nursery takes from her shoulders part of the burden, enabling her to provide for her own; it gives to the child its rightful heritage and relieves the state from the burden of support.-Chicago Charities. ** * The bulletin of the Department of Labor, for September, presents statistics of the 129 cities in the United States having a population of 30,000 or over. The subjects treated in nineteen different tables include the following: Police, retail liquor saloons and arrests, by causes; deaths, by causes; food and sanitary inspection; public schools and libraries; |