PUBLIC HEARINGS OF THE TENEMENT-HOUSE

COMMISSION.

The fourth public hearing of the Tenement-House Commission was

held in the assembly hall of the United Charities Building, on Wednesday afternoon, November 28. Mr. James B. Reynolds, chairman of the committee on morals, presided. The subject under discussion was "Vice in Tenement Houses." Among those who gave testimony before the commission were Dr. Felix Adler, Rev. Robert L. Paddock, Mr. Emil Fuchs, Dr. Siegelstein, Miss Ruth Price, and Mrs. Charles R. Lowell. Mr. Fuchs described conditions in the East Side as having grown much worse in the past eighteen months. From personal investigation of the

district he was convinced that vice had greatly increased. He stated that in the district comprised between the Bowery and Ludlow street there were not fewer than seventy-five tenement-houses, or about seven per cent of all, in which the condition was unspeakably bad. The children in the tenements, he stated, had begun to look on certain forms of vice as a matter of course.

Rev. Robert L. Paddock said that he had received hundreds of complaints from people compelled to live in the district in which the Pro-Cathedral is situated, and described the effect of the immoral conditions prevailing there as terribly demoralizing upon the children of the community. The dark halls in tenements he considered one

of the greatest evils, as the children there receive their first temptation to vice. As a remedy he suggested the lighting of the halls. He would also require a sign over every tenement-house door giving the name of the landlord or agent, who should be held responsible in case of rooms being rented to immoral persons.

Miss Price testified that the influence upon children was bad and becoming increasingly so. She was sure that agents and housekeepers must know about the conditions in these houses.

Dr. Felix Adler arraigned the sweat-shop system and the horrors of the privations suffered by tenement dwellers as primary causes leading to the ruin of thousands. He thought that if the sweat shop could be banished to the suburbs on the factory plan, great good would result.

"It is a mistake to suppose," he said, "that if political conditions. are improved, the conscience of the city may again go to sleep. The congestion of pauper labor in tenement districts must be broken up. The lives of these people must be made bearable."

He advocated a law which would permit of police inspection and patrol in public hallways, and likened halls and stairs in a crowded tenementhouse to public highways. He urged that such a measure would do away very largely with the immoral conditions that now prevail, would prevent crowding of the stoops, assem

bling in halls, and improper exhibitions from windows and doors. He proposed also a system of registration of all tenants by the housekeeper or agent.

The statement made to the com

mission by Mrs. Lowell will appear in CHARITIES next week.

The Tenement-House Commission, at its public hearing, November 30, took up the discussion of the "Evils of Tenement-House Labor," and the possible remedies for them. Testimony was given by Mrs. Frederick Nathan, president of the Consumers' League; Mr. Meyer Schoenfeld, of the Garment Workers' Union; Rev. J. C. Moran, of the Church Association for the Advancement of the

Interests of Labor; Mr. Henry White, secretary of the Garment Workers' Union, and others.

Mrs. Nathan said that the rooms in which garments are made are always over-crowded, usually filthy, and that the hours of labor are excessively long. Little children are often obliged to help their parents with the work by pulling basting threads and sewing on buttons.

Often it is found that garments are being made in houses where there is contagion. "In one house," said Mrs. Nathan, "a member of our league, who is a trained nurse, found a woman working on garments while her child lay striken with scarlet fever on a bed in the same room. The nurse told her she ought not to take garment work while her child was sick

with a contagious disease. 'I must have the money to buy medicine for my child,' she replied."

Mrs. Nathan gave it as her opinion that no tenement should be used for the manufacture of clothing. It is not only the cheap garments which are finished in tenements; some of the highest-priced garments are also finished in sweat shops. She favors a law making manufacturers responsible for the conditions under which articles sold by them are

made. The Board of Health and the Factory Inspection Department should be kept in touch. Contagious diseases should be reported to the Factory Inspection Department, and inspectors should be entitled to know for whom any clothing is made; also that all garments made in tenements should be marked "tenement-made."

Mr. Henry White said that the most crying evils are the sweat shops in the rear of tenementhouses. These buildings, as a rule, are unfit for habitation, and always unfit for workshops. He asserted that many of the so-called factory buildings are simply converted tenements, rear tenements, most of them, and that a law should be passed forbidding the manufacture of clothing in any building put up in the rear of a dwelling. He doubted whether any substantial gain could be made in the way of bettering the conditions of tenement-house labor until there was some effort to limit the number of

persons permitted to occupy one square block, either by limiting the height of buildings, or by prescribing the amount of light and air space to be allowed to each person.

Rev. J. C. Moran said that there should be much more stringent regulations with regard to inspection of sweat shops, and that the manufacture of clothing in sleeping apartments should not be permitted.

"When Secretary Alger issued an order that all clothing for the army must be made in regular factories," he said, "we were pleased, but our gratification was short-lived. Under the second contract made by the War Department for clothing for volunteers in the war with Spain, much of the work was done in sweat shops. It is my opinion based on my investigations, that the germs of scarlet fever and measles which prevailed in the camps were carried to the camps in this sweat-shop clothing."

Mr. Schoenfeld said that the manufacturers could reform the East

Side at once if they would simply resolve not to give out their work there. In his opinion, if the footpower machine could be abolished tenement labor on clothing would be impossible, since it would be too costly to substitute steam or electric power for foot power. He ascribed much of the physical ill-being of tenement clothing workers to the use of the foot-power machine.

On Tuesday, Mr. B. W. Tice, of the Children's Aid Society, took a party of twelve children to Iowa.

THE HEALTH OF NEW YORK CITY.

Dr. Henry Dwight Chapin, chairman of the committee on hygiene of the Medical Society of the County of New York, has lately published his of New York city. It is gratifying, annual report regarding the health says the Medical Record, to gather from Dr. Chapin's investigationsthe data for which were gleaned from the exhaustive study of the question made by the Merchants' Association of New York that the health of New York compares favorably with that of the six largest capital cities of the world. Berlin has the lowest death rate and St. Petersburg the highest, while the mortality per one thousand of New

York and London are the same. However, the fact must be taken into account that the death rates for New York are estimated for the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx only. Nevertheless, it is a matter for congratulation that there has been a steady decrease in the death rate of New York as a whole during the past few years. Dr. Chapin attributes

this to a lessening of the virulency of influenza, brought about by the better paving of streets, and a more careful oversight of water and milk supply. Further improvement in the quality of the milk supply is anticipated, and with this end in view a committee of the Medical Society of the County of New York has been making a careful study of the question and suggesting practical meas

ures.

The greater portion of the report is wisely devoted to a consideration of the water supply, which has of late been attracting the attention of sanitarians and citizens of all classes.

Dr. Chapin concludes his report.

by entering a strong plea for public ownership of water supplies in New York. The plan has been found to

answer admirably in Glasgow, Scotland, and in other centres of population in which it has been given

a trial. The cost is much less, and there is not the opportunity-or, at least, there should not be of making large profits at the expense of the general public as in private ownership. The sanitarians and medical men of New York should use their best efforts to procure a plentiful, pure, and cheap water supply.

THE PLACING-OUT SYSTEM.

The Boston Children's Friend Society, in its sixty-seventh annual report, referring to the cases in which commitment of children to institutions is desired, suggests the necessity of versatility of method. In the words of the report the circumstances are as varied as human experience, and while the applicant may know of but one remedy-that some society should take the child-the charity worker often finds that some other solution is needed. The society should stand ready to give new exhibitions of usefulness, and should minister to its applicants in the manner best suited to their needs, having in mind not only the immediate relief of distress, but the whole problem of the child's welfare as a member of the community.

This society was one of the first of its kind in the United States, and has maintained a home for children for many years. The general secretary,

Mr. Sherman S. Kingsley, in a personal letter, says:

"The placing-out system will, I hope, soon do away with the necessity for the homes maintained by the society, the care of children in institutions having been the work of the society for many years."

INVESTIGATION NECESSARY.

The following article, published in the Children's Home Finder, November, has probably used a fictitious name in designating the asylum referred to, since there is no such institution as the Brown Asylum, in New York city. However, assuming that the statement is correct, it serves to illustrate the necessity for investigation before children are placed in new homes.

There seems to be no safe way of accepting the statement of others relative to the character of a family which has applied for a child, no matter how honest and disinterested the witness may be, unless this testimony is supplemented by personal investigation by an agent of the society. The following is a case in point, and is of value because the institution in question has claimed that their system was all that could be wished. The names are changed for obvious reasons.

On the fourteenth day of July, 1899, Miss Mabel Winn, the agent of the Brown Asylum of New York city, placed a little girl in the family of a certain J. S. Wayne at Chicago, on the recommendation of the pastor of Church, Chicago. The wife of this man had attended the church and had met the pastor.

About the first of February, 1900,

this child was found in the company of a gang of professional thieves, of whom this J. S. Wayne was a prominent member, and was taken from the gang by the court at Cincinnati, Ohio, and was given into the custody of a children's institution there.

An investigation followed resulting in the discovery of the above facts. The Brown Asylum was notified, and an agent promptly sent to Cincinnati after the child. The agent registered under a false name that his identity might not be established. The institution had promised the Waynes another child and was grateful that the character of the family was discovered before the second child was placed.

The Supreme Court has decided. that physicians and employés of a public charitable institution have the right to vote and to claim such place as their residence when they

live in the institution. The law provides that "an inmate of any almshouse or other asylum or institution wholly or partly supported at public expense, or by charity," can not register from such an institution as his residence.

The case as presented was in the shape of a writ of habeas corpus and certiorari on behalf of Dr. Albert Sellening's trained nurses and two hired helpers at Bellevue Hospital, who were held by Magistrate Deuel in bail of $100 each on the charge of having illegally registered. These writs were sustained by Justice Andrews, and as it was a test case the ruling will affect 143 voters at Bellevue, and 413 in other city. institutions. The result of the decision is that 556 persons objected to, have the right to vote.

FILTRATION SYSTEM RECOMMENDED.

The New York Medical Record advocates the establishment of a filtration plant for the New York water system, saying that from every sanitary point of view a large and comprehensive filtration system is now a public necessity. When such a plant is in effective operation, the question can be practically answered, once and for all, as to its necessity, utility, and far-reaching influences upon the general health of the public. There is abundant testimony to the effect that it is the only remedy for. the constantly recurring befoulment of our water after every season of drought. It is comforting to know that the municipality has absolute control of our extensive water-sheds,

and can guarantee, so far as such is possible, against all apparent dangers dangers of typhoid infection of the river-beds or reservoirs. Already, the Health Board, with commendable zeal, is inspecting the entire area with the laudable intention of quieting public concern on that point, and of still further eliminating the future possibility of disease and contamination. Thus it would appear that with a proper filtration plant, every opportunity can be seized of making the water supply of New York what it ought to be, the best and purest of its kind the world over.