mss Social Statistics Parish New York PUBLISHED BY CHURCH TEMPERANCE SOCIETY, CriuRCH Missions House, Fourth Avenue and 22D Street. This inquiry is confined strictly to the geographical limits of Augustine's Cure , Trinity Parish. It is but fair to observe that there, are churches and philanthropic institutions situated beyond these parochial^ limits which exercise a beneficial influence over the people of the district In the same way the German , Italian and Jewish quarters extend beyond the blocks here enumerated, but confining ourselves , as we do for the sake of accuracy, to the territorial limits of each parish, we do not take in any kind of statistics beyond these limits. L S ' - i r CAM M CONTENTS: 1. The Church Temperance Society 3 2. The Trend of Population 7 3. American Cities 9 4. New York: Its Government and Expansion 11 5. New York: Below Fourteenth Street 13 6. St. Augustine’s Cure, Trinity Parish, New York... 15 7. Enumerators 18 8. The German Quarter 19 9. The Jewish Quarter. 24 10. The Italian Quarter 31 11. The Tenement House Problem 40 12. Education and Citizenship 44 13. The Liquor Saloon, Brothel and Gambling House. 45 14 The Social Responsibilities of the Church 50 r - THE CHURCH TEMPERANCE SOCIETY. “ All the problems of life are in the end religious problems." — Bishop Westcott. An inordinate share of the enthusiasm, skill and labor devoted to the cause of temperance reform in the United States of America, has been given to one special form of legislation, viz., prohibition. The Church Temperance Society during the twelve years of its existence has endeavored to deepen the foundations, broaden the out- look, and take note of the causes from which intemperance springs, as well as to limit its results by legislation or moral suasion. Its basis is “ a union on perfectly equal terms between those who temperately use and those who totally abstain from intoxicating liquors as beverages,” and is therefore not subject to the common and not un- warranted charge of narrowness or bigotry. Recognizing that effects spring from causes near or remote, it lays down four main lines of work and effort to be taken up as time, means, and opportunity offer, viz.: 1. PREVENTION: including Young Crusaders, ) Knights of Temperance, > Work among boys. Veteran Knights, ) Bands of Hope, $ , • , Maids of Honour, \ Work amon S § lrls ' Parochial Temperance Societies, General. 2. COUNTERACTION. Parish Social Statistics. Tee-To-Tum Clubs. Coffee Houses. Free Libraries. Tenement House Reform. Night Lunch Wagons. Iced Water Fountains. 3 LEGISLATION. Limitation in Cities to one in 500 of the population. In Counties, and Wards of Cities, by Local Option. By Tax of $1000. By Sunday Closing. By Modification of Gothenburg System. 4. RESCUE WORK. Through Police Court Missionaries. Through Temperance Missions. 3 *> f 35929 4 Through Evangelistic Services. Through Prison Gate Missions. Through Personal Rescue Work. Prevention, Counteraction and Legislation as thus defined, to~be intelligent, must be based on proved needs and ascertained necessities. Social statistics are therefore a necessary basis from and on which to work. In 1883 (“Liquordom”), and again in 1887 (“New York City and its Masters ”), we investigated the enormous volume of the liquor trade, proving that the drink sellers outnumbered the food sellers by 2878, and that intoxication and disorderly conduct (springing from it) comprised 63.5 per cent, of the total number of arrests in the City of New York. We gave the following chart as a fair example of how the liquor saloon dotted and honeycombed its most populous and poorest quarters. The Board of Aldermen, which at this time controlled the appointments to the Excise Board, consisted of 12 liquor dealers, 8 pro* fessional politicians, and four business men. The following diagram represented a specimen district. This was followed by an enquiry into the bearing and direct relation of the liquor saloon to municipal government as shown in its control of primary and other political meetings, the results carefully tabulated being shown on the tollowing schedule: PRIMARY AND DISTRICT MEETINGS HELD IN THE YEAR PRECEDING THE NOVEMBER ELECTIONS OF 1884. Congression’l Convent’n Assembly Convention. . Aldermanic Convention Primaries and District Meetings Totals Political Meetings held in Saloons Political Meetings held next door to Saloons. . ••633 .. 86 719 Political Meetings held apart from Saloons.. . 283 Total 1,002 LIQUOR SALOONS. m - n 1 a =s >> a r eg a fn © '3 □ eg bo 9 « 3 0 5 +3 0 a s 03 H a *> u 0 fl 0 s a> Q p cu © E-H 6 7 6 19 1 7 18 19 9 63 17 19 19 9 64 16 19 443 9 ! 487 56 63 487 2 7 1^3 NEXT DOOR TO SALOONS. Tammany Hall. 1 Irving Hall. County Democracy. Republican. Total. I I 3 I 3 7 3 I 3 7 3 65 3 7 1 — — ~ — — IO 67 9 86 NEITHER. | Tammany Hall. Irving Hall. County Democracy. I Republican. Total. 3 3 6 7 3 4 12 26 7 2 4 12 25 8 2 204 12 226 25 7 215 36 283 N^V 0* ©* HE\N C\t% , SH&VNVUC* Oft %*\-00f*S ~ NMrtVVvtO TV\V>*> I (fCj LKfctK fcfc£K S^UGNS — NvmtQ TVWS • *va. cahtmuea m5\W * V\5 'taw os - Uinxxjti onij akcwi hit/ nun\©ef a/n^O Locvnow (^^oloxrnA ubdJbOuJ MycurfA/'k {MAfc, , 6 As a corollary to this investigation, and as showing the direct action by which the saloon could bring its power to bear, we proved (“ Chattel Mortgages on Saloon Fixtures ”) that in the year ending October, 1888, 4710 chattel mortgages on saloon fixtures were held in the City of New York, of the total value of $4,959,578. Of this number 600 val- ued at $310,134 were held by one firm of brewers (Bernheimer & Schmit) and 208 valued at $442,063 by another firm of brewers (George Ehret & Co.). The combination of these two firms governing directly 808 ballots, and indirectly probably ten times as many, was therefore ready for use as necessity might dictate, and was a fair sam- ple of the firms of 20 other liquor barons whose business was done in precisely the same way. We had up to this time dealt with the subject in the mass rather than in detail, and there seemed to us urgent need of an investigation into the homes of the poorer sections of the city with a view to deter- mine how far their environment helped or hindered the average boy or girl in fighting the battle of life, and how far such environment affect- ed the moral conditions of the city. This meant a personal investigation of every dwelling, tenement, family and person, with definite replies to such questions as would give us sufficient data from which to draw the necessary deductions. This involved a large expenditure of money, labor and time; a body of fairly skilled assistants to collect the necessary information ; and a further condensation of the raw material thus obtained into such tables and schedules as would give a fair epitome of the social condi- tions of the portion of the city so investigated. Our hope is that a Social Statistics Bureau may ultimately be established which will com- plete this investigation in every parish in the city, and give us a real and exact knowledge, not only of the nature and extent of the prob- lem we have to solve, but also how to solve it. Our means and staff were only adequate to an examination of one section of the city, containing probably about one-twentieth of the population, but which, pending a more extended investigation, might give a fairly approximate idea of an important part of the city prob- lem. THE TREND OF POPULATION. “ The mass of population has been slowly and surely concentrated in the large cities — Bishop Westcott. The world over the manifest trend of population is from the country to the city. The village is becoming denuded, the city over- crowded. The city is therefore the central point in the battle of intel- ligence against ignorance, and is the storm-centre of political life. It is a condition, not a theory. The public opinion of London, Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham largely fashions the political, social and religious life of England ; Lyons, Paris, and Marseilles, that of France; New York, Chicago, St. Louis, and San Francisco, the continent of America. They are cities of violent contrasts where is focussed license and liberty — ignorance and culture — poverty and wealth — squalor and luxury — vice and virtue — patriotism and anarchy — free institutions and despotism. Each country has its own dangers arising from the city problem, and each its own advantages for dealing with it, but in varying con- ditions and circumstances it is omnipresent. Dig down to the nether strata, and you find a wonderful similarity between London and New York, Paris and San Francisco. On the city should therefore be con- centrated the best thought of the Nation and its social problems should be as carefully considered as the deepest questions of ethics or religion, and a full and accurate knowledge of the primal facts which underlie it becomes of surpassing importance. It is now for the first time occupying such attention, and there are evident signs in Pulpit, Platform, and Press that both in its political and social aspects it is exciting the keenest enquiry. “ The City, its Sins and Sorrows,” by Dr. Guthrie, “ The Bitter Cry of Outcast Lon- don,” and General Booth’s “ Darkest England ” show how conscience has been stirred to its depths; Oxford House and Toynbee Hall, how religious thought is applying itself to social problems, and the search- ing investigations of Charles Booth give the data on which remedial agencies must be based in England. Naturally in this enquiry in our own country. New York occupies a foremost place, and here the question is further complicated by the fact of its large alien population, its thraldom to a disreputable party, 7 8 which it would be too much honor to call political, and the difficulty which all religious bodies find in adequately reaching the poor of its most crowded quarters. It is too great a question to be mastered by theorists, too wide and complicated to be solved by the universal panacea of the doc- trinaire ; and needs facts first, theories second, and united action last. # AMERICAN CITIES. “ With the opportunity , the means , the fit agents, the motive , the temptation to destroy, all brought into evil conjunction , then will come the real test of our institu- tions, then will appear whether we are capable of self-government ." — Dr. Josiah Strong. The United States covers a wide territory. It has area enough on which to plant ten times its present population. Demand has not yet begun to tread on the heels of supply, and yet in measurable degree and in some of its most repulsive forms the problem of the City is upon us. Increase of population has not sprung from natural causes. Growth has been from without, not from within. In all cities, but especially in New York and Chicago, alien nation- alities have massed themselves together in defined areas. City popula- tions are therefore in the main heterogeneous, not homogeneous. A little over a century has seen the expansion of the thirteen sparsely populated colonies, fringing the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, into 44 States and 6 Territories covering a continent, and a population which within the same period of time has grown from 4,500,000 to 66,000,- 000. The problem of national government is therefore on a large and colossal scale. The Constitution was designed with wonderful skill to meet such a condition. A representative central authority, combined with autonomy of the separate States of which it was composed, gave an elastic instrument suited to the needs of a rapidly growing country, when an imperial concentrated authority, even if desirable, would have been an impossi- bility. The growth of the cities has been in undue proportion to that of the nation, and with illimitable areas of fertile land the trend is still from the country to the city. Twelve millions and a half of people inhabit 100 cities of more than 30,000 souls, and nearly one-fourth of the entire population is urban. The one failure made by the United States has been the honest and effective government of large cities. New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, St. Louis, New Orleans, and San Francisco, under varying con- ditions and circumstances, present the unvarying spectacle of control by the most unfit, and the Irish race represented by its professional poli- ticians in supreme command. 9 10 The atoms of city population have come fortuitously together, and in the fierce struggle for wealth, political control has been grasped and held by those whose only motive has been gain, and who have farmed its municipal offices among their adherents, fit or unfit, generally the latter. Again and again each city has a spasm of indignant virtue, but the civic characteristic has been to “ catch on,” rather than to “ hold on,” and the management of municipal affairs characterized by brief inter- vals of virtue, interspersed by long vistas of vice. Within the present year the Municipal League, in which all the large cities of the United States are represented, has held a convention in Philadelphia. The difficulties of the question were fairly recognized and grasped, and one important and vital point conceded, that a con- dition precedent to political municipal reform was the severance in point of time between Municipal, State and National elections. This seems an important first step for the true understanding by the mass of the people of municipal issues, and the personal characters and capa- bilities of the men who are its exponents. Granted this severance, and the active intervention of the best intelligence of the community, there seems no reason to doubt the ultimate purification of our cities, and conditions which need not raise a flush of shame when compared with London, Paris or Berlin. NEW YORK: ITS GOVERNMENT AND EXPAN- SION. “ In the same measure as the influence of the mercenary element dwindles, muni- cipal government will again become an attractive field of endeavour and honour to men of self-respect, of enlightened public spirit , and of noble ambition." — Carl Schurz. New York occupies a superb location, and when its possibilities are more fully utilized we doubt whether any city in the world has greater natural advantages for imperial rule than the city which is at the giteway of the great Western Continent. Manhattan Island on which it stands is twelve miles long, by two broad, at its widest point. On the West it is washed by a great tidal river, and on the East by an estuary of the sea. Its southern extremity is bounded by a land locked bay, affording easy passage for the largest ships, and its shores give unrivalled accommodation for commerce. The limitation of the city to the area of the island dwarfs its numerical growth, except at the cost of dense overcrowding of the population. Greater New York therefore becomes a necessity and not an enthusi- ast’s dream. With bridges across the Hudson and East River — an underground railway running the whole length of the island, and mak- ing its remotest points accessible to workmen both as to cost of time and money — the absorption of the city of Brooklyn into the municipal- ity of New York — rapid transportation to Staten Island, admirably suited as it is to semi-suburban residence — the extension of the annexed district to Yonkers, and we have an area which for accessibility, for potentiality of growth in population, in trade, in wealth is nowhere equalled. The greater New York of the future needs as a starting point the honest and effective government of the smaller New York of the pres- ent, and no man will be optimist enough to say that it is yet more than within measurable distance. Its population of a million and three quar- ters needs the guiding hands of men accustomed to administer large business affairs. It is a large business corporation, and needs honesty and business ability for hs control. The assessment and apportionment of a taxation amounting to $50,000,000, water supply and sewerage for houses and manufactories, paving, cleansing and lighting its miles of streets; administration of law and prevention and detection of 11 12 crime; education and art facilities; public health and prevention of disease; cheap and rapid transit; charities and correction; public parks, and the administration of the excise law are departments of a gigantic business which each requires the permanent hand of a skilled director, sufficiently paid to enlist the services of an expert in each department, and whose tenure of office should be determined only by character, capability and conduct. The Mayor and Aldermen should be, and elsewhere are, representative business men whose character would add dignity to their respective offices, and who would esteem it an honor to serve their fellow-citizens. This purely municipal busi- ness is inextricably entangled with national politics with which it has no concern. By a fraudulent manipulation of the rights of citizenship and a base acceptance of the infamous political doctrine that to the vic- tors belong the spoils, Tammany rules, and in the persons of four men in no sense representing the culture, the intelligence, or the business capacity of the people, departments of the city government are filled by men whose only recommendation is their readiness to pay to Tam- many a certain liberal percentage of the salary attached to the office and who rob their constituents to obtain it. Thus a saloon-keeper is transferred from behind the liquor bar to the bench of the Police Justice with a salary of $8000 a year, another of the same favored fraternity is sent to represent the people at the Constitutional Convention, and the driver of a horse-car is made the presiding officer over the Board of Police. At a time when municipal government has become scientific, and when the need is urgent for the remodelling of the tenement-house, when the future of the city depends so largely on rapid transit, when our most scientific method for the dis- posal of garbage is to dump it within the easy back wash of an incom- ing tide, or to make a pest-house of an island on the Sound, how ur- gent is the need of I. An arrangement by which State and Municipal elections shall be held in alternate years. II. A combination for honest Municipal government, ignoring partisan political issues. III. The selection of well-known and reputable citizens. as Mayor and for the Board of Aldermen. IV. Open meetings of the Council fully reported in the news- papers, by which the people who pay shall have some idea of how the money raised by taxation has been and will be expended. NEW YORK CITY BELOW FOURTEENTH STREET. “ To make cities — that is what we are here for . To make good cities — that is for the present hour the main work of Christianity. For the city is strategic. It makes the towns ; the towns make the villages; the villages make the country . ” — Henry Drummond. There is in every city a line or lines of demarcation within which the population is roughly graded. Houses old and lacking sanitary ap- pliances, where the people are inherently dirty. Poverty which has lost the heart to struggle. Unthrift where scanty wages are expended in the most wasteful way. Families always on the ragged edge of want, and who by and by sink into the loafer, the tramp, and the chronic beggar. The triangle lying south of a line drawn across the city at 14th Street will include the largest of such colonies. Broadway unevenly divides it, and all that section which lies between Broadway and the East River is as purely a missionary region as China or India, and much more so than the new settlements of the far West. Noting the fact that our tide of immigration is world-wide; that it largely speaks in a foreign tongue; that it knows little and cares less for the history and Constitution of the country; that naturalization is fraudulent and easy, it needs no argument to show that such a foreign body, massed and concentrated, is a standing menace and danger which be- fore it can be successfully grappled with must be thoroughly examined and tabulated. A few dark spots with the shadows deepened to fill out the picture, touches the sympathies, stirs the heart and stimulates the conscience, but does not give sufficient standing ground for the formulation of methods of improvement. An area is needed for investi- gation sufficiently large to form a basis for argument and action. A section which is neither the best nor the worst of our city life, and within which shall be carried out a house-to-house enquiry covering nationality, home surroundings, occupation, income, hours of labor, rooms, rental, creed, sanitary and moral environment, carefully and honestly examined would give us at least the data on which to base remedial plans. For many years the city below 14th Street has shown special charac- 13 14 teristics. Ignoring the part lying to the right and left of Broadway, and the streets in which are concentrated the business energies which have made New York one of the great centres of speculation and trade, we have a series of intricate streets with old world names, in which the population is more concentrated than that of London or Paris, and in which the tenement reigns supreme. It is a conglomeration of all nationalities, shifting and changeable, but in particular sections one or other nationality is always dominant. It would not be difficult to color a map showing where the Jew, the Italian, the Bohemian, the Slav and the Polak was the dominant race. This adds greatly to the difficulty with which religious or social enterprises are conducted. There is no lever and no fulcrum. Add to the ordinary nomadic character of the population the fact that it is the headquarters of numerous caravansaries, called hotels, where fifty to one hundred men are nightly housed at a cost of ten, fifteen, twenty or twenty-five cents, according to grade, and the difficulty is by so much increased and intensified. Add to this the mass of householders who can only or best be reached by men of their own race and language, but who are not easily obtained, and it can readily be seen how difficult the work of evangeli- zation becomes. We have to deal with men in masses who have been absorbed but not assimilated. Assuming the fact that environment is as large, or a larger factor in the moulding of character than heredity, it is well for us to know what are their surroundings with a view to de- termine whether a root and branch reform is necessary, or whether the strain will be eased by a diminution of the causes from which it sprung. ST. AUGUSTINE’S CURE, TRINITY PARISH, NEW YORK. “ The first requisite for steady and continuous work is full knowledge of the facts , and / trust that some combined endeavor will be made with as little delay as pos- sible to ascertain in detail the facts as to the housing of the poor in the Diocese of Durham. I do not ask the clergy to undertake these wide enquiries. They are already overburdened. But I ask that they invite the laity to undertake them .” — The Bishop of Durham’s Charge to the Clergy. From the standpoint of the Episcopal Church, it was considered desirable to take as our unit the parish, rather than the ward or elec- tion district. Our desire was not bounded by the wish to obtain accurate knowledge, but that knowledge being obtained, that the incum- bent might have at hand and ready for reference the schedules covering each block in his parish, numerically arranged, so that with the least trouble he could refer to any particular family or the tenant of any particular house, and if the individual family was of so migratory a character that such schedules ceased to be personally correct, it at least followed that the general character of the block should be known. The Episcopal City Mission a few years ago divided the city into arbi- trary parochial areas, with the view of obtaining information which would obviate the duplication of parochial visits, and yet guarantee that no one should be beyond the reach of definite spiritual guidance when they desired or needed it. Trinity Corporation has been the largest factor in the evangelistic work of the lower section of the city. Its down-town churches have not been turned into theatres or car stables when the changing char- acter of the population or the drying-up of outside sustentation or support made it no longer possible to financially sustain the parish. The present church on Houston Street was built 20 years ago. It was in the midst of a large English-speaking population. It contained all the appliances necessary for the work of such a parish. A church edifice capable of seating 870 people, with lecture-room, Sunday-school rooms, work-rooms, and residence for the minister and staff. The conditions have largely changed with the passing years. As the Jew came in the Gentile departed, and the population is now largely Jewish and Italian. Congregations are farther to seek and harder to find within a lim- ited area circle. Notwithstanding this, it is the work which calls for the ablest and most self-denying men, and the first thought of his work- ing life should be that men have bodies as well as souls and that the need of the nineteenth century is a Christianity wisely applied. Select- 15 , cxrvCbc. Wmteten 'Bums. \ /o // 3 * 4 > ? 5T /£ 1 t 1 - 1 ^ sr S’ The crosses show the position of Churches. 17 ing this as our area of work we drew up the following schedules cov- ering the scope of our enquiries : SURNAME. FAMILY SCHEDULE, | Block No. 1 Street Name. Street No. Dwelling. Business. Ij 1 Tenement Front. 1 I 1 Tenement Rear. j 1 J On what Story. No. of Family in Order. No. of House in Order. Closets. Water. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ■ 8 L 9 10 Relationship to head . Mar. Cond. I sex. Age. Color. ! Birth Place. Father’s Birth Place. Mother’s Birth Place. Occupation. — Weekly Earnings. Work Hours per Day. _ work Hours ' Sunday. Steadiness of Employment in Months. No. of Rooms “l Rent per Month. i Income from Lodgers in Weeks. 1 Length of Residence. Relig. Belief. 1 | Soberness. Circum- stances^^ Thrift. .Visitor. 18 Enumerators and Tabulators. It will be observed that the preceding schedule covered the fol- lowing general lines of investigation: Family. Occupation (skilled and unskilled). Wages. Hours of labor. Rooms. Rentals. Creed. Social and sanitary conditions. Agencies (bad and good). Many of the enquiries were of an exceedingly delicate character. The replies to be useful must necessarily be full and true, and yet they were entirely unofficial and voluntary. We selected eight women as enumerators, to each of whom we gave the following circular of instruc- tion. New York, June, 1894. “ Dear Madam : “ The drift of population is to large cities. The conditions of those cities produce high rentals, overcrowding, sickness and suffering. No improvement can be effectively carried out without accurate knowl- edge of the facts. It is our desire to collect such facts for no political,, sectarian or personal advantage, but for the public good. You will therefore wait upon each family in the block bounded by Broadway and Essex Street, Fifth Street and Canal, and courteously and politely ask information on the points mentioned in this schedule. “ Please assure the inmates that the information obtained will be used for no other purpose than to promote the well-being of the com- munity. “ Yours faithfully, “Henry Y. Satterlee, “Chairman of the Social Statistics Committee.” It was necessary that the enumerators should be courteous, intel- ligent and careful, and that they should possess the intuitive discrimi- nation which would enable them to detect fraudulent statements, espe- cially in regard to wages. Following closely on a time of great finan- cial depression and consequent paralysis of trade involving wide dis- tress and the disbursement of large sums in charity, they were espe- cially instructed to state that there was no question of alms behind the 19 enquiry, but simply facts relating to conditions of life and how they might be modified and improved. As many of the inhabitants were unable to speak or understand the English language it was necessary to obtain boys from the public schools as interpreters. The people were uniformly courteous, and those whom we employed as enumerators had no complaint to make of their reception. Beyond an evident desire to lessen the amount of their earnings, we think their statements to our enumerators are fairly reliable. The most important point in the investigation is that it was not a selection of the worst houses of a slum quarter, but covered every block, house, tenement, and family, and left the reader to draw his own conclusions from the data given as to the conditions, sanitary, moral and religious, of the area covered. To each enumerator was given the charge of one block, and the schedules were handed in by her daily, and after being examined, were duly filed. When a block was completed it was backed by a stiff card containing a map with marked block and condensation of all the infor- mation contained therein. The tabulation of these schedules was a work of great labor. Large sheets were prepared and divided longi- tudinally into the different sections of enquiry, each family or tenement occupying a line on the sheet. The addition of these and their manip- ulation gave the results which will be found in the further chapters of this pamphlet. The German Quarter. One of the reasons why the parish of St. Augustine’s was selected was that it was large, densely populated, and contained three clearly defined national quarters, viz.: German, Jewish, and Italian. We therefore divided our enquiry into these three sections and commenced with the least sharply defined, the German. It consists of fifteen blocks lying between the Bowery and Avenue A, Fifth Street and E. Houston. Noting the fact that there are a larger number of native than foreign born, it may be well to state that in this investigation all children born in this country are counted native, though their parentage and home surroundings may be foreign. We do it to emphasize the fact, that this is the material out of which it is our duty and our privilege to mould and fashion the intelligent Ameri- can citizen of the near future. German Quarter. 21 We give five schedules covering the main lines of our enquiry, as follows: German Quarter. Location: Homes and Families. , Houses. Families (Num ber of). Blocks. Tenement. I Total Population. Dwell. Front. Rear. Parents. j Sons. Daughters Lodgers. I 35 1 1 ... 284 109 198 135 726 2 40 3i 692 3 12 261 . 52 I 317 3 78 3 917 423 307 42 I 1,689 4 39 45 337 113 90 IOO 640 5 2 58 9 792 348 330 3°3 i 773 6 53 4 861 368 339 117 1,685 7 4i 87 39 29 186 34i 8 20 29 1 488 171 171 141 97i 9 19 4i 8 797 387 318 195 j 1.697 IO 1 59 I98 88 80 54 420 ii 9 38' 7 6°3 290 262 67 1,222 12 1 1 48 7 471 263 233 147 1 1,114 J 3 ; 22 19 2 238 1 19 hi 43 i 5“ 14 13 55 | 7 739 334 334 164 j I.57I i5 57 333 170 1 75 36 714 Totals. 270 572 79 7.837 3.534 3.238 1,782 16,391 German Quarter. Rooms. Blocks. > C Number of Families who Occupy 1 Total Families. 0 >-< 0 K O Five. Four. Three. Two. One. 12 12 15 8 1 1 3 61 2 32 14 88 150 5 i 1 336 3 37 22 127 128 166 2 482 4 10 6 48 67 28 159 5 14 28 80 202 58 382 6 9 2 1 66 67 201 '1 446 7 29 6 2 7 2 46 8 35 15 25 178 J 4 267 9 42 3 i hi 1 12 146 442 10 2 15 49 26 92 1 1 1 1 • 35 82 162 38 328 12 42 26 49 101 9 15 242 13 4 1 1 42 28 29 1 ii 5 H 11 29 136 80 105 2 363 15 18 25 18 68 43 9 181 Totals. 308 262 1 ,004 | 1.407 9 2 7 34 3.942 22 German Quarter. Rentals. Average Monthly Rentals paid by Families Occupying Blocks. Over Five Rooms. Five Rooms. Four Rooms. Three Rooms. Two Rooms. One Room. i $70 50 $25 83 $22 93 $15 00 $ 9 65 $••• 2 52 06 29 00 16 47 16 39 7 33 3 36 00 18 95 21 57 1 1 85 8 35 3 5° 4 65 00 28 00 21 25 15 13 8 85 5 32 95 26 38 19 72 12 08 80 6 29 00 40 50 16 00 1 5 42 7 5 25 7 65 13 35 5o 27 5° 25 55 30 00 8 53 60 23 07 17 46 11 3i 7 76 9 46 73 23 00 15 29 1 1 86 5 33 7 00 IO 17 00 9 80 7 65 1 1 43 25 25 20 16 5° 1 1 45 7 57 12 36 84 23 65 13 54 1 1 42 8 25 2 64 13 43 34 24 80 16 28 J 3 56 9 60 15 00 14 43 50 21 58 16 22 1 1 60 8 28 1 50 i 5 37 59 20 95 >5 26 1 1 75 8 54 3 13 Total. $655 49 $366 41 $272 99 $204 17 $134 66 $38 02 Average Rental. $46 82 $26 1 7 $18 19 $13 61 $9 62 $5 43 German Quarter. Nationalities. Blocks. 1 Native. German. Russian and Polish Jews. Irish. British. Italian. Miscel. Europeans Total. 1 294 229 10 14 9 19 152 726 2 608 619 27 18 7 14 23 1,317 3 714 767 ! 149 12 5 42 1,639 4 308 203 26 18 7 3 15 640 5 876 682 66 69 12 10 58 1 773 6 764 644 158 16 7 2 94 1,685 7 IOI 142 2 1 95 34 i 8 409 43 i 13 37 12 1 68 971 9 737 783 8 4 3 3 159 1,697 10 199 99 16 45 26 19 16 420 11 690 454 20 2 7 10 6 15 1.222 12 534 477 9 5 7 3 79 1,114 *3 250 192 4 25 15 17 8 5 i 1 14 737 523 27 35 14 45 190 i, 57 i *5 328 286 32 4 1 12 5 i 714 Totals. 7,609 6.531 ' 565 331 135 1 155 1 065 16,391 23 German Quarter. Creeds. Blocks. .c — £ Roman Catholic. j Lutheran. Protestant | Episcopal. Other Protestant Bodies. Unknown. Total. i 135 166 162 27 79 157 726 o 244 207 794 55 i 5 2 I. 3 I 7 3 1 16 478 7 i 4 3 °° 44 37 1.689 4 35 217 79 7 2 124 1 r 3 640 5 206 515 654 >23 74 206 1.778 6 90 737 37 i 302 124 61 1,685 7 42 18 84 8 15 168 34 i 8 88 238 539 72 18 16 971 9 48 820 669 45 24 9 i 1,697 IO 20 212 56 14 35 83 420 1 1 153 405 463 81 17 103 1 222 12 194 282 366 9 i 156 20 1,109 13 98 176 1 1 5 58 28 36 5 ii 14 104 369 3 i 7 3 r 4 86 38 i 1 . 571 15 137 201 8S 241 17 30 7 H Total. 1,710 5,041 1 5.471 1.803 856 1 1,510 16.391 24 Jewish Quarter. We do not see how a Christian man can look comtemptuously on the Jews. Their history, their literature, and their intense nationality command respect. The unlovely traits of character developed by centuries of injustice, and by being crowded out of the ordinary avo- cations of life, call for compassion and regret rather than scorn. Re- membering the extreme ceremonial of their creed, with its washings and ablutions, it is difficult to understand their personal uncleanliness. In the part of the city now under consideration nearly 50 per cent, of the population are Russian, German, or Polish Jews. The names and signs on the stores are Jewish — the black hair, dark skin and promi- nent features are Jewish — the keen, alert look is that of the Jew. We enquired of an Israelite of well-known charity and benevolence, how the personal uncleanliness of the Jew could be accounted for. He replied, “You have been brought into contact mainly with the Russian Jew, resident in New York a few months or years. He has lived under a despotism, where the hand of the police might be upon him without cause, and his trial, if tried at all, might be without justice. Such a man shrinks within himself, feels small, looks small, and gets into small quarters, where he ceases to have aspirations for sunlight, or desire for soap and water. An extraordinary man will rise above the level of his circumstances — the ordinary man will sink below them/’ By degrees the Jews have ousted the Gentiles from the block bounded by Houston, Essex, Hester, and the Bowery. They are poor,, ignorant and strangers. No tradition prevents “ dog rob dog,” and you therefore find a large proportion employed in sweating shops by their own people, working in filth, at starvation wages. Pedlars, street venders, and slop tailors (men and women) form the staple of the population, and singularly enough, although the Jew is abstemious, the number of liquor dealers remains undiminished. 0O wE. KY Jewish Quarter. E HOUSTON 82 8 5 o 3 24 ‘ 85 83 8 a 10 542 21 13 5 20 6 l I 85 2 5 ’56 3 “84 86 56 2.138 37 27 2,258 87 40 1,023 28 1 7 5 1 1,114 88 10 912 22 2 1 947 89 1,089 3 7 1,099 90 26 16 10 52 9 i 239 12 7 3 19 280 92 93 39 77 16 132 94 252 4 6 262 95 39 1,348 12 12 4 8 1.423 96 12 1,268 4 8 1 292 97 3 240 *8 4 255 98 99 .... Total. 386 26 620 1 476 231 TQ 7 1 356 28 266 38 Resume of Parish Statistics. From the preceding enumeration we obtain the following condensed results : Homes. Dwelling House. Tenement. Total. Front. Rear. German Section 270 572 79 921 Jewish “ 294 2,587 559 3440 Italian “ 62 3.728 1,068 4,858 626 6.887 1.706 9.219 Families. Consisting of Total. Parents. Sons. Daughters Lodgers. German Section. ... Jewish “ Italian “ .. .. 7,837 21,199 9.636 3-534 12.800 6,490 3438 11,46^ 5.517 1,782 3.897 6,623 16,391 49-359 28,266 38.672 1 22.824 20,2 1 8 12.302 94,016 Families Occupying Rooms. Over Five Rooms. Five Rooms. Four Rooms. Three Rooms. Two Rooms. One Room. Total. German Section. ... 308 262 1,004 1,407 927 34 3,942 Jewish “ .... 355 297 1,893 4434 3-799 196 10.774 Italian “ .. .. 136 119 562 1,666 1,878 1 10 4,475 799 678 3459 7 3°7 6 604 340I t 19.191 Rentals. Average Monthly Rental of Families Occupying Over 5 Rooms. Five Rooms. Four Rooms. Three Rooms. Two Rooms. One Room. Totals. German Section. . . Jewish “ Italian “ $46 82 30 67 36 19 $26 1 7 15 36 22 58 $18 19 11 76 16 20 $13 61 8 78 10 98 $9 62 5 98 7 93 $5 43 4 51 5 18 $119 68 $64 11 $46 15 $33 37 $23 53 $15 12 Average for Parish. $39 89 $21 39 $15 38 $11 12 $7 86 $5 04 39 Nationalities. Native. German. Jewish. Irish. British. Italian. Miscel. Total. i German Section 7.609 6.531 565 331 135 155 1 065 16.391 Jewish “ 16,927 5,210 21.443 553 404 512 4 3 io 49 359 Italian “ 8,752 781 231 1.765 121 16.319 297 28 266 33,288 12.522 22 239 2,649 660 16,986 5672 94016 Creeds. Jewish. Roman | Catholic. Lutheran. Protestant Episcopal. Other 1 Protestant , Bodies. Unknown. Total. German Section . . 1,710 5,041 5 , 47 i 1.803 856 1,510 1 , I 16,391 Jewish “ .... 34,740 5,184 5,210 1 . 194 636 2,395 49-359 Italian “ .... 386 26,620 476 231 197 356 , 28,266 36,836 36.845 11 . 157 3.228 1,689 4.261' 94,016 THE PROBLEM OF THE TENEMENT. ‘ l I do not wonder at men craving for stimulants who live in an atmosphere which would kill an oak .” — The Earl of Derby, Wages, rentals, density of population and overcrowding have an intimate relation to each other, and the largest and most difficult factor in the problem is the tenement. It is technically “ a house occupied by three or more families living independently and doing their cook- ing on the premises; or by more than two families on a floor, and hav- ing a common right in the halls, staircases and yards,” In the City of New York 276,565 families comprising 1,225 41 1 in- dividuals live in tenements. It would be a mistake to suppose that these are all mean, squalid, or dirty. In the area with which we are concerned, however, and of which condensed schedules have been sub- mitted, it will be observed that of the 19,191 families living in the par- ish, 13,911 occupy tenements of two or three rooms, 3459 of four rooms, while only 626 occupy houses. Eight-ninths of the total popu- lation, therefore, occupy tenements of this size. From the particular conformation of the city, it being divided into rectangular blocks, the absence of rear access and the high price of land, every inch of available space is occupied by buildings. There are usually four or more families on a floor; the halls and staircases are narrow and dimly lighted, and the bedrooms are dark closets, ventilated from an interior well. Add to this the fact that 12,244 lodgers, usually males, form part of the families of this area, and it is not difficult to understand how serious a menace it is to the purity of family life, or the decent training of children. We select a typical block from each of the Jewish and Italian quarters. By refer- ence to the map it will be observed that block 40, lying between De- laney and Broome, Allen and Eldridge Streets, contains 37 front and 1 rear tenements with a total population of 1844 or 48.5 to each tene- ment. In the Italian quarter in Mott and Spring Streets we have the fol- lowing returns: Tenement of 3 rooms, rent $11 per month, husband, wife, 4 daugh- ters (eldest 18), 2 sons, and 8 male lodgers. Total, 16. Tenement of 2 rooms, $8 per month, widow, son and 9 male lodgers. 40 41 Tenement of 3 rooms, rent $9 per month, husband, wife, 1 daugh- ter (age 18), 2 sons, married lodger, wife, 3 daughters (14 and 16), 1 son and 4 young men lodgers. Total, 15 persons. In families like the above, unskilled laborers earning low and un- certain wages state that they cannot pay the high rentals without lodg- ers, and that it is one of the conditions of their being able to keep a roof over their heads. The tenement in some form is here to stay and must be reckoned with. It finally resolves itself into a business question. With the present price of building sites, material, and labor, can tenement houses in blocks or otherwise be erected at present or lower rentals and return a fair business percentage, say 6 per cent, on the capital in- vested ? We are informed by a gentleman who speaks with authority that such return is not possible. Philanthropist pioneers like Peabody and Guiness in London, or Cutting and Pratt in New York, will be willing to accept the risk as their contribution towards a practical so- lution of the question, but the mass of people living in tenements is too great to be fully met from such necessarily limited resources. We have had submitted to us a plan which we think has decided merit. There is a plot of land in the City of Brooklyn within easy reach of the Bridge, 75 feet front and 208 feet deep, which can be bought for $25,000. Upon it a company of gentlemen propose to erect a block of buildings six stories high, with a central, open court 20 feet wide, running from front to rear; four stores on the corners of the ground floor, and 408 rooms in suits of 2, 3, or 4, to be rented at $3 for each room per month. From the plan attached, showing the first floor, it will be seen that each suite is self-contained; all necessary sanitary appliances are provided, no rooms intercommunicate, but all are accessible. The cost of construction is reduced by the following method: the frame is to be constructed of iron and steel, the filling of second- hand brick, and the floors fire-proof. The doors and windows are also to be second-hand, and the building itself covered with corrugated iron. The cost of construction would amount to $98 000, land $25,- 000, and allowing 25 per cent, off for running expenses, and 25 per cent, for vacancies and losses, the rental would amount to $7344 or 6 per cent, on the capital invested. In all large cities there arise cases of necessary reconstruction on a large scale beyond the scope of private enterprise where the value and effectiveness of an enlightened municipal government is of infinite value. Twenty years ago, near the centre of the City of Birmingham, 5 cale - !£:incn:ro:Ttin rooT- A^rf- Proposed Model Tenement. 43 England, there stood 43 acres of land, covered by narrow streets, and poor, insanitary dwellings. Mr. Joseph Chamberlain was the then Mayor. The Corporation under the Artisans’ Dwelling Act bought the property at a cost of $8,285,000. A wide, handsome street was cut through the centre from New Street to Aston Road, and the front sites were sold at large prices under 80 years’ building leases. The corporation has sustained no financial loss, and as these leases fall in the speculation will prove of great value to future generations of the citizens of Birmingham. On a portion of the land thus ac- quired and formerly occupied by a block of back to-back tenements the Corporation built 22 workingmen’s cottages of 5 rooms each. They cost $20,000, were equipped with the best sanitary appliances and were rented at $5.28 per month, without loss to the city. After adding 25 per cent, for rates and taxes, it will be seen that the rental is not half what would be paid for similar accommodation in New York. In these large financial transactions it has never been hinted that a dollar of public money has stuck to the hands through which it passed. In the present condition of municipal rule in New York such a handling of the tenement-house problem is impossible. But as New York is bet- ter than its present rulers, we do not despair of seeing a Mayor and Alderman drawn from its best citizenship; permanent heads of depart- ments; Greater New York with cheap and rapid transit to reach it; and thus diminish pressure of population at the centre, and take off some of the strain from the nether section of city life. EDUCATION AND CITIZENSHIP. It is in the family that the future of a people is shaped. Each true home is a king- dom , a school , a sanctuary .” — Bishop Westcott. In the condensed schedule on nationalities it will be seen that 33,288 persons are of native and 60,728 of foreign birth. Our franchise is practically manhood suffrage. The wider the franchise the more urgent becomes the need of a widely diffused educated intelligence that it may be properly used. Emigration has brought to our shores increasing numbers of foreigners, alien in speech and thought, and who have no proper appreciation of the true meaning of liberty. These 60,000 are the prey of the venal politician, to be naturalized, registered, and voted for his own base purposes. The hand held out to him is the hand of Tammany. Time will leaven the lump, but it will take time. Of the 33,000 called native many are necessarily the children of these foreign emigrants, of which the Russian Jew and Italian form so large a proportion. They are our wards, to whom, failing the training of home, we are bound, if only in our own defence, to give such an education as will enable them to read history intelligently. There is no nobler testimony to the inherent greatness of this nation than its graded system of public schools, free to all comers, irrespective of creed or nationality. In city and hamlet alike its buildings catch the eye of the observant stranger. In this land no one needs to reach an ignorant manhood, and the key to unlock the stores of knowledge is put within the easy reach of every child. The Italian and Jewish quarters may be revolutionized, and in twenty years, with a judiciously applied limi- tation of our foreign emigration, become American in speech, thought and aspiration. After the school age comes the crucial time of a boy’s life, between boyhood and manhood. School is behind, the world is before, and the imagination sees i( men as trees walking.” It is the age for receiving deep and abiding impressions. To meet this need the Church Temperance Legion has been formed on the personal basis of “ Soberness, Purity and Reverence,” and includes training in, 1. Military drill, 2. Athletics, 3. Declamation, 4. Knowledge of the History and Constitution of the United States, in order that the American boy may be physically as well as mentally and morally trained for his future duties. 44 LIQUOR SALOONS, BROTHELS AND GAMBLING HOUSES. 1 ■ Many of the persons engaged in the liquor business were in political sympathy with him , and th j y had contributed time and money to further his political interests. “ He also said he was determined they should be protected against any police inter- ference in the transaction of their business; that that was the intent of the resolution and was so understood by all the Commissioners , and they wanted this requirement complied with ." — Police Commissioner Martin, as quoted by Supt. Murray. We make no apology for grouping together the trinity of evil (rampant in all large cities) which forms the title of this chapter. We do not say that in their inception they are equally evil; we do say that in a sufficient number of cases to leaven the whole, the brothel and the gambling house are annexes to the saloon, and may be justly restricted or prohibited by law in the best interests of the people. Before an institution can be justly so restricted or prohibited must come the onus of proof, that it is there in unwarranted numbers, or that its existence is prejudicial to the general welfare. As a first object lesson we give sketch maps of the number and location of liquor saloons in each of the three quarters into which the parish naturally divides itself. Taking the parish as a whole we have in the German Quarter 147 Jewish “ 237 Italian “ 179 Total saloons 563 Now these are not benevolent institutions. It is a condition of their existence that they meet the necessary expenditures involved in rental, running expenses, and leave a sufficient margin of profit to maintain the family of the saloon keeper. The drink bill of the United States is, at the lowest estimate, $900,000,000, and the number of saloons 225,000. It is an underestimate for New York to say that the average cash returns must amount to $4000 per year, and therefore the expend- iture on a luxury by a poor population, earning scanty wages and with irregular work, is 4000 x 563 = $2,252,000 annually. We put this simply as an estimate, and taking the population as 45 German Quarter. AV A Population 1 ^, 39 I - Liquor saloons x 47- Or i to 1 1 1.5 of the population. 30 wC Jewish Quarter. E HOuStoa/ St G« AajD ST St £a ST Population 49,359 Liquor saloons 237 Or 1 to every 208.2 of the population. L U DL. OW Italian Quarter. E HOUS TO\f CA\AI ST Population Liquor saloons 28,266. i79- Or 1 to every 157.9 of the population. .49 per schedule at 94,000 — eliminating women and young children who are presumably not customers of the saloon, we have 18,000 men, fathers or members of families, and 1 2,000 male lodgers, expending annually on liquor over two and a quarter millions of dollars, an aver- age of $75 per year or $1.45 per week each. Whether this be an over- estimate or not, no man would argue that 563 saloons are necessary in. such an area or such a quarter. During our twelve years’ acquaintance with the city, we have never known a reputable Board of Excise, except during the chairmanship of Mr. Woodman, when by fair and legitimate means a check was put upon their unlimited extension. They, however, carry on their trade under legal limitations and restrictions. The body of men whose duty it is to see that these re- strictions are observed are the police controlled by a superintendent whose action is modulated by a politically balanced board of four police commissioners. We have it on the authority of the superintend- ent that 63,000 breaches of the excise law have occurred during the past two months, and without being able to verify our opinion by facts, we would be willing to hazard the prediction that the law- breaking sa- loon keeper will be proved to have been as large a mine of wealth to the grasping police captain as the disruptable houses. Now that inde- pendent action has been taken, and cases for breach of the law are coming before the police justices, it is opportune to ask whether the proper tribunal for the adjudication of such cases is the court of a police justice (like Paddy Divver for instance) who was promoted from the bar of the liquor saloon to the bench of justice, or Justice Hogan, whose decision on a test excise case has just been overruled by Judge Barrett. We do not claim that the legislative panacea for the octopus of the liquor saloon has been found, but a diminution of the number of sa- loons to a proportion of 1 to 500 of the population, a tax of $1000 for a license, and a reformation of the personnel of the bench of police justices before whom breaches of the law are tried, would be a definite improvement of the conditions under which a danger trade is now carried on. Men are more urgently needed than measures; and en- forcement than new laws. THE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE CHURCH. “ Within the churches one of the signs of this change is visible in a grouting ten- dency to assert that religion it concerned with man s actual state in this world , as well as with his possible state in the next ." — ‘ Social Evolution,” Kidd. The last quarter of a century has witnessed a great change in the extent of the recognition of their social responsibilities by all churches. No Christian man who has considered the condition of the lower stratum of city life, but must be thrilled or appalled at the magnitude of the work before the churches. There is no more startling exempli- fication pf the nature, extent and difficulty of that work than that pre- sented in certain sections of the City of New York. Imagine a dense area in the heart of the city inhabited by 94,000 souls, in which the an- tagonistic forces for good and evil are represented by seventeen churches and 563 liquor saloons. They have each numerically a large, and so- cially a poor, constituency. They are largely an unassimilated mass, showing three clear lines of national cleavage. Naturally, from their previous circumstances and training, the Russians and Poles fall to the care and guidance of the rabbi of the Jewish synagogue, the Italian as naturally gravitates to the Roman Church of his fathers, and the Ger- man to the Church of Luther. Allowing for 36,836 Jews, 36,845 Ro- manists, 11,157 Lutherans, there still remains 9178, of which 4917 belong to the different Protestant bodies, and 4261 who are unknown or unattached. Before each of these churches, however antagonistic or divergent their creeds, there lies the common duty of raising, purifying and im- proving the conditions under which the hard battle of life is waged. There is no larger field for the exemplification of the noble “struggle for the lives of others,” which is an integral condition of the “ Ascent of Man.” It is said, and on the surface it is true, that churches have deserted down-town districts. They have moved upwards because the necessity has been upon them. The Jew has crowded out the Gentile and the Italian the Irishman. The nature of the work has been changed, not its volume. The down- town church must be a missionary enter- prise, whose means and men must be sought from without rather than from within, and it has to cater for bodies as well as souls. Its social work is well-nigh as urgent, elevated and important as its religious. 50 51 The rector of the down-town parish leads the advance guard of civili- zation. He needs to be a man of consecration and power, with, it seems to us, the following requisites for successful work : r. That the rector must be as closely in touch with his people as any resident of the neighborhood, and must remember that as much, if not more, can be done in the week days as upon the Sunday. 2. That he should have an adequate staff of helpers, male and fe- male, the latter as important as the former. 3. That whilst the foremost place should be given to the purely religious work of the Church, the orderly holding of its services, the reverent administration of its sacraments, and the religious training of its young, there should be large space allotted for social and secular work. 4. Clubs for boys and societies for girls are essential. 5. The gymnasium and swimming-bath for physical culture, and the library and reading-room for mental training, are equally impor- tant. 6. A club for men, managed by themselves (Teetotum), and guilds or vereins for women, would enable the rector to meet his men on even terms without patronage on the one hand, or mendicancy on the other. 7. As the husband earns and the wife spends, often neither thriftily nor intelligently, there should be a school for the teaching of cheap cookery and household management, and the training of and care for children. This work to be of value should be continuous, and therefore the down-town parish should be under the wing of the uptown church with larger means, which would guarantee its continuous corporate ex- istence. The enquiry was undertaken with the view of extending the use- fulness of our own Church, but we would be recreant to all princi- ples of fairness and justness did we not recognize the ample scope given, and the good work done by the other denominations who, with ourselves, occupy the field. We are aware (because in the course of our enquiry we have met with the evidences of it) of the work among the men of the cheap lodg- ing houses, carried on by the City Mission; of the personal influence for good of two members of the Salvation Army who reside in the Italian quarter; of the Neighborhood Guild, which provides the helpful common meeting ground for social relaxation; and of the institution in Rivington Street, where a bit of green is interjected into the hard lives of the young. To all these agencies we can wish God speed, and in- creased power to do His will.