If the people of whom I have written are sufferers, they at least exist
upon the surface of the earth. But what shall we say of those who pass
their lives in the cellars of the wretched buildings I have described?
A few of these cellars are dry, but all are dirty. Some are occupied as
dwelling-places, and some are divided into a sort of store or groggery
and living and sleeping rooms. Others still are kept as lodging-houses,
where the poorest of the poor find shelter for the night.
In writing of these cellars, I wish it to be understood that I do not
refer to the rooms partly above and partly below the level of the
side-walk, with some chance of ventilation, and known to the Health
Officers as "basements," but to the cellars pure and simple, all of which
are sunk below the level of the street, and all of which are infinitely
wretched. There were in April, 1869, about 12,000 of these cellars known
to the Board of Health, and containing from 96,000 to 100,000 persons.
With the exception of 211, all of these were such as were utterly
forbidden, under the health ordinances of the city, to be used or rented
as tenements. The Board of Health have frequently considered the
advisability of removing this population, and have been prevented only by
the magnitude of the task, and the certainty of rendering this large
number of persons homeless for a time at least.
The larger portion of these cellars have but one entrance, and that
furnishes the only means of ventilation. They have no outlet to the
rear, and frequently the filth of the streets comes washing down the
walls into the room within. In the brightest day they are dark and
gloomy. The air is always foul. The drains of the houses above pass
within a few feet of the floor, and as they are generally in bad
condition the filth frequently comes oozing up and poisons the air with
its foul odors. In some cases there has been found a direct opening from
the drain into the cellar, affording a free passage for all the sewer gas
into the room. The Board of Health do all they can to remedy this, but
the owners and occupants of the cellars are hard to manage, and throw
every obstacle in the way of the execution of the health ordinances.
The rents paid for these wretched abodes are exorbitant. Dr. Harris, the
Superintendent of the Board of Health, states that as much as twenty
dollars per month is often demanded of the occupants by the owners. Half
of that sum would secure a clean and decent room in some of the up-town
tenements. The poor creatures, in sheer despair, make no effort to
better their condition, and live on here in misery, and often in vice,
until death comes to their relief.
[Picture: A FIVE POINTS LODGING CELLAR.]
Many of the cellars are used as lodging-houses. These are known to the
police as "Bed Houses." In company with Captain Allaire and Detective
Finn, the writer once made a tour of inspection through these
establishments. One of them shall serve as a specimen. Descending
through a rickety door-way, we passed into a room about sixteen feet
square and eight feet high. At one end was a stove in which a fire
burned feebly, and close by a small kerosene lamp on a table dimly
lighted the room. An old hag, who had lost the greater part of her nose,
and whose face was half hidden by the huge frill of the cap she wore, sat
rocking herself in a rickety chair by the table. The room was more than
half in the shadow, and the air was so dense and foul that I could
scarcely breathe. By the dim light I could see that a number of filthy
straw mattresses were ranged on the floor along the wall. Above these
were wooden bunks, like those of a barracks, filled with dirty beds and
screened by curtains. The room was capable of accommodating at least
twenty persons, and I was told that the hag in the chair, who was the
proprietress, was "a good hand at packing her lodgers well together." It
was early, but several of the beds were occupied. The curtains were
drawn in some cases, and we could not see the occupants. In one,
however, was a child, but little more than a baby, as plump and ruddy,
and as fair-skinned and pretty as though it had been the child of a lady
of wealth. The little one was sleeping soundly, and, by a common
instinct, we gathered about its bed, and watched it in silence.
"It is too pretty a child for such a place," said one of the party.