LIFE IN NEW YOBK TENEMENT-HOUSES AS SEEN
BY A CITY MISSIONABY

By WILLIAM  T.  ELSING,

MINISTER OF THE  DE WITT  MEMORIAL NON-SECTARIAN  CHURCH IN RIVINGTON STREET,  NEW YORK

The East Side—Tenement Life—Contrasts in the Tenements—Diut and
Cleanliness—Classes op Homes in the Tenements—Rents—Changes in
the Tenement Population—Statistics of a Typical Block—Nationali¬
ties—Influences of the Public Schools—The Fkesh-air Excursions—
The College Settlements—Stories of the Poor—The Charity Organi¬
zations—The Church—Suggestions toward Improving "Darkest New
York."

FOB nearly nine years I have spent much of my time in the
homes of the working people, on the East Side, in the lower
part of New York City. I have been wdth the x^eox^le in their
days of joy and hours of sorrow. I have been present at their
marriage, baptismal, and funeral services. I have visited the sick
and dying in cold, dark cellars in midwinter, and sat by the bed¬
side of sufferers in midsummer in -the low attic room, where the
heat was so intense and the perspiration fiowed so abundantly that
it reminded me of a Turkish bath. I have been a frequent guest
in the homes of the humble. I have become the confidant of many
in days of trouble and anxiet}^

I shall in this paper tell simply what I have heard, seen, and
know. I shall endeavor to avoid giving a one-sided statement. I
have noticed that nearly all those who work among the x^oor of our
great cities fall into the natural habit of drawing too dark a X3icture
of the real state of things.    The outside world has ahvays been