LIFE IN NEW YORK TENEMENT-HOUSES                  43

more inclined to listen to weird, startling, and thrilling statements
than to the more ordinary and commonxDlace facts. If I were to
crowd into the space of one short chapter all the remarkable
things which I have heard and seen during the x^ast nine years, I
might give an absolutely truthful account and produce a sensation,
and yet, after all, I should give a most misleading idea of the actual
condition of the homes and the people with whom I have been so
intimately associated. We must not crowed all the sad and gloomy
experiences of a lifetime into a history which can be read in
an hour.

What I have said applies especially to the homes of the people
in the tenement-houses. An ordinary tenement-house contains five
stories and a basement, four families usually occuxoying a fioor.
The halls in nearly all the houses are more or less dark, even during
the brightest part of the day. In the winter, just before the gas is
lighted, dungeon darkness reigns. When groping my way in the
passages I usually imitate the steam craft in a thick fog and give
a danger-signal when I hear someone else approaching ; but even
when all is silent I x>roceed with caution, for more than once I have
stumbled against a baby who was quietly sitting in the dark hall or
on the stairs. In the old-style halls there is no way of getting light
and air, except from the skylight in the roof, or from the glass
transoms in the doors of the apartments. In the newer houses a
scanty sux3X3ly of air comes directly from the air-shafts at the side of
the hall. The new houses are not much* better lighted than the old
ones. The air-shafts are too narrow to convey much light to the
lower floors. In the older houses the sink is frequently found in
the hall, where the four tenants living on the same floor get their
water. These sinks in the dark halls are a source of great incon¬
venience. A person is liable to stumble against them, and they are
frequently filthy and a menace to health. In the new tenements
the sink is never placed in the hall. In addition to the owner and
agent, in connection with every large tenement-house, there is a
housekeeper.     The housekeex^ers are usually  strong  and  thrifty