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lEx ICtbrta 
 
 SEYMOUR DURST 
 
 When you leave, please leave this book 
 
 Because it has been said 
 "Ever'thin^ comes t' him who waits 
 
 Except a loaned book." 
 
 Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library 
 Gift of Seymour B. Durst Old York Library 
 
EXPOSE OF THE FACTS 
 
 CONCERNING THE 
 
 k^pMtl (B\m\d W^tmi llattmy ^nt^pn^^ 
 
 CITY OF NEW- YORK. 
 
 1866. 
 
 NEW- YORK. 
 1866. 
 
l-JJ-J. 
 
 
 
 I 1 
 
 1 1 (I 
 
 If K 
 
 .0 
 
EXPOSE OF THE FACTS 
 
 CONCERNING THE 
 IN THE 
 
 CITY OF NEW-YOEK. 
 
 The Directors of the " Broadway and Yonkers Patent Railway 
 Company," as duly organized according to law, deem it advisa- 
 ble to make sucli a statement of tlie facts relating to tliat enter- 
 prise as shall enable the public more correctly to judge of its 
 merits and title to favor and encouragement. 
 
 ITS HISTORY. 
 
 During the past year one of the most successful practical 
 engineers in this country devised a new method of attaching and 
 propelling cars upon Railways by means of the well-known 
 system of cables or wire rope attached to stationary engines. 
 Hitherto no practical plan has been invented, by which cars 
 could be stopped or started without changing the motion of the 
 stationary engine ; and by which cars could pass from one length 
 of endless rope to another without delay or danger in becoming 
 detached from one, and attached to the next in succession. 
 
 It is well known that some of the highest mechanical talent 
 in England, as well as in the United States, has endeavored for 
 years to solve the problem without success. By the method 
 above alluded to the difRculty appears to be entirely obviated, 
 in, a simple and yet perfect contrivance, which enables the con- 
 ductor inside of his car to detach or attach the same, from or to 
 the propelling cable at pleasure, by the mere shifting of a lever ; 
 and by another self-acting lever, the cars can pass at a high speed 
 from one length of moving cable to another, and disconnect and 
 connect themselves at the proper place with exact certainty. 
 
4 
 
 This plan having been patented in this country and in Europe, 
 the patentee found that special legislation was desirable to per- 
 mit of its introduction in this State, and to secure capital to in- 
 troduce it in foreign countries. 
 
 On exhibiting the plans to the most eminent engineers in this 
 country, they unanimously indorsed it as worthy of encourage- 
 ment, and upon their written recommendation, the Legislature 
 of the State of New-York passed an act (April 20, 1866) provid- 
 ing for the formation of companies to introduce that peculiar mode 
 of locomotion within this State or elsewhere. 
 
 The Patentee, having succeeded thus at Albany, then vis- 
 ited ]^ew-York City, as confessedly needing such an improvement 
 more than any other city in this or perhaps any other country. 
 The offer was made, that if any number of citizens would join 
 in providing the necessary means to test its adaptability to an 
 Elevated Kailway by actual experiment, the contract would be 
 placed in their hands, and in case of success, a reasonable minor 
 interest would be accepted as an equivalent for the patented 
 rights. In case of failure to meet expectations, only the actual 
 loss of the experiment agreed upon would be risked or sustained. 
 
 These terms were first proposed to the richest merchant in the 
 city, who declined to become identified in any way with the ex- 
 periment ; but said that he would have no objection to its being 
 made anywhere outside of Broadway. The attempt was made 
 to enlist sufficient capital to test the experiment on some single 
 side-route, but, after two months' effort, it had to be abandoned 
 by the patentee, as not likely to succeed. 
 
 The idea was then suggested, that capital might be enlisted by 
 the inducement of a right to apply it to Broadway, in case of its 
 proving a success on a side-street. As a dernier resort, the pat- 
 entee, formally proposed the plan to the citizens of I^ew-York 
 generally, and after considerable hesitation, even then, a sufficient 
 number were found, who were willing to risk their money on those 
 terms and inducements. Accordingly articles of association were 
 subscribed to under the organic act, and two main routes be- 
 tween Manhattan Island and "Westchester County provided fgr ; 
 one on the east side, and one on the west side — Broadway be- 
 ing attached to the latter ; and the subscribers to the stock having 
 the same interest in each. 
 
 The money was at once paid in sufficient to warrant proceed- 
 ing with the erection of the proposed experimental section of 
 half a mile in length, of the west side line, on Greenwich street, 
 
5 
 
 and an application to the Common Conncil for the requisite 
 permission was voted to be made forthwith. It was hoped that 
 during the following six months the experimental section could 
 be erected in time to exhibit it to the Legislature, and secure its 
 sanction to such further legislation as would unquestionably be 
 necessary to provide for its extension in the city, and across the 
 Harlem Kiver, in the best manner for the public and private in- 
 terests involved. 
 
 AVith this in view, Hon. J. S. Bosworth was engaged as 
 counsel, and the preparation of the proper form of consent from 
 the city was left to him to arrange with the Council. His draft 
 of the same was, with such modifications as they saw proper, 
 reported by the Standing Committee of the Council, after a 
 week's consideration, and their report was adopted by that body 
 as representing the city by a more than two-thirds vote. His 
 Honor the Mayor returned the same without his approval. A 
 committee representing the Patent Companies waited upon him 
 to inquire whether any form of resolution for city assent to the 
 proposed routes could be drafted which would meet his approval 
 b^ being sufficiently guarded on all questionable points, including 
 satisfactory rates of fare. His reply was courteously but firmly 
 given, that his approval could not, by any possibility, be obtained, 
 and hence the veto was inevitable. 
 
 Of course no alternative remained but to await the decision of 
 the Council, whether they would, at the expiration of the ten 
 days' interval, required by the charter, adhere to their assent by a 
 a two-thirds vote. During that time Mr. A. T. Stewart applied for 
 and obtained a temporary injunction from Judge Barnard, of the 
 Supreme Court, to restrain the Council from acting on the veto, 
 or from taking any further action toward permiting even a harm- 
 less experimental section to be erected to test the feasibility of 
 the invention, independent of any actual erection on Broadway. 
 At the appointed time for a hearing in Court to decide whether 
 the injunction should be made permanent. Judge Barnard in- 
 formed the learned counsel for the Companies and the Common 
 Council, before argument, that his mind was made up to continue 
 the injunction intact to the General Term of the Court, which 
 would occur in November following. 
 
 RESULTS PRESENT AND CONTEMPLATED. 
 
 Thus the experiment can not be instituted until after that 
 time, and one great object of having it ready for the inspection 
 
6 
 
 of the Legislature is probably prevented, unless most extraordi- 
 nary and expensive constructive measures should be instituted to 
 secure the experiment before the legislative adjournment. 
 
 The legal rights of the Companies under the authority of the 
 Council, if the injunction were removed, would doubtless have to 
 be passed upon by the Court of Appeals, before all parties would 
 acquiesce in the general construction, and this decision could not 
 be reached until after the Legislature is in its next session, 
 which has sovereign power over the whole subject, and should 
 have all possible experimental information at its command. 
 
 The Directors hoped to have secured such data, as to running 
 expenses, from the experiment, as to have felt it safe to submit to 
 the Legislature a proposal to have fares for working men limited 
 to ten cents for the entire length of Manhattan Island, with an 
 obligation to run ample trains for their especial accommodation, 
 before and after working hours each day, and with time equal to 
 any trains run on the railways. 
 
 There is reason to expect that by this method cars may be 
 safely run from Chatham Square to the Harlem Eiver in twenty 
 minutes, the distance being estimated at seven miles. If this 
 speed and safety should be realized, it is apparent that a social 
 revolution would at once occur in the city of ^^ew-York, which 
 would rejoice the heart of every well-wisher to his species. 
 
 The boon to the working class would then be obtained, which 
 the merchants, the physicians, and the clergy so anxiously crave, 
 but confess themselves unable to devise ; and in case it is long 
 delayed, so graphically portray the social evils and disorders which 
 must follow from the fearful overcrowding, already developed 
 but still increasing. If the above hope is realized, there will be 
 nothing to deter the working man from having his family com- 
 fortably housed at the northerly end of the island, or in West- 
 chester county, and within the lapse of half an hour be placed 
 at his workshop door before the labors of the day commence, and 
 at night find a comfortable seat in a car detailed on purpose to 
 take him back to the pure air of the countrj^, in the same time it 
 formerly took him to walk to his comfortless perch in some lofty 
 tenement-house. The shop-girl will, in like manner, be accom- 
 modated, and need no longer know the temptation to spend her 
 evenings in the excitement of the theatre or the glare of the pave- 
 ment to escape from a suffocating domicile. 
 
 In this view of the case, factious opposition to the proposed 
 
7 
 
 experiment seems a flagrant sin, which must be frowned down by 
 society in self-defense. 
 
 There are other facts, however, which mark the present legal 
 injunctions as particularly unfortunate. One is, that the want ot 
 improved street locomotion is felt in European cities almost as 
 much as in Kew-York, and any relief will be hailed there with 
 satisfaction. 
 
 The London Times lately stated that the press in the streets ot 
 London has not been sensibly diminished by the use of the famous 
 Underground railway system ; that some one hundred and fifty 
 lives were lost in that city during the preceding year by the 
 crush of vehicles at street-crossings ; and that some new plan ot 
 relief was loudly called for as a growing necessity. 
 
 The same remarks hold good, in a greater or less degree, of all 
 the large cities in Great Britain and on the Continent, and partic- 
 ularly of Paris. 
 
 It is interesting to know that the French Government, after its 
 usual rigid examination, has forward to the inventor recently, a 
 patent covering the same claims as granted in this country, and 
 herein referred to. Semi-official intimations have been given to 
 the patentee that the erection of such a railway around the 
 grounds of the Universal Exhibition of 1867, and between it and 
 the streets of Paris, would be favored by the Government, and 
 the right conceded to charge such fares as would make it highly 
 remunerative. 
 
 If the experiment proposed in ISTew-York proved a success, all 
 the capital to start a line in Paris, and at the Exhibition, would be 
 subscribed at once, and command a premium for its prospective 
 profits. 
 
 But aside from the financial inducements, it would be a cause 
 of national credit and eclat to exhibit such an industrial achieve- 
 ment ; and there is reason to think it would be the grandest dis- 
 play of industrial and mechanical progress which the United 
 States can thus make in the eyes of the world, as it would be the 
 ]nost prominent improvement at the Fair. 
 
 Under these circumstances, it is annoying and humiliating to re- 
 flect that consent can not be had for the demonstration of a harm- 
 less experiment in a secondary street in New- York, the Mecca 
 of Yankee enterprise. As well might Fulton have been forbid- 
 den from starting from her docks with his experimental steam* 
 boat ! 
 
 The Directors have the impression that the ideas of some prop- 
 
8 
 
 ertj-owners, as to the appearance and injury of the proposed 
 railway on Broadway, are greatly exaggerated, and that if they 
 could but see it in actual operation they would own their fears 
 unfounded. To illustrate this supposition, the Directors have 
 caused an accurate survey and careful plan of A. T. Stewart's 
 store on Broadway to be drawn by a skillful engineer, and the en- 
 graving on an exact scale is intended to accompany these pages. 
 
 By this it appears that no car running on the track over the 
 curbstones can go within fourteen feet of the building ; that the 
 entire columns will not occupy more than five square feet out ot 
 2880 aggregate surface square feet of pavement, under the latest 
 plan of construction, where a supporting awning-frame is permit- 
 ted ; while the Council restrict the surface to be occupied by col- 
 umns to sixteen square feet, or about one third of one per cent of 
 the space between Mr. Stewart's store and the curbstone in front. 
 Insignificant as this space seems, it is yet demonstrable that by 
 the proposed route and plan, more passengers can be conveyed 
 between the Battery and Union Square in a given time, than by 
 all the longitudinal lines of horse railways now existing on the 
 Island, in their usual manner. And further, the Directors are ot 
 opinion that a j iiry of architects would find a verdict that the erec- 
 tion of the line in an ornamental style, as might easily be done, 
 would improve rather than injure the general appearance ot 
 Broadway, splendid as it is, or wiU be when finished. Finally, 
 it is claimed that the cars will move so quietly and noiselessly, 
 that a person standing in Mr. Stewart's store, or even doorway, 
 could not tell when a car passed by the sound. 
 
 If these assertions are proven by the experimental section, the 
 Directors do not see why Mr. Stewart need feel called upon to 
 oppose the construction of the proposed line in Broadway, much 
 less as an experiment in Greenwich street. 
 
 After the legal delays had so unexpectedly intervened, the sub- 
 scribers to the experiment were called upon to decide whether its 
 further prosecution should be abandoned. They almost unani- 
 mously decided to adhere, and requested the Directors to en- 
 deavor to remove the legal impediments by recourse to the Courts 
 or the Legislature. 
 
 Acting under these instructions, the Directors will use all pro- 
 per endeavors to that end ; and as much misapprehension probably 
 exists in the public mind on the subject, they propose to make a 
 simple and brief exjpose of the facts relating to the proposed en- 
 terprise in New- York City, as follows : 
 
9 
 
 1. The local and sanitary necessity. 
 
 2. The present legal authority. 
 
 3. The mechanical invention, and rival plans. 
 
 4. The patented rights. 
 
 5. The architectural effect. 
 
 6. The apphcation made for the assent of the Council. 
 
 7. The form of assent passed by the same. 
 
 8. The complaint of A. T. Stewart to the Court, and its injunc- 
 tion. 
 
 9. The opinions of the Press previously expressed. 
 
 10. An Appendix with germane facts in detail. 
 
 "With these facts, it is hoped that the public will take a lively 
 interest in the measures proposed, which seem so clearly for the 
 benefit of every citizen of or visitor to the city of New- York, 
 Respectfully submitted. 
 
 W. S. GURNEE, \ 
 
 J. P. Yelverton, j 
 
 "W. H. Appleton, / 
 
 J. H. Hall, f 
 
 P. Trask, \ Resident Directors. 
 
 R. Turner, [ 
 
 D. Crawford, Jr., \ 
 
 Isaac Scott, i 
 
 F. Work, / 
 
THE LOCAL AND SANITARY NECESSITY OF 
 
 ELEVATED RAILWAYS. 
 
 EVIDENCE PRESENTED BY THE "CITIZENS' ASSOCIATION."* 
 
 The " Citizens' Association " was formed by leading gentlemen in 
 New- York to procure information as to the health and over-crowd- 
 ing of the city. From the volume published by them, the Company 
 has drawn largely for facts at once pertinent and incontrovertible. 
 To prove this, the preliminary correspondence and the names ap- 
 pended thereto, and some portion of the facts vouched for, are given 
 as follows ; while further details will be found in the Appendix. 
 
 The Citizens' Association of New-York, 
 
 Office^ 813 Broadway. 
 
 To 
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M.D., 
 WILLARD PARKER, M.D., 
 JAMES R. WOOD, M.D., 
 STEPHEN SMITH, M.D., 
 JOHN H. GRISCOM, M.D., 
 ISAAC E. TAYLOR, M.D., 
 ELISHA HARRIS, M.D., 
 WILLIAM C. ANDERSON, M.D., 
 EDWARD DEL AFIELD, M.D., 
 JOSEPH M. SMITH, M.D., 
 JOHN 0. STONE, M.D., 
 CHARLES HENSCHEL, M.D., 
 
 New- York, March 2, 1864. 
 ISAAC WOOD, M.D., 
 CHARLES D. SMITH, M.D., 
 E. R. PEASLEE, M.D., 
 AUSTIN FLINT, M.D., 
 FRANK H. HAMILTON, M.D., 
 B. FORDYCE BARKER, M.D., 
 THADDEUS HALSTED, M.D., 
 JARED LINSLEY, M.D., 
 J. T. METCALFE, M.D., 
 GURDON BUCK, M.D., 
 WILLIAM N. BLAKEMAN, M.D., 
 JAMES ANDERSON, M.D. 
 
 Dear Sirs : Our Association is deeply impressed with the importance of tak- 
 ing active steps in relation to the Sanitary Condition of our City. 
 
 At a meeting of the Citizens' Association of New- York, held on the twen- 
 ty-ninth February, ultimo, the undersigned were appointed a Committee to 
 address a Letter to Physicians, for the purpose of obtaining from the Medical 
 
 * See Sanitary Condition of New- York. Eeport by Council of Hygiene to Citizens' 
 Association. D, Appleton & Co. Second edition. 1866. 
 
11 
 
 Profession the fullest and most reliable information relative to the public health . 
 Will you, at your earliest convenience, favor us with the desired information ? 
 
 The importance of this subject to all classes can scarcely be over-estimated, 
 as from the evidence already before this Association it appears that the excess 
 of mortality is needless and alarming. 
 Very respectfully yours, 
 
 lo the Committee on Sanitary Inquiry^ etc.^ of the Citizens' Association of 
 New- York : 
 
 Gentlemen : In replying to your letter of inquiry requesting information con- 
 cerning the public health of this city, we would briefly state a few leading facts 
 relating to the rate of mortality in this community, and also refer to some of 
 the conditions of insalubrity among us. 
 
 The city of New-York ought to be one of the most healthy cities in the 
 world, for no other large city is favored with greater natural advantages of local- 
 ity and climate, and probably no city has a greater influx of a vigorous and- 
 healthy population, from the rural districts and from foreign countries. 
 
 But a fearfully high death-rate prevails in this city. This is the sure crite- 
 rion of the public health, and it is the most reliable test of the sanitary condi- 
 tion of any populous community. Extensive observation proves that it is not 
 difficult to state about what proportion of deaths in great cities may properly 
 be attributed to preventable diseases, and consequently what may be pro- 
 perly regarded as a necessary and inevitable rate of mortality in such a popula- 
 tion. 
 
 The highest medical and statistical authorities of Europe have shown the 
 propriety and importance of such estimates in vital statistics. 
 
 The total number of deaths in the city of New-York, during the year 1863, 
 according to the City Inspector's returns, was 25,196! This is equal to one 
 death in every thirty-Jive of the inhabitants, estimating the population of the 
 city last year at 900,000. 
 
 According to Dr. E. M. Snow, the distinguished Health Officer of Providence, 
 Rhode Island, the mortality in the following six neighboring cities, during the 
 year 1863, may be stated as follows : 
 
 HAMILTON FISH, 
 JOHN DAVID WOLFE, 
 EDWARD S. JAFFRAY, 
 JOHN JACOB ASTOR, Jr., 
 JAMES M. BROWN, 
 JONATHAN STURGES, 
 ROBERT B. ROOSEVELT, 
 AUGUST BELMONT, 
 CHARLES O'CONOR, 
 NATHANIEL SANDS, 
 •CHARLES A. SECOR, 
 MORRIS KETCH UM, 
 
 Commitiee appointed at a Meet' 
 ing of the Citizens' Associa- 
 tion of Neiv-York, held Feb- 
 ruary 29, 1 864. 
 
 New- York, March 9, 1864. 
 
 Estimated 
 Population. 
 
 Deaths 
 1863. 
 
 25,196 
 14,220 
 4,698 
 1,952 
 1,214 
 683 
 
 Of Population, 
 one in 
 
 New- York,.. . 
 Philadelphia,. 
 
 Boston, 
 
 Newark, N. J. 
 Providence, . 
 Hartford, . . . . 
 
 900,000 
 620,000 
 194,000 
 85,000 
 55,000 
 32,000 
 
 35.7 
 43.6 
 41.2 
 43.5 
 45.3 
 64.8 
 
 It is not for us to state what the rate of mortality in New-York should have 
 been, under proper sanitary regulations, the past year, but we would present a 
 few facts to show the results of improvements in sanitary government of great 
 
12 
 
 cities, which, with natural advantages of salubrity far inferior to those of New- 
 York, have been rescued from a condition of fearful insalubrity, and rendered 
 far more healthful than our city now is. 
 
 The rate of mortality in the following cities, with the present system of sanitary government, has 
 
 While in the City of New-York the death-rate has increased from 1 in 46|, [in the year 1810,] 
 to 1 in 35, at the present time. 
 
 Facts like these should arouse the attention of all persons who feel an inter- 
 est in human welfare or in the prosperity of our city. Yet we would point to 
 the high death-rate that prevails in the city simply as a rehable index to the 
 physical sufferings, the want, the neglect, the sickness, the orphanage and pau- 
 perism, with which such excessive mortality is always associated. 
 
 The experience of other great cities, and the teachings of sanitary science, 
 warrant the opinion that the present rate of mortality may be reduced fully 
 THIRTY PER CENT. Such a reductioH would save from YOOO to 10,000 lives in 
 this city during the present year. But the saving of this vast number of pre- 
 cious lives is not the only, nor is it the greatest, benefit that would result to 
 the health and welfare of the city by means of suitable sanitary government. 
 
 It is a medical and statistical fact that for every death in a large community 
 there are at least twenty-eight cases of sickness. This would give, in the 
 population of our city, iqmard of two hiuidred thousand cases of preventaMe 
 and needless sickness every year ! This conclusion is fully warranted by the 
 statistics of our public charities, and by medical observation, and it is 
 based upon broad inquiries and generalization respecting sickness and mor- 
 tality in Great Britain, as stated by Dr. Lyon Play fair, a distinguished author- 
 ity in Hygiene. 
 
 It is a maxim in the medical profession that it is far easier to prevent 
 disease than to cure it, and it certainly is far more economical to do so. And 
 when we remember that the great excess of mortahty and of sickness in our 
 city occurs among the poorer classes of the population, and that such excessive 
 unhealthiness and mortality is a most prolific source of physical and social 
 want, demoralization and pauperism, the subject of needed sanitary reforms, in 
 this crowded metropoHs, assumes such important bearings and such a vast 
 magnitude as to demand the most serious consideration of all persons who 
 regard the welfare of their fellow-beings, or the best interests of the commu- 
 nity. 
 
 We will not extend this statement, but would conclude by saying that the 
 sacredness of human life and the inestimable value of health are incentives that 
 can be relied upon to secure the cooperation of all true physicians in your efforts 
 to promote sanitary reforms. 
 
 been — 
 
 In London, 
 
 In Liverpool, . . . 
 In Philadelphia, 
 
 1 in 45 
 
 1 in 44 
 
 1 in 44 to 1 in 57 
 
 Respectfully yours, 
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M.D., 1 Gramercy Park, 
 WILLARD PARKER, M.D., 37 East 12th Street, 
 ISAAC WOOD, M.D., 68 East 17th Street, 
 JAMES R. WOOD, M.D., 2 Irving Place, 
 
 and twenty others. 
 
 , Esq., 
 
 Esq., > Committee for Sanitary Inquiry^ etc. 
 
 and others. 
 
 J 
 
 The " Citizens' Association" is represented by its " Council," 
 which thus in the name of the Association indorses the report of the 
 Physicians, and remarks on the general facts — 
 
13 
 
 REMARKS BY THE "COUNCIL." 
 
 "Franklin's aphorism that Public Health is PuMic Wealthy finds ample con- 
 firmation in the experience of all populous communities ; and when our best 
 medical men assure us that a vast proportion of the sickness in our city is pro- 
 duced by causes that are positively ^re«enia&?^, or that may be removed ; and 
 when they state the fact that the preventable waste of life and health, in the 
 city of New-York, may safely be estimated at seven thousand lives, and more than 
 two hundred thousand cases of sickness every 3'ear — shall not every citizen bestir 
 himself to terminate such a waste of the richest physical blessings which the 
 Creator has bestowed upon mankind ? 'All that a man hath will he give for 
 his life ; ' and yet, to society at large, the care and protection of life and health 
 is a cumulative good, which confers benefits that multiply and extend like the 
 good deeds of well-spent days. Sanitary improvements directly promote the 
 material advancement of a people, while they bring into operation the most re- 
 liable and effectual agencies for social and moral elevation. 
 
 " Their ultimate and highest results reach far beyond pecuniary advantage ; 
 they take deep hold upon the noblest sympathies and sentiments of all classes 
 of society ; they confer benefits upon all alike. 
 
 " The relation of the health and vigorous life of a people to the state, or to com- 
 mercial prosperity, requires no discussion in this statement. From Plato to the 
 greatest of modern statesmen and economists, the sanitary welfiire of a people 
 has justly been deemed an essential element of social and commercial advance- 
 ment; and so intimately related do we find the sanitary and the social wants 
 of the population in the city of New-York, that, from the outset of reformatory 
 efforts, whether social and political or exclusively moral and religious, sanitary 
 improvement is a work of paramount necessity. 'There is,' says the Edin- 
 burg Review, (vol. xci. 1850,) 'a most fatal connection between physical un- 
 cleanliness and moral pollution. The condition of a population becomes inva- 
 riably assimilated to that of their habitations. The indirect effects of sickness 
 are far more hurtful, though less observable, than the direct effects of moral 
 disease ; it lowers in tone, unstrings the nerves, and brings on physical languor 
 and mental apathy.' But beyond the physical, the mental, and the economi- 
 ical losses resulting from prevailing ill-health, there are certain political and 
 social aspects of the same agencies that ought to be studied by every intelligent 
 citizen. The mobs that held fearful sway in our city during the memorable out- 
 break of violence in the month of July, 1863, were gathered in the overcrowded 
 and neglected quarters of the city. As was stated by a leading journalist at 
 that time: 'The high brick blocks and closely-packed houses where the mobs 
 originated seemed to be literally hives of sichness and vice. It was wonderful 
 to see, and difficult to beheve, that so much misery, disease, and wretchedness 
 can be huddled together and hidden by high walls, unvisited and unthought of, 
 so near our own abodes. Lewd but pale and sickly young women, scarcely de- 
 cent in their ragged attire, were impudent and scattered everywhere in the crowd. 
 But what numbers of these poorer classes are deformed ! what numbers are 
 made hideous by self-neglect and infirmity ! Alas ! human faces look so hideous 
 with hope and self-respect all gone ! And female forms and features are made 
 so frightful by sin, squalor, and debasement! To walk the streets as we walked 
 them, in those hours of conflagration and riot, was like witnessing the day of 
 judgment, with every wicked' thing revealed, every sin and sorrow blazingly 
 glared upon, every hidden abomination laid before helFs expectant fire. 
 
 " ' The elements of popular discord are gathered in those wretchedly -constructed 
 tenant-houses, where poverty, disease, and crime find an abode. Here disease 
 in its most loathsome forms propagates itself Unholy passions rule in the do- 
 mestic circle. Every thing, within and without, tends to physical and moral 
 degradation.' 
 
 " The Association can not close this introduction without expressing its grate- 
 ful estimation of the arduous and self-denying labors of the medical gentlemen, 
 
14 
 
 the fruit of whose researches is embodied in this report, (See Appendix.) An 
 investigation so thorough, searching, and extensive, and directed by such genius 
 and energy, has never before been attempted in our city or in this country." 
 (Signed) James Brown, 
 
 ^= ALEX. T. STEWART, 
 John Jacob Astor, Jr., 
 Peter Cooper, 
 John D. Wolf, 
 Wm. E. Dodge, 
 And fourteen others of the "Council." 
 
 The following extracts are taken from the report of the Council 
 of Physicians, as above: 
 
 At the time the Council completed its Sanitary Survey of the city, December, 
 1864, there were 495,592 persons in this city residing in tenant-homes and cel- 
 lars ; the total number of tenant-homes teas 15,309, and the average number of 
 families to each of these homes was 7^, including the poor families that take 
 boarders^ Tceep lodgers^ etc. To these aggregate numbers the Sanitary Inspec- 
 tors report that another element should be added, viz., all of the smaller habita- 
 tions, attics, stable-lofts, etc., where poor families are found stowed away, and 
 having too small an allowance of area and air-space. The Inspector of the 
 Fourth District, (4th Ward,) for example, reports that in addition to the 462 
 tenant-houses proper in his district, there are 252 other buildings that possess 
 the attributes of tenant-houses, and in a great proportion of which the highest 
 degree of sanitary want prevails. Were all this class of habitations included 
 with the tenant-houses and underground residences, it would be found that far 
 more than half the population of the city is to-day inhabiting a class of domiciles 
 which invite and localize the most disabling and fatal kinds of disease. 
 
 That the rate of crowding in particular localities, and even throughout the en- 
 tire region occupied by tenant-houses is too great, is rendered evident by a sim- 
 ple estimation of the facts relating to the subject. If we take into consider- 
 ation only the so-called tenant-houses, that is, houses in which there dwell three 
 or more families who hire their domiciles by a monthly rental, it will be found 
 that these houses, being 15,309 in number, have been built upon about 850 
 acres of ground, including all the courts, alleys, and areas pertaining to 
 them, exclusive of the paved streets in front of them. Including a proper 
 pro rata of the entire area of the public streets, the total superficial area 
 allotted to these 15,309 houses, the 111,000 families, and the 480,368 persons 
 that dwell in them, is about two square miles. That is, the tenant-house pop- 
 ulation is actually packed upon the house-lots and streets at the rate of 
 240,000 to the square mile ; and it is only because this rate of packing is some- 
 what diminished by intervening warehouses, factories, private dwellings, and 
 other classes of buildings, that the entire tenant-house population is not 
 devastated by the domestic pestilences and infectious epidemics that arise 
 from overcrowding and uncleanness. As now distributed, the tenant-houses 
 of the city are nearly all found within an area of less than four square miles. 
 Even this rate of crowding, including the other classes of population, and other 
 classes of buildings that are interspersed, is so great as to have justly become a 
 subject of momentous importance, and it calls for a thorough sanitary inquiry 
 in regard to existing evils and impending dangers. 
 
 Such concentration and packing of a population has ^jrohahly never been 
 equaled in any city as may be found in particular localities in New-York. 
 In some entire districts, as in the Fourth, Sixth, and portions of the Eleventh 
 and the Seventeenth Wards, the density of the population is far greater than 
 in any parish or ward in London or any other European city of which we have 
 definite knowledge. For example, in the Fourth W ard, the tenant-house and 
 cellar population, as distributed throughout the whole Ward, is all included 
 
15; 
 
 within an area of about sixty acres, including streets, etc. This gives a 
 population of about 192,000 persons to the square mile. And to this number 
 there remains to be added that portion of the population which is not included 
 in the tenant-house class. At the same time there are twelve acres of the same 
 area occupied by storehouses and factories. The results of our Sanitary Sur- 
 vey in the Fourth Ward show that the tenant-houses and tenant-house popula- 
 tion proper, that is, the class that averages upward of seven families to the house, 
 are crowded upon a space of less than thirty acres exclusive of streets, or less 
 than forty acres including street areas ; and that this class, which, in that ward, 
 outnumbers 17,611 persons, is now packed at the rate of about 290,000 inhab- 
 itants to the square mile. In that ward nothing is plainer than the fact that the 
 overcrowding of the population is perilous to public health. 
 
 In the Sixth Ward the total population dwelling in tenant-houses and cellars 
 amounts to 22,897, distributed over an area scarcely exceeding seventy-five 
 acres. While in the Eleventh Ward there are 65,620 persons living in tenant- 
 houses and cellars, and the rate of crowding is increasing throughout that ward 
 with great rapidity ; and in the Seventeenth Ward there is an aggregate tenant- 
 house and cellar population of 66,207 distributed over one of the most import- 
 ant districts of the city. 
 
 These facts are introduced simply to show the growth and necessities of the 
 poor and middle class population in New-York, and also to illustrate the prin- 
 ciple and the consequences of the remarkable concentration of these classes. 
 If we compare these statements with the results of inquiry upon the same 
 questions in the largest cities and most densely populated districts in England, 
 the rate of overcrowding in New- York will become more apparent by the con- 
 trast. At the period when the great sanitary reform was begun in Liverpool, 
 it was ascertained that in a particularly overcrowded and very unhealthy parish 
 in that city, the packing of the population was at the rate of 138,224 persons 
 to the square mile ; at the same period there was a portion of the town of 
 Manchester that was populated at the rate of 100,000 to the square mile ; and 
 all London "metropolis" had 50,000 to the square mile. In a recent report of 
 a royal commission the following statistics are given respecting the most densely 
 populated districts of London : 
 
 Districts. Rate of population to the square mile. 
 
 St. James, 144,008 
 
 Holborn, 148,705 
 
 St. Luke, 151,104 
 
 East-London, 175,816 
 
 From the facts given in the preceding pages, and from statements embodied 
 in the Second Part of this Report, as well as from the ordinary observations 
 of reflecting citizens, the truth must be obvious that the poorer classes of the 
 population in this city are becoming excessively aggregated, and that their nar- 
 row domiciles are 'becoming •perilously overcrowded. To the practical consider- 
 ation and treatment of this source of evil, therefore, citizens and all philan- 
 thropic persons must very soon give special attention. The sanitary necessi- 
 ties and the peculiar perils, both public and domestic, that stand related to this 
 subject, can not longer be neglected without seriously jeopardizing the health 
 and welfare of the city, and working much evil to the State. Mow most suc- 
 cessfully to mitigate the tenant-house evils and the perils of overcroicding, as 
 they now exist, is truly a momentous question, and it is a still greater problem 
 how best to provide suitable domiciles for the rap idly -increasing population of 
 the city. That the poorer classes in the city must, to a very great extent, now 
 and hereafter, reside in multiple domiciles or tenant-houses, is only too evident 
 and certain. But it would be remarkably anomalous, in this age of progress in 
 the practical applications of science and art, and of enterprise and success in 
 overcoming the obstacles to human welfare, if no remedies were found adequate 
 to remedy the evils we now both witness and justly anticipate. 
 
 It is true that the rate of crowding of the population in particular districts 
 of this city is already unparalleled and still increasing. It is true that the 
 
16 
 
 tenant-houses of New-York are rapidly becoming the nests of fever infection 
 and the poisoned abodes of physical decay. It is true that in the tenant- 
 house districts a worse than Spartan fate awaits all children, and that cholera 
 infantum, convulsions, scrofula, and marasmus hover with ghoul-like fiendish- 
 ness about the dismal and crowded tenant-homes of the great mass of infantile 
 lives in the city. It is true that we find the great body of the former middle class 
 of society rapidly becoming absorbed into and allied with the poor tenant- 
 houses class, and experiencing the lamentable evils that surround such homes 
 as theirs. It is true that the tenant-houses of the city as a whole, as well as 
 of particular districts, are becoming rapidly and perilously aggregated ; and it 
 is likewise true that moral, social, and political evils are fearfully augmenting 
 and ominously threatening in our city, in consequence of all these unfortunate 
 physical conditions. But is it not reasonable and true that insomuch as the 
 causes of all these evils have been and are mainly physical — or at least always 
 allied with material agencies which are under human control — in the same de- 
 gree, and conversely and hy redeeming conditions mainly of a physical nature, 
 the evils tee now deprecate, and the impending perils we now fear, may de, and 
 should speedily ie, averted and effectually prevented ? 
 
 It will be seen that these eminent Physicians style the awful over- 
 crowding which they narrate as " perilous," " momentous," " unpar- 
 alleled," and " increasing, and " full of impending perils we now 
 fear," and wonder if, in this age of progress in the practical ap- 
 plication of science and art, no remedies were found adequate to 
 remedy the evils we now witness and fear !" The Elevated Railway 
 is in all probability destined to be the practical enterprise that they 
 so ardently longed for, but lacked the mechanical genius to suggest. 
 For further extracts from this report of Doctors Smith, Mott, Parker, 
 and twenty-one others, see Appendix, page 54. 
 
 SPECIAL REPORTS. 
 
 Dr, Pxdling^ the Special Inspector of the Fourth Ward, hounded 
 hy Chatham^ Catharine and South Streets, Peck Slip^ Ferry and 
 Spruce Streets, reports its average length and breadth as respectively 
 1900 and 1600 feet, comprising 896 25X100 building lots, and con- 
 taining a population, in 1860, of 21,994 ! After stating that there are 
 770 tenement buildings, 8 schools and churches, 446 liquor stores ! 
 or one to eight families, of which 28 were reputed brothels, and 6 
 " sailors' dance-houses," he remarks of these liquor-shop keepers, 
 
 These are the men whose influence, purchased by corrupt politicians, secures 
 their election to the municipal offices which they disgrace. Holding in their 
 grasp the votes of their dependents, and by their combined action being thus 
 enabled to elect whom they please, their power is almost supreme. In the past 
 they have controlled our health organization, and made it what it is. In 
 the future they propose to perpetuate it. Confident in the system which 
 secures their political strength, they set at defiance the wishes and opinions of 
 all who take an intelligent interest in the welfare of our city. 
 
 Overcrowding, the source of the greatest sanitary and social evils, steadily 
 increases in the Fourth District, Within the last ten years the extension 
 of Bowery and Chambers street through the most densely-populated portions 
 of this district, has thrown into thoroughfares a large section formerly occupied 
 
VIEW OF A FOURTH-WARD POOR MAN's HOME, SHOWING CHILDREN'S FLAY-GROUND 
 
17 
 
 principally by tenant-houses. During the same period, another large section 
 has been devoted to business purposes ; but, although these combined causes 
 have redaced by fully one third the inhabited area, yet the population remains 
 about the same as before. Good hygienic conditions can not te obtained until 
 the present system of packing is broken up and the pro rata of cubic space to 
 the individual at least doubled. The removal of one half of the present pop- 
 ulation of the district will be a necessary preliminary to any complete system 
 of sanitary reform. The establishment of suitable residences for the poor., if 
 not accomplished by private enterprise^ should become a subject of municipal 
 and legislative action. 
 
 A tract equal in extent to Central Parle, occupied by dioellings designed for 
 their homes., which should possess the indkpensable hygienic conditions of suf- 
 ficient air-space and light., good ventilation and drainage., and placed under such 
 police regulations as should secure the exclusion or prompt suppression of all 
 nuisances, would be an inestimable boon to this class., and a greater benefit to 
 the entire community than even the splendid ornament to our city above named. 
 Simply as an investment of funds there is no doubt that such an enterprise 
 would pay., but its benefits could not be measured by any standard of pecu- 
 niary profit. It would be the ptroudest work of which our imperial city could 
 boast, and thousands of her sons thus rescued from degradation and icretched- 
 ness would, in future years " rise up and call her blessed.'^'' 
 
 Dr. Pulling, after exploring the terrors of this over-crowded ward, 
 within a stone's throw of three fourths of the newspaper offices of 
 the city, no doubt thought that Avhoever would start a plan for the 
 relief of humanity there would be bid " God speed." The proposed 
 Elevated Railway is confessedly the first feasible plan proposed, and 
 if Dr. Pulling wants to hear the " blessings," let him read some of 
 the extracts from late articles in the public papers of the city ! But 
 only the closing paragraph of the Doctor's report can be added here. 
 More facts will be found in the Appendix. 
 
 The Doctor proceeds to mention 
 
 The Tenant-House Rot. — The state of physical, mental, and moral decline to 
 which I have adverted, is so well recognized and its causes so well understood, 
 that it has received a name, less elegant than expressive ; it is called the Ten- 
 ant-House Rot. 
 
 Under such influences are reared to-day a large proportion of the future citi- 
 zens of New York, who will control its social and political destinies. Under 
 such influences have been reared a large class, already so numerous as at times 
 to seriously disturb the pubUc peace and to endanger the safety of our social and 
 political fabric. 
 
 The terrible elements of society we saw brought to the surface during a great 
 popular outbreak, are equally in existence at the present moment ; nay, more, 
 they are increasing year by year. The tocsin which next summons them from 
 their dark and noisome haunts may be the prelude to a scene of universal pil- 
 lage, slaughter, and destruction. We must reap that which we sow. Pestilence 
 and crime are fungi of hideous growth, which spring up side by side from such 
 pollution as we allow to rankle in our midst. 
 
 EZRA R. PULLING, M.D., 
 ^ Sanitary Inspector, 
 
18 
 
 Out of 29 inspection districts in the city, the following are selected 
 as representing the actual condition of the lower end of Manhattan 
 Island. 
 
 Statistical Eecapitulation, First District. 
 
 No. of Squares, 64 
 
 " Houses, 
 
 " Front, 1484 ) 
 
 " Rear, 34 ^^^^ 
 
 " Tenant-Houses, 
 
 Front,.. 217 ) 
 Rear,... 24 f "^^^ 
 
 " Drinking Shops, (all kinds,). 423 
 
 No. of Brothels, 40 
 
 Churches, 3 
 
 Chapels, 2 
 
 Schools, 6 
 
 Stables, 
 
 " P^Wic, 5 I 25 
 
 Private, 20 
 
 Statistical Eecapi\ 
 
 Squares...... 33 
 
 " in good sanitary condition, . . 7 
 
 " in mixed " " . . 7 
 
 " in very had " " . . 19 
 
 Houses, 1379 
 
 " private, 242 
 
 " tenant, 607 
 
 " rear, 267 
 
 ion^ Third District. 
 
 Stores, 445 
 
 Liquor shops, 261 
 
 Meat and vegetable markets, 19 
 
 Brothels, 101 
 
 Factories, 27 
 
 Churches, 3 
 
 School-houses, 4 
 
 Stables, 80 
 
 Statistical Recapitulation of Buildings^ {5th District.) 
 
 1 
 
 Front Brick Dwellings. 
 
 Front Frame Dwell- 
 ings. 
 
 Rear Brick Dwellings. 
 
 Rear Frame Dwellings. 
 
 Liquor Stores. 
 
 Grocery and Liquors. 
 
 Miscellaneous Stores. 
 
 Houses of Assignation 
 and Prostitution. 
 
 Stables. 
 
 Oyster Saloons, Fish 
 and Meat Markets. 
 
 Factories. 
 
 Churches. 
 
 Junk Shops. 
 
 1170 
 
 122 
 
 147 
 
 64 
 
 120 
 
 78 
 
 381 
 
 108 
 
 167 
 
 40 
 
 64 
 
 6 
 
 9 
 
 STATISTICS OF SIXTH DISTRICT. 
 
 Whole number 
 of buildings. 
 
 Dwellings. 
 
 Stables. 
 
 Liquor Stores. 
 
 Brothels. 
 
 Stores. 
 
 Manufactories. 
 
 Churches. 
 
 • 
 
 i'ui lie Schools. 
 
 Dispensary. 
 
 Arsenal. 
 
 Asylums. 
 
 Prison. 
 
 Railroad Depot. 
 
 Parks. 
 
 Vacant Lota. 
 
 1380 
 
 182 
 
 43 
 
 406 
 
 29 
 
 528 
 
 117 
 
 6 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 8 
 
AN KI.iHT-STORY TENANT HOUSK IN SIXTH WARD. 
 Photograph Instrument did not reach the ground. 
 
19 
 
 TENANT-HOUSES, BASEMENTS, AND CELLARS IN SIXTH DISTRICT. 
 
 Teaant-houses- 
 
 Rear Tenant-houses. 
 
 Number of Tenements without Fire- 
 1 escape. 
 
 Number of Tenant-houses not connect- 
 ed with any Sewer, 
 
 Number of Tenements in good Sanitary 
 condition. 
 
 NHml)er of Tenements in faulty Sani- 
 tary condition. 
 
 Number of Families in Tenant-houses. 
 
 Average number of Families to each i 
 Tenant-house. | 
 
 Tenement Population, 
 
 Tenement Population with less than 
 300 cubic feet of air. 
 
 Minimum average cubical space to each 
 person in a house on Worth Street. 
 
 Average age of Tenement Poi)ulation, 
 
 Cellar Population. 
 
 Average cubical space to Cellar Popu- 
 lation. 
 
 609 
 
 154 
 
 302 
 
 302 
 
 24 
 
 585 
 
 4400 
 
 n 
 
 23,000 
 
 2720 
 
 cu»io risT. 
 
 122 
 
 TIAKS. 
 
 23 
 
 496 
 
 HIT. 
 
 615 
 
 In Mulberry street, near Chatham Square, is a "model tenant-house" — so called, 
 but really a human packing-house — which in a recent inspection by the Council of 
 Hygiene gave the following statistics ; 
 
 Street and No. of the House. 
 
 5, 7, and 9 Mulberry, front and rear. 
 
 Character and surroundings 
 of the House. 
 
 The old Baptist Church transformed into a Tenant-house. 
 
 No. of Families in the House. 
 
 59. 
 
 No, of Persons in the House. 
 
 313. [With about 400 cubic feet aii>space to each.] 
 
 No. of Children in the House, 
 under 10 years of age. 
 
 48. 
 
 No. of Children that have died 
 during the last year. 
 
 
 Total No, of Deaths at all ages 
 during the y^r. 
 
 15. 
 
 Total No. of persons now Sick 
 and Diseased. 
 
 78. 
 
 The Ratio of total Sickness in 
 total population. 
 
 1 in 4 constantly sick. 
 
 The Ratio total Mortality in 
 population for the year. 
 
 1 in 2bf . 
 
 Remarks, 
 
 Typhus and small-pox have prevailed in this house for sev- 
 eral months past. 
 
 Th.e following Table indicates the comparative growth of New- York ^ by Wards., in decades. 
 
 1T90.'1800' 1810. 1814. 1820. 1835. 18S0. 1885. 1840, 1845. 1850. 1855.,lh«0. 
 
 4,3-2" 
 
 6.44^ 
 
 9.14'' 
 13.076 
 15,394 
 
 7,941 
 8,9431 
 7, 4-26 1 
 10,226 
 14.7441 
 I1,-2S6; 
 l-Al-2tl 
 
 7,630 
 7.439 
 7,495 
 9,856 
 14,523 
 11,821 
 10.886 
 10,702 
 4.343 
 10,8-24 
 
 96,373. 95,519 
 
 12,085 
 8,214 
 9,-20l 
 10,73rt 
 12,421 
 13,30;J 
 13,(KV> 
 13,76t> 
 11,162 
 
 9,929 
 9,315 
 lO.SUl 
 12,240 
 15,093 
 20,061 
 14,19-2 
 24,285 
 1 0,956 
 23,932 
 7,344 
 7,938 
 
 11,^31 
 8,203 
 9,599 
 12,705 
 17,7-22 
 13,570 
 15,873 
 20,7-29 
 17,333 
 16,4.38 
 14,915 
 11,808 
 12,598 
 14,-28« 
 
 10,380 
 7,549 
 10,884 
 11,439 
 18,495 
 14,827 
 21,481 
 08,570 
 20,618 
 20.929 
 26,845 
 24,437 
 17,130 
 17,306 
 
 10,629 
 6,394 
 11,581 
 15,770 
 19,159 
 17,189 
 22,982 
 29,073 
 24,7H5 
 29,0-26 
 17.053 
 11,652 
 18,517 
 20,235 
 17,755 
 2-2,7-23 
 18,619 
 
 12,-2.30 
 6,962 
 11,900 
 21,000 
 20,362 
 19,343 
 25,556 
 30,900 
 30.907 
 20,993 
 27,259 
 13,378 
 2-2, 4 U 
 21,103 
 19,4-2-2 
 40,350 
 27,147 
 
 19,754 
 6,6a5 
 10,355 
 23,2.50 
 
 2- 2,686 
 24,698 
 
 3- 2,690 
 34,612 
 4a657 
 2:},316 
 43,758 
 10.451 
 28,246 
 2.M96 
 2-2,564 
 52.882 
 43,766 
 31,546 
 18,465 
 
 1.3,486 
 3, -249 
 7.909 
 22,895 
 21,617 
 2.5.5*52 
 34,4-22 
 34,052 
 39,9-2 
 26,378 
 52,979 
 17,6.56 
 •26,597 
 24.754 
 24.046 
 39,8-23 
 69,548 
 39,415 
 17,666 
 47,055 
 27,914 
 22,605 
 
 515,547 629,810 
 
20 
 
 The following Table exhibits the domiciliary condition of l!?'ew- 
 York City on 1st January, 1865, verified by two distinct surveys ; 
 
 Statistical Summary of the Tenant-Hoiises and Cellars^ and the Distrihution 
 and Statistics of their Population^ etc., in the City of New-Yorlc, at the 
 close of the year 1864. 
 
 
 
 
 a 
 
 
 .a 
 
 
 
 ca 
 
 
 
 nt-houses. 
 
 ilies in Ter 
 
 Families i 
 
 in Tenan 
 
 ion in eac 
 
 g 
 
 n Cellars an 
 
 enant-house 
 
 n Unsewere 
 
 WARDS. 
 
 c 
 
 S3 
 
 o 
 
 c 
 .2 
 
 
 
 C o5 
 
 
 a 
 
 
 
 
 6 i 
 
 % 
 
 3 
 
 o 
 
 o ^ 
 
 '■5 3 
 
 . 
 
 O ^ 
 
 .2 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 a 
 
 
 .2 
 
 .2 o 
 
 m 
 
 % 
 "3 
 
 
 d 
 
 
 tc ^ 
 
 H 
 
 be "3 
 
 
 
 O 
 
 ^ o 
 .a 
 
 Pop 
 uses. 
 
 
 3 
 
 o 
 
 otal 
 ant 
 
 So 
 
 otal 
 hou 
 
 2§ 
 
 
 otal 
 Ter 
 
 otal 
 wit 
 
 otal 
 Ho 
 
 
 
 H 
 
 < 
 
 
 
 
 H 
 
 H 
 
 
 
 
 First 
 
 250 
 
 2,181 
 
 8i 
 
 8,564 
 
 34i + 
 
 498 
 
 9,062 
 
 89 
 
 2,606 
 
 
 54 
 
 810 
 
 5| 
 
 1,248 
 
 
 57 
 
 1,305 
 
 28 
 
 640 
 
 
 486 
 
 3,636 
 
 
 17,611 
 
 35^ -f- 
 
 846 
 
 17,957 
 
 151 
 
 4,473 
 
 
 462 
 
 2,597 
 
 
 10,370 
 
 24f + 
 
 886 
 
 11,206 
 
 298 
 
 5,796 
 
 
 605 
 
 4,406 
 
 
 22,401 
 
 34^— 
 
 496 
 
 22,897 
 
 214 
 
 6,612 
 
 
 627 
 
 4,586 
 
 n 
 
 19,293 
 
 30|. 
 
 1,233 
 
 20,526 
 
 409 
 
 10,953 
 
 
 625 
 
 8,977 
 
 
 15,630 
 
 25 -f 
 
 1,258 
 
 16,888 
 
 802 
 
 6,530 
 
 
 696 
 
 3,836 
 
 6i 
 
 14,955 
 
 25tV 
 
 217 
 
 15,172 
 
 208 
 
 4,485 
 
 
 534 
 
 4,487 
 
 9 
 
 18,140 
 
 34— 
 
 458 
 
 18,583 
 
 110 
 
 2,953 
 
 
 2,049 
 
 13,433 
 
 
 64,254 
 
 
 1,366 
 
 65,620 
 
 403 
 
 10,026 
 
 
 540 
 
 3,729 
 
 6| 
 
 14,997 
 
 271 
 
 989 
 
 15,936 
 
 215 
 
 5,089 
 
 
 546 
 
 4,509 
 
 8i 
 
 20,008 
 
 36f 
 
 417 
 
 20,425 
 
 207 
 
 6,203 
 
 
 197 
 
 1,358 
 
 7 
 
 4.970 
 
 25— 
 
 235 
 
 5,205 
 
 72 
 
 1,237 
 
 
 1,257 
 
 7,088 
 
 5f 
 
 31,500 
 
 25 + 
 
 2,150 
 
 33,650 
 
 300 
 
 7,107 
 
 Seventeenth 
 
 1,890 
 
 15,974 
 
 8i 
 
 63,766 
 
 34f + 
 
 2,441 
 
 66,207 
 
 155 
 
 4,596 
 
 
 836 
 
 7,267 
 
 8| 
 
 35,869 
 
 426- 
 
 230 
 
 36,099 
 
 98 
 
 3,766 
 
 
 571 
 
 3,682 
 
 ^ 
 
 16,067 
 
 28^ 
 
 205 
 
 16,272 
 
 81 
 
 1,912 
 
 
 1,162 
 
 8,844 
 
 n 
 
 32,205 
 
 271 
 
 1,013 
 
 83,218 
 
 291 
 
 7,968 
 
 Twenty-First .... 
 
 1,026 
 
 7,299 
 
 7 
 
 36,675 
 
 85f— 
 
 135 
 
 36,870 
 
 144 
 
 4,491 
 
 Twenty-Second. . . 
 
 996 
 
 7,714 
 
 
 31,845 
 
 82— 
 
 699 
 
 82,544 
 
 162 
 
 8,233 
 
 This Table presents? the Statistics of Tenant-Houses, as reported by the Sanitary In- 
 spectors of the Council of Hygiene, and verified in a recent inspection by the Metropoli- 
 tan Police. . 
 
 The total number of tenant-houses, none of which contain less than three families, 
 who hire their apartments by monthly or very brief periods of rental, is 15,511. This 
 exceeds, by 202, the number which the Council of Hygiene as well as the Metropolitan 
 Police has elsewhere given. 
 
 The total population of these tenant-houses at the time of last inspection, was 486,000 
 
 The total population in cellars was 15,224 
 
 Total in tenant-houses and in cellars 501,224 
 
 NoTK. — The Sanitary Inspectors of the Twelfth Ward report that there are 202 ten- 
 ant-houses of the larger class (averaging more than six families in a house) in that Ward. 
 In the same Ward there are 643 inhabited shanties, and 710 other tenements of a poor 
 class, but not having three families each, consequently not counted in the statistics of 
 tenant-houses. 
 
21 
 
 Drs. Mott, Parker, Delafield, Smith, Draper, and twenty associate 
 physicians give the following extracts in their report as worthy ot 
 perusal ; and Messrs. James Brown, Alexander T. Stewart^ Edward 
 S. JalFray, Peter Cooper, J. J. Astor, and twenty leading citizens, 
 publish and indorse them as true. 
 
 Remarks of the Press. 
 
 Says a writer in the Evening Pout : " The tenant-house has become one of the insti- 
 tutions of this city ; to build and own these barracks is a profitable speculation, in which 
 men of honorable lives and kind hearts embark their means, and do not think them- 
 selves disgraced ; yet we are told that the rents demanded are so enormous that from 
 twenty to thirty-five per cent are not uncommon returns for such ventures. Many of 
 our readers have but a vague notion of what a tenant-house or ' barracks ' is. It is 
 commonly a structure of rough brick, standing upon a lot twenty-five by one hundred 
 feet ; it is from four to six stories high, and is so divided internally as to contain four 
 families on each floor — each family eating, drinking, sleeping, cooking, washing, and 
 fighting in a room eight feet by ten, and a bed-room six feet by ten ; unless, indeed — 
 •which very frequently happens, says Mr. Halliday — the family renting these two rooms 
 takes in another family to board, or sub-lets one room to one or even two other families ! 
 
 " Many houses used for this purpose of ' herding ' families together were built for 
 other uses ; more recently, however, others have been built especially for this use. One 
 of the largest of these ' barracks ' has apartments for one hundred and twenty-six fami- 
 lies ! It stands on a lot fifty by two hundred and fifty feet, is entered at the sides from 
 alleys eight feet, wide, and, by reason of the vicinity of another barrack of equal height, 
 the rooms are so darkened that on a cloudy day it is impossible to read or sew in them 
 without artificial light. It has not one room which can in any way be thoroughly venti- 
 lated. The vaults and sewers which are to carry off the filth of one hundred and twenty- 
 six families have grated openings in the alleys, and door-ways in the cellars, through 
 which the noisome and deadly miasmata penetrate and poison the dank air of the house 
 and the courts. The water-closets for the whole vast establishment are a range of stalls 
 without doors, and accessible not only from the building, but even from the street. Com- 
 fort is here out of the question ; common decency has been rendered impossible ; and the 
 horrible brutalities of the passenger ship are day after day repeated — but on a larger 
 scale." See engraving from a photographic view of the court and barracks here de- 
 scribed ; page opposite. 
 
 Lamentations of the Clergy. 
 
 The philanthropic and thoughtful Rector of St. Luke's Hospital, Rev. Dr. Muhlen- 
 berg, whose life and teachings present an instructive example of successful effort for im- 
 proving the welfare of the poor and suffering classes in New- York, in a recent appeal on 
 behalf of the moral interests of those classes, says : " Look at those quarters of your 
 city where the people herd by fifties and by hundreds in a house, street after street. Look 
 at them huddled together in narrow rooms, with surroundings and effluvia where a half- 
 hour's stay would sicken you. See places which might rather be stalls or sties than hu- 
 man abodes. Look at the swarms of children in the streets, on the stoops, at the windows, 
 half-naked or in unwashed rags. See the crowds of rough, half-grown boys in knots at 
 the corners, quick at all sorts of wickedness, loud in foulness and blasphemy, the ready 
 and the worst element of your riots. Mark the looks and the talk of the populace of 
 the dram-shops, and then the exhibition of godlessness, drunkenness, and licentiousness 
 on the Lord's day, turning it, I had almost said, into Satan's day. And why do I ask 
 you to look at such a revolting state of things among those thousands of your neigh- 
 bors ? In the hope that aught which you or I can do will better it ? To propose any 
 scheme for its material improvement ? Alas, no. The evil is too gigantic for any grasp 
 of reform at all conceivable. It calls for legislative interference ; and that, could any 
 prcLcticahle mode of melioration be shoicn^ would call for more public virtue than exists. 
 This massing of human beings, prolific of those vices and miseries, is profitable to too 
 many pockets. The exorbitant rents of the smallest dens or of the larger tenements 
 swell the gains of landlords, who have the plea for any amount of rapacity that they only 
 meet a demand." 
 
 How rejoiced will Dr. Muhlenberg and all clergymen be to know 
 that the " scheme for material improvement," which he declares his 
 
22 
 
 inability to propose in so pathetic terms, is at last devised theoreti- 
 cally in the Elevated Railway. The inventor proposes what the 
 merchants, the physicians, and clergy could not. Shall it be tried ? 
 For further interesting facts on the subject the reader is referred to 
 the Appendix. 
 
 The terrible evils depicted in the preceding pages can he success- 
 fully and permane7itly ameliorated by improved railway transpor- 
 tation^ and not othericise. 
 
 It is demonstrated with geographical and business reason why 
 working men engaged in New- York business can not live olF from the 
 island, and that their available living quarters are very limited be- 
 tween Broadway and the East and North Rivers ; that the same are 
 being annually and inevitably narrowed by the encroachments of 
 stores and warehouses, extending northward from the docks and 
 cross business streets, and eastward and westward from Broadway 
 and finally that their escape is cut off by the belt of high-priced land 
 where the rich reside, extending across the island from Fourteenth 
 street to Central Park. 
 
 With these premises, the following conclusion is inevitable : The 
 crowding of the iDorking men'^s quarters can only be relieved by quick 
 and cheap transit from their loorkshops^ through the belt of high- 
 priced land, to new localities on the n&t^thern end of the island, or 
 to the convenient adjacent localities on the main land, or contiguous 
 points on Long Island. Drs. Mott, Draper, Parker, and their asso- 
 ciates intimate that this is the only solution of the difficulty, and no 
 intelligent reader or observer can doubt it. 
 
 There is vacant available, low-priced land enough on the upper 
 part of the island, at Harlem, Yorkville, and across the narrow Har- 
 lem Creek or River, in Morrisania, to accommodate all the working 
 men below Fourteenth street, and let them live in single houses not 
 over two stories high for the next century. There are plenty of 
 land-owners who would be glad to build the houses and rent them 
 to the working men ; so cheaply that the saving in rent icould pay 
 their railway fare the year round ! 
 
 Why is this vacant land not occupied, but consuming its owners 
 with taxes, while thousands are pining to make it a fortune to the 
 owners and a blessing to themselves ? 
 
 The answer is — 
 
 Because the mea?is of transit is too slow, too crcyioded, and too un- 
 certain between the upper and lower ends of the island, and no me- 
 chanic who has to work ten hours a day can trust o?* afford it. 
 
 Every body knows that the only inland way to get to Harlem is by 
 the horse-cars. The fare is cheap enough — five to seven cents. People 
 would often like to pay more for better accommodation, but it is ar- 
 
23 
 
 bitrarily fixed by law. The time made by these cars, under favor- 
 able circumstances, is from four to five miles an hour. At the hours 
 in the day when passengers flow like a tide to and from business 
 localities, they are crowded ; so that a car which seats twenty-two 
 people, sometimes has fifty or sixty crammed into it or clinging to 
 the platforms. In such case no one is sure of a seat, but may be 
 obliged to stand up in a painful position the entire distance, if able 
 to get on to the car at all. Then he stands the chance of being next 
 to a pickpocket, and be relieved of his wallet with his hard earnings, 
 of which one hundred thousand dollars is estimated as stolen on the 
 Third and Fourth Avenue cars alone annually. But in the revolving 
 seasons, winter comes, and there is a heavy snow-storm, and four 
 reeking horses fail to haul one car at the rate of two miles an hour, 
 if at all. Then the clerk, mechanic, or other employe may have to 
 walk, and lose an hour, and be discharged for want of promptness at 
 bis place of business. It is self-evident that the fatigue, the risk, the 
 loss of time thus involved can be sustained but by wealthy employ- 
 ers or persons not regularly emjjloyed, and the masses are cut ofl". 
 Thus the dense population and the crying evils of the lower wards is 
 mainly owing to the want of better transit more than to any other 
 single cause. For farther details see Appendix. 
 
 LAWS AND LEGAL OPINIONS. 
 
 LEGISLATIVE AUTHORITY. 
 An Act supplementary to the Act entitled "An Act to authorize the formation 
 
 OF RAILROAD CORPORATIONS, AND TO REGULATE THE SAME," PASSED APRIL 2d, 1850. 
 
 Passed April 20, 1866. 
 
 The People of the State of Neva- York ^ represented in Senate and Assembly^ do enact 
 as follows : 
 
 Sec. 1. It shall be lawful for any number of persons, not less than ten, to form 
 themselves into a company, for constructing, maintaining, and operating a railway for 
 public use, in the conveyance of persons and property, by means of a propelling rope or 
 cable attached to a stationary power ; and upon compliance with the provisions of the 
 first three sections of the act to which this is supplementary, they shall become a body 
 corporate and politic, according to the provisions of said act; provided, that the direct- 
 ors of any such company may be limited to any number not less than five, and to be spe- 
 cified in the articles of association. 
 
 § 2. Any such company may style itself by the name of the inventor or patentee 
 of the particular method of propulsion used, together with such local designation as the 
 associates may deem desirable ; and shall, by such name set forth in their articles of 
 association, have and enjoy all the powers and privileges, and be subject to the liabilities 
 mentioned in the aforesaid act, passed April 2d, 1850, so far as the same are comprised 
 in the first twenty-six sections and the twenty-eighth section thereof. 
 
 § 3. Companies formed under the provisions of this supplementary act may fix and 
 collect rates of fare on their respective roads, not exceeding five cents for each mile, 
 or any fraction of a mile, for each passenger, and "with right to a minimum fare of ten 
 cents. 
 
 § 4. It shall be lawful for any company formed under this act to construct and ope- 
 rate and maintain a road or roads in any other State or country in "which the same does 
 
24 
 
 not conflict with the' laws of such State or country; provided the assent of the invent- 
 ors or patentees are first obtained in the same manner and extent as would be necessary 
 within the United States. 
 
 § 5. . , . ( Provides for extending existing charter of all Railroad Companies.) 
 
 § 6. This act shall take effect immmediately. 
 
 The following are the most important provisions of the first 26 
 
 and 28th sections reenacted for such railways by the above law. 
 
 § 28. Every corporation formed under this act shall, in addition to the powers con- 
 ferred on corporations in the third title of the eighteenth chapter of the first part of 
 the Revised Statutes, have power — 
 
 1. To cause such examination and surveys for its proposed railroad to be made, as 
 may be necessary to the selection of the most advantageous route ; and for such pur- 
 pose, by its officers or agents and servants, to enter upon the lands or waters of any 
 person, but subject to responsibility for all damages which shall be done thereto. 
 
 2. To take and hold such voluntary grants of real estate and other property as shall 
 be made to it, to aid in the construction, maintenance, and accommodation of its rail- 
 road ; but the real estate received by voluntary grant shall be held and used for the 
 purposes of such grant only. 
 
 3. To purchase, hold, and use all such real estate and other property as may be neces- 
 sary for the construction and maintenance of its railroad, and the stations and other 
 accommodations necessary to accomplish the objects of its incorporation. 
 
 4. To lay out its road not exceeding six rods in width, and to construct the same ; 
 and for the purposes of cuttings and embankments, to take as much more land as may 
 be necessary for the proper construction and security of the road, and to cut down any 
 standing trees that may be in danger of falling on the road, making compensation 
 therefor as provided in this act for lands taken for the use of the company. 
 
 5. To comtruct their road across, along, or upon any stream of water, water-course^ 
 street, highway, plank-road, ticrnpike or canal which the route of this road shall inter- 
 sect or touch ; but the company shall restore the stream or water-course, street, highway, 
 plank-road and turnpike thus intersected or touched, to its former state, or to such 
 state as not unnecessarily to have impaired its usefulness. Every company formed under 
 this act shall be subject to the power vested in the canal commissioners by the seven- 
 teenth section of chapter two hundred and seventy-six of the session laws of eigliteen 
 hundred and thirty-four. Nothing in this act contained shall be construed to authorize 
 the erection of any bridge, or any other obstructions across, in, or over any stream or 
 lake navigated by steam or sail-boats, at the place where any bridge or other obstruc- 
 tion may be proposed to be placed ; 7ior to authorize the construction of any railroad not 
 already located in, upon^ or across any streets in any city, without the consent of the cor- 
 poration of such city. 
 
 7. To take and convey persons and property on their railroad by the power or force 
 of steam or of animals, or by any mechanical power, and to receive compensation therefor. 
 
 8. To erect and maintain all necessary and convenient buildings, stations, fixtures, and 
 machinery for the accommodation and use of their passengers, freights, and business. 
 
 9. To regulate the time and manner in which passengers and property shall be trans- 
 ported, and the compensation to be paid therefor; but such compensation, for any pas- 
 senger and his ordinary baggage, shall not exceed three cents per mile. 
 
 10. From time to time to borrow such sums of money as may be necessary for com- 
 pleting and finishing or operating their railroad, and to issue and dispose of their bonds 
 for any amount so borrowed, and to mortgage their corporate property and franchises 
 to secure the payment of any debt contracted by the company for the purposes afore- 
 said ; and the directors of the company may confer on any holder of any bond issued 
 for money borrowed as aforesaid, the right to convert the principal due or owing there- 
 on, into stock of said company, at any time not exceeding ten years from the date of 
 the bond, under such regulations as the directors may see fit to adopt. 
 
 LEGAL OPINIONS. 
 
 The legal effect of the law was examined by Hon. J. S. Bosworth, 
 one of the Police Commissioners of New-York, and ex-Judge of the 
 
 Superior Court, and extracts are as follows : 
 
 -rs 11 A XX X o New- York, May 1866. 
 
 E. C. Delavan, Esq., Attorney, etc. — Dear Sir : ' 
 
 I have considered the questions upon which my opinion is sought in respect to the 
 
 right of a corporation created under the act of the Legislature of the State of New- 
 
25 
 
 York, passed April 20th, 1866, " An Act Supplementary to the Act entitled * An Act to 
 authorize the formation of Railroad Corporations, and to regulate the same, passed 
 April 2d, 1850."' 
 
 (Session Laws of 1850, p. 211.) 
 
 Railroad companies formed under and in accordance with the provisions of Chapter 
 140, of the Laws of 1850, may construct their roads " upon or across any streets in any 
 city," upon obtaining the assent of the corporation of such city, lawfully given. Laws 
 of 1850, p. 211 and p. 294, sec. 28, sub. 5. 
 
 When that act was passed, the common councils of cities had no restraints upon 
 their giving this assent, if, in the exercise of their discretion, they deemed the contem- 
 plated road worthy of their assent ; and if $he assent was given in a mode that con- 
 formed to every thing essential to a valid act on the part of that body, ihe right of the 
 railroad company to comtruct the road iipoii or across any street embraced within the as- 
 sent given, must be perfect. 
 
 The Act of April 4th, 1854, (Chap. 141,) imposes a limitation upon the previously 
 imrestricted discretion of the common council of a city to permit a railroad to be con- 
 structed in any of the streets of such a city. But this limitation upon the exercise of its 
 discretion, or upon its absolute capacity to give a legal and valid assent or permit, applies 
 only to a road which commences and ends in said city. 
 
 The Act of January 10th, 18G0, (Chap. 10,) enacts that 
 
 1. It shall not be lawful hereafter to lay, construct, or operate any railroad in, 
 upon, or along any or either of the streets or avenues of the city of New-York, wherever 
 such railroad may commence or end, except under the authority and subject to the reg- 
 ulations and restrictions which the Legislature may hereafter grant or provide. 
 
 " § 2. All acts and parts of acts inconsistent with this act are hereby abolished." 
 
 The Legislature, in the Act of April 20th, 18G6, in the second section thereof, ex- 
 pressly declares and enacts that the company which that act authorizes to be formed 
 shall have and enjoy all the powers and privileges, and be subject to the liabilities men- 
 tioned in the aforesaid Act of April 2d, 1850, " so far as the same are comprised in the 
 first twenty-six, and the twenty-eighth sections thereof," which confer in the most 
 unqualified manner the power to lay and operate a railroad along the streets of any city 
 in the State, without any exception whatever, upon obtaining the " assent of the corpora- 
 tion of such city." 
 
 It was because they conferred such power that the passage of the Act of 1860 was 
 necessary, in order to take away such power from any company organized under the 
 Act of April 2d, 1850, without special act of the Legislature. 
 
 The Act of April 20th, 18G6, grants to the company which it authorizes to be 
 formed that power as fully and also as lately as the Act of April 2d, 1850, conferred it 
 upon the companies formed under and according to the last-mentioned Act. 
 
 The authority thus conferred by the Act of April 20th, 1866, is granted by the Legis- 
 lature itself It is competent to grant such authority, and it seems to me to be a ne- 
 cessary conclusion that the companies authorized by the Act of April 20th, 1866, when 
 duly formed, may construct and operate their road as and where any companies organ- 
 ized under the Act of April 2d, 1850, might have constructed a road. 
 
 It is proposed to construct the contemplated railroad (if my information in regard 
 thereto be correct) so that the railroad when built, will not come within the mischief 
 contemplated by sec. 25, sub. 5, of the Act of April 2d, 1850, or the Act of 1860, 
 Chap. 3, provided a road should be laid and operated without the previous assent of the 
 corporation of a city which it might enter or traverse. It is not proposed to lay this 
 railroad track in or upon or along the surface of any street or avenue. If so, it will 
 not, when finished and in operation, interfere in any manner with the passage of car- 
 riages or other vehicles, or with foot-passengers in or upon the streets. It does not, 
 therefore, come literally within the provisions requiring the assent of the city corpo- 
 ration, or within the prohibition contained in Chap. 10 of the Laws of 1860. It may be 
 within the spirit of them, and the assent of the corporation of the city should be ob- 
 tained, and it is desirable that the grant of such assent should receive the votes of two 
 thirds of the Common Council, Very respectfully yours, 
 
 J. S. BOSWORTH. 
 
 The above opinion fully concurred in. 
 
 Ex-Judge] L. B. WOODRUFF, 
 Ex-Judge] EDWARDS PIERREPONT. 
 
 It is difficult to select three judges wliose opinions will be more 
 confidently relied on as sound and impartial, by the citizens of New- 
 
26 
 
 York, or treated with more respect by its Bar, than those of Judges 
 Bosworth, Woodruff, and Pierrepont. 
 
 The impression has been entertained that the action of the Senate 
 of the session ol 1866 had taken action by a resolution conflicting 
 with the law passed for authorizing the Patent Railways, but ex- 
 amination does not reveal any grounds for such conclusion. The 
 resolution as passed by the Senate, is as follows : 
 
 The Senate of the State of New-York, on the twentieth of April last, 
 
 adopted the following resolution : 
 
 Resolved^ That a select committee of three be appointed to sit during the recess, with 
 the Mayor of New-York, the State Engineer, and the Engineer of the Croton Board, to 
 ascertain and report to the Senate the most advantageous and proper route or routes for 
 a railway or railways suited to the rapid transportation of passengers from the upper to 
 the lower portion of the city of New-York, having in view the greatest practical benefit 
 and safety to the public, and the least loss and injury to property on or adjacent to said 
 route or routes. 
 
 It will be at once noticed that the resolution does not speak of 
 plans, but of routes. They could, of course, incidentally consider 
 plans as adapted to the routes, but the location was evidently the 
 point on which the honorable Senate desired information particularly* 
 This evinced sound discretion on the part of the author of the reso- 
 lution, as it indicated that a more thorough system and multiplicity 
 of routes was contemj^lated^ which had not been proposed to the con- 
 sideration of the Legislature — JBroadioay being the beginning and 
 the end of the speculative plans and routes heretofore submitted for 
 improved transit on Manhattan Island. 
 
 Legislation Wise and Consistent. 
 
 When it is considered that the law of April 20, 1866, was 
 passed at the request of the Patentees, and provides for the forma- 
 tion of companies to operate in foreign countries, would it have been 
 r> roper for the Legislature to have enacted that the city of New- 
 York should use the plan, nolens volens ? Every paper in this city 
 would have cried out against it and accused the Legislature of be- 
 coming a vender of patent rights ! On the contrary, the Legisla- 
 ture gave permission to the Corporation of New-York City to assent 
 to its introduction if it chose to, and one branch of the Legislature 
 appointed a committee to look out the routes, where, if necessary, 
 the Legislature might hereafter, if the Council did not act, authorize 
 railways which should accommodate the masses : as the Senate might 
 reasonably infer that the Broadway route did not. Thus the Legis- 
 lature and Senate have each acted judiciously with a view to the 
 best interests of New-York City. So has the Common Council, and 
 their action would be indorsed by nine tenths of the voters of the 
 city at once if the question could be decided at the city ballot-boxes. 
 
27 
 
 THE MECHANICAL FEATURES OF THE PROPOSED 
 PATENT WIRE-ROPE RAILWAY. 
 
 This is an elevated railway, on which the cars are propelled by- 
 wire ropes, attached to stationary engines placed below the surface 
 of the street. The advantages of this plan are — 
 
 1st. That it creates no new obstructions in the streets, or any more 
 than now exist in the shape of lamp-posts and awning-posts and 
 frames. 
 
 2d. There is no extraordinary noise connected with the motion of 
 the cars which would be noticed over the usual " din " in the streets. 
 
 3d. There is no oil, cinders, smoke, dust, or fire caused, which 
 on all other elevated railways would be a nuisance in the streets. 
 
 4th. In the opinion of eminent engineers, the safety of passengers 
 would be entirely secured by a proper construction of a single track 
 over each curbstone line upon a single row of columns, provided the 
 track could be staid properly against oscillation, which could be 
 done by bracing against buildings where the owners would consent, 
 or by attachment to a second row of small columns near the build- 
 ings, at wide intervals, which the Council properly proposed to per- 
 mit when owners should refuse, provided no obstruction was thereby 
 caused to the adjoining buildings. 
 
 5th. Ko damage can be done in the streets, for the surface is not to 
 be obstructed ; or under the streets, because the Croton Board are 
 vested, under the resolution of the Council, with power to prevent 
 any injury to the public pipes or sewers ; or to persons, because the 
 State law provides that, while the constructing Company " may, by 
 its officers, or agents, or servants, enter upon the lands or Avaters of 
 any person, but subject to responsibility for all damages which shall 
 he done thereto,^'' (which it is elsewljhere provided shall be ascertained 
 by and paid into the Supreme Court before such entry.) 
 
 Then, the mechanical reasons why it should be at least tried, are 
 
 1st. A railway with a similar motiv^power was erected in London 
 and was a success, and profitably used for several years. Cars were 
 run on it at the rate of twenty mile^ |ai hour Avith entire safety. It 
 was discontinued because, being on the ground, it was in the way ol 
 other improvements, and because it used a single length of rope for 
 the whole distance of several consecutive miles. This same power is 
 also used with great success in Pennsylvania, and most of the Lehigh 
 coal comes over such a road which uses a rope nearly a mile long, 
 and roads are reported which use them two miles long to great ad- 
 vantage. But in the proposed road in New-York these lengths could 
 not be used, because the rope of a size commensurate with such 
 length would be too clumsy and noisy. The Patentee of the new 
 
28 
 
 method comes before the public with a plan by which short lengths 
 of small wire can be used for the same purpose, and by ingenious 
 contriv^ances made to drive a car just as fast and safely with a steel 
 wire, half an inch in diameter, as the English used to do with a 
 rope five times as thick. 
 
 2d. The plan was recommended to the Council by the highest 
 references. 
 
 The first capitalist, so far as known, who entertained the plan as 
 feasible for Broadway, was that public-spirited citizen, Peter Cooper, 
 Esq., who needs no title to introduce him to the public! 
 
 He has recently sent to the Patentee the drawing of a plan for an 
 Elevated Railway on Broadway (to be run by a wire rope) first agi- 
 tated in 184G-7. 
 
 The projector states in a circular accompanying it that he devoted several years to 
 the study of the system. To give the reader an idea of the plan, an exact copy with 
 explanations are given on an opposite page. No one will accuse the patentee of copying 
 the present plan from that ! Although it is five times as cumbersome and complicated 
 a structure as that now authorized by the Council, it received the indorsement of the 
 Special Committee of the Mechanics' Institute, who examined the plans and working 
 model, and say in their report (March, 1848): "Their doubts of the practicability of 
 such a plan have been removed. Every objection which the ingenuity of your com- 
 mittee could raise has been met, and your Committee has been irresistibly compelled to 
 agree that this plan furnishes all the desiderata which the necessities of Broadway and 
 the convenience of our citizens demand," The projector proposed to erect an experi- 
 mental working-section around the Crystal Palace in 1853, and to obtain a charter to 
 build it in Broadway and the Bowery. It is announced that Wm. B. Astor, Esq., James 
 Boerman, Esq., Peter Cooper, Esq., Dudley S. Gregory, Esq., A. St. John, Esq., and 
 Professor Mapes are among those who subscribed to the project. This shows what 
 the solid men of that day thought of it, and the Directors learn that the experimental 
 section was actually erected at the expense of the above-named gentlemen and others, 
 around the Crystal Palace, and was destroyed by the fire which burnt the Palace, before 
 it was ready for use. The idea was thus deferred and has slept for twenty years ! How 
 a small matter sometimes delays great results ! 
 
 For instance, the application of steam to locomotive engines was suggested in 1759 
 by Dr. Robison, then a student in the University of Glasgow, to James Watt, the im- 
 mortal inventor of steam power, and whose low-pressure stationary ehgines, the most 
 economical and ingenious of any, have never been materially improved upon from that 
 time to this. Some casual matter turned Watts's mind off from the subject, and the 
 world had to wait seventy years until George Stephenson built and tried the locomotive 
 "Rocket" in 1828-9. 
 
 Xext was William M. Gillespie, LL.D, C. E., Professor of Civil 
 Engineering in Union College^and who, in his Mamial of the Prin- 
 ciples and Practice of Constrwcting Roads and Railroads, used as a 
 text-book for colleges, and first printed in 184'7, and of which A. S. 
 Barnes & Co., of 51 John street, publish in 1866 the ninth edition, 
 on i^age 431 says : 
 
 " A RAILROAD WORKED BY A STATIONARY ENGINE WOULD BE THE MOST CONVENIENT 
 METHOD OF RELIEVING THE RUSH OF TRAVEL THROUGH BrOADWAY. ThE RAILROAD TRACK 
 SHOULD BE SUPPORTED ON IRON COLUMNS, OUT OF THE WAY OF CARRIAGES, AS IN THE 
 
 FIGURE, These columns might be placed on the edges of the sidewalks, where 
 
 NOW ARE the lamp AND AWNING-POSTS ; AND BY EXTENDING OVER THE GUTTER THEY 
 WOULD HAVE A BASE OP THREE FEET. ThEIR LOWER EXTREMITIES SHOULD BE SET IN 
 HEAVY MASSES OP MASONRY. At TOP THEY SHOULD SPREAD OUTWARD A FOOT ON EACH 
 
t 
 
 9 
 
29 
 
 SIDE, WHICH WOULD GITE SUFFICIENT WIDTH FOR THE RAILROAD TRACK. ThE COLUMNS 
 SHOULD BE SET AT DISTANCES OF FIFTEEN OR TWENTY FEET, AND CONNECTED BY FLAT 
 
 ARCHES. There would be no flooring over the street, and the rails would in- 
 tercept NO more light than do the boards which now connect the awning- 
 posts. Xo locomotives, or even horses, would pass over the road ; BUT AN end- 
 less rope WOULD continually RUN OYER PULLEYS, AND LIGHT CARS WOULD BE UNDER 
 THE MOST PERFECT CONTROL, AND COULD BE ATTACHED TO IT, OR DISENGAGED, AT WILL, 
 AND STOPPED MORE EASILY THAN AN ORDINARY OMNIBUS. At THE UPPER END OF BROAD- 
 WAY, A STATIONARY ENGINE, OR THE WATER POWER OF THE CrOTON, WOULD EASILY 
 AND CHEAPLY KEEP UP THE CIRCULATION, WHICH WOULD PASS UP ONE SIDE OF THE 
 STREET AND DOWN THE OTHER. At EACH CORNER MIGHT BE A PLATFORM, TO WHICH 
 THERE WOULD BE A SHORT FLIGHT OF STEPS FROM THE SIDEWALK, THE ASCENT OF WHICH 
 WOCLD BE VERY EASY ; OR A CERTAIN NUMBER OF CORNER HOUSES MIGHT BE USED AS 
 DEPOTS, SO THAT PASSENGERS MIGHT STEP INTO THE CARS FROM THEIR SECOND STORY 
 WINDOWS. A RAILROAD ON THE SURFACE OF THE GROUND, WITH ITS CONTINUAL STREAM 
 OF CARS STOPPING UP THE CROSS STREETS EVERY MINUTE, WOULD CREATE A WORSE EVIL 
 THAN THAT IT WAS INTENDED TO REMEDY, AND AN ENDLESS ROPE COULD NOT BE APPLIED 
 TO IT. If a railroad were made THROUGH A SECONDARY STREET, PASSENGERS WOCLD 
 NOT GENERALLY LEAVE BrOADWAY TO AVAIL THEMSELVES OF IT. A SURFACE RAILROAD 
 BEING THUS OUT OF THE QUESTION, TWO ALTERNATIVES REMAIN. ThE UNDERGROUND 
 ONE WILL FIND FEW ADVOCATES ; AND THE ONLY FEASIBLE ARRANGEMENT SEEMS TO BE 
 
 THE Column and Endless chain system." 
 
 Here the Common Council has the sanction of the liighest Col- 
 legiate talent in this country that their plan is the only feasible ar- 
 rangement. Comparing the sectional view of Gillespie's plan of the 
 supporting columns with that authorized by the Council, the reader 
 will see that the latter is an improvement. (See engraving.) 
 
 PLAN" APPROVED BY EXGINEERS. 
 But the Council had also before them the original recommenda- 
 tions of well-known and distinguished Engineers, which were written 
 for exhibition to the Legislative Committees prior to the passage of 
 the desired law relating to such railways, as follows : 
 
 For Railroad Committee of the Senate of the \ Albany, March, 1866. 
 
 State of Xew-York. j 
 Having examined drawings and models of an elevated railway on which the cars are 
 to be propelled by means of a cable or wire rope attached to a stationary engine, we are 
 impressed with the novelty and practicability of the method proposed, and think it wor- 
 thy of a suitable enabling act from the Legislature, to permit the formation of compa- 
 nies to use it, and also of the attention of capitalists in reference to the actual construc- 
 tion of the same. I. P. Goodsell, State Engineer of New-York. 
 
 "William B, Taylor, Ex-State Engineer of New-York. 
 
 Am AS A Stone, Jr., President C. and E. R. R.* 
 
 Erastus Corning. 
 
 To the above was also attached the following : 
 
 Office Croton Aqueduct, New- York, ) 
 March 9, 1866. \ 
 I have examined a model (as above referred to) shown to me by the Patentee, and 
 think his arrangement much superior to any other plan I have seen, on inclined planes 
 and other localities where stationary power is used. A. W. €raven, 
 
 Chief-Engineer Croton Aqueduct. 
 
 The Legislature considered the foregoing indorsements so satisfac- 
 tory and influential, that it almost unanimously passed the law which 
 they recommended, and authorized such roads in any city in the State. 
 
 * Mr. stone is the Directing Constructor of the Union Depot at Cleveland, the largest and most 
 admirable building of the kind in this country. 
 
30 
 
 jRival Plans. 
 
 Owing to the present laws of the State of iSTew-York, the Legis- 
 lature is the only competent authority for permitting the construct- 
 ing of any railways in the city of New- York. 
 
 Every new horse-railway is authorized by enactment of State laws. 
 Hence, all plans proposed for improved transit in the city are, more 
 or less, prominently urged before the House and Senate Comniittees 
 at Albany. 
 
 On reference to the acts and records of the Legislature the follow- 
 ing are found to have attracted most attention : 
 1st. The Underground, Broadway. 
 2d. The Surface, Broadway. 
 3d. The Midblock, Broadway. 
 4th. The Locomotive, Broadway, Elevated. 
 
 These might all be disposed of summarily, by objecting that they 
 are intended solely for Broadway ; and if they are located there, 
 tcould not relieve the loorking class to an extent worth mentioning. 
 
 Broadway is looked upon as the only main street not occupied with 
 horse railway-tracks, the travel upon which is immense ; and almost 
 any plan would pay as between the Battery and Union Square, which 
 would not be thought of on a side street, or for the length of the is- 
 land. The " tenement-house rot" would not be sensibly affected by 
 any of these ; but it will doubtless be well to consider their merits 
 more at length. ^ 
 
 PROPOSED UNDERGROUND RAILWAY. 
 
 1st. The Underground is suggested by the success of the famous 
 London road. But there are reasons why they are not parallel 
 cases. The London road was built through clay or alluvial, And 
 above tide-water, so far as appears from reports ; but then cost in 
 cheap times in gold^ $1,670,340 per mile ! The ISTew-York Under- 
 ground would have to go below tide-water in the vicinity of Canal 
 street, where the engineer says in his report of the survey : " Some 
 piling will be required to give proper foundations." If added to 
 this startling engineering fact are also added three more, first, that 
 the brick tunnel (thirty feet wide, twenty feet high) must be water- 
 tight under a tCn-foot head or perpendicular pressure ; second, that 
 the level of Broadway carriage-track must be raised to prevent too 
 steep grades in the tunnel ; and third, that one seventh of the entire 
 necessary excavation is rock, (toward Central Park ;) the reader will 
 begin to comprehend what sort of a job the underground railway 
 (so flippantly discussed in the papers) is ! With the London *' Un- 
 
31 
 
 derground " as a basis of calculation, the New-York route might be 
 estimated at double cost, $3,340,680 per mile, and then add the pre- 
 mium of gold to correspond with our currency. 
 
 When it is all done, the citizens will then have its use only be- 
 tween the Battery and the lower end of the Central Park, with 
 branches to the Hudson and Harlem Railroad Depots. But when 
 this scheme was only staid from enactment by the Governor's veto ; 
 and in reconsidering the matter the Legislature sent to Mr. Craven, 
 the distinguished Chief Engineer of the Croton Aqueduct, for far- 
 ther information, then difficulties loomed up, which so affected the 
 question, that the Senate rejected the plan altogether at its last ses- 
 sion. The fact was eliminated that the main city water-pipes and 
 sewers were laid just where the Underground projectors wanted to 
 go, and in their estimates, $250,000 is allowed for their removal. 
 But, says Mr. Craven, in his able report to the Legislature on the 
 subject : 
 
 " It must be borne in mind that the chief supply of water for the whole city is drawn 
 from the large main pipes through Fifth Avenue and Broadway, directly on the site of 
 the proposed (underground) railway. From these main pipes the water is distributed 
 east and west to the city limits. At whatever point the work on the railway should be 
 in operation, it would at once involve the necessity of the removal of these main pipes. 
 
 *' During the time taken for this removal and reconnecting the numerous lateral 
 branches, the inhabitants of the intersecting streets would be cut off from water entirely^ 
 while the rest of the city from river to river south of the point of work would be de- 
 pendent solely on the utterly inadequate supply coming through the cross mains 
 
 That the municipal government, which has guaranteed to consumers the use of this 
 water, would be obliged to make good the losses growing out of the interruption, seems 
 probable. 
 
 " To form an idea of the expense which must ultimately fall on the city for damages 
 would be impossible, until the numberless suits which would be instituted were finally 
 settled. When more than half a million of people are all injuriously affected, and that 
 in different degrees of damage, the last verdict on the last suit would have to be rendered 
 before the total sum of liabilities could be known." 
 
 Mr. Craven might have added, (but as he does not, the reader can,) 
 that the lower part of the city would, without water, be burnt up 
 before that time, and thus a clean case could be made out for the jury ! 
 
 The New-York Herald^ in an able and exhaustive editorial, of Jan- 
 uary 25th, 18C6, after giving that and all the plans in extenso then 
 before the Legislature, thus ridicules it : 
 
 "Say these capitalists, spend five or six millions in this preposterous scheme! So 
 much the better. It will thus be drawn from their plethoric coffers and distributed 
 among the community ! The employment for laborers will be immense. Labor will be 
 in demand, and it will be kept here. Say a few buildings crack their sides, as if shaken 
 by an earthquake, and tumble down ! So be it. These capitalists can pay the damage, 
 and the greater the destruction, the more employment for our masons, carpenters, 
 laborers, etc. Suppose the miasma arising from the vent-holes necessarily opened dur- 
 ing the excavation of this tunnel breed a pestilence ; still, alas ! so much the better for 
 our physicians, who can not find sufficient employment with five hundred deaths ■weekly 
 on the City Inspector's record as evidence of the sanitary condition of our city ! So go 
 ahead, underground railroad directors ! Bring out your dollars, spend them liberally, 
 and if you do smash up, you are better able to stand a crash than others who have less 
 money, but perhaps more judgment ! 
 
 " Seriously, we are in favor of the relief of Broadway whenever a proper plan is sug- 
 
82 
 
 gested. We heave none of our own, hut we believe thai m the end the real relief of the 
 thoroughfare will be found in an overground {elevated) railroad^ or in two broad avenues 
 constructed on either side of the great highway." 
 
 Thus speaks the most eminent Engineer and the leading commer- 
 cial newspaper of New-York City on tlie only rival plan which has 
 yet been j^resented with force and reason enough to x>(^ss the Legisla- 
 ture, but failed (as it should) in the Executive Chamber. The others 
 do not deserve and Avill not receive so extended a notice. 
 
 rEOPOSED BROADWAY SURFACE RAILWAY. 
 
 2d. The Surface Railway project proposes to add to the jam on 
 Broadway, by mixing in a few hundred cars ! Unless omnibuses are 
 excluded, (and to this the ladies, at least, will object,) the cars can 
 not make two miles an hour in time, and the only parties benefited 
 wall be the stock operators. 
 
 THE MIDBLOCK RAILROAD PLAN, ETC. 
 
 3d. The " Midblock " scheme is to buy the right of way through 
 the blocks of buildings on both sides of Broadway, and have a loco- 
 motive railroad with trains running through the middle of the 
 blocks of stores fronting on Broadway. 
 
 It is difficult to treat this project seriously, because no authentic 
 surveys, maps, or estimates have, so far as the compiler has been ad- 
 vised, ever been made public. The land damages would alone pro- 
 bably exceed the entire cost of the Underground. Who will furnish 
 the money ? Fifty years would not be too long a time to enable its 
 founders, if any there be, to answer that question to the satisfaction 
 of the public. Such a Bill was introduced into the Legislature at 
 its last session, and was suspected and accused by the public news- 
 papers of covering an authority to lay more horse railways on cross 
 and other streets. The following mention in the New-York Times 
 of April 11, 1866, shows how it was disposed of: 
 
 " In the House, this morning, the bill to authorize the construction of certain railroads 
 between South Ferry and Fifty-ninth street came up on its third reading. New-Yorkers 
 will recollect that this is a project to allow a corporation to purchase the buildings on 
 certain streets to build an elevated, a surface, and an underground railroad. The upper 
 stories of the buildings are to be used for storage of merchandise and produce, the bill 
 giving the corporation the powers of warehousemen. * 
 
 " Mr. Curtis, of New- York, moved to recommit the bill to the Committee of the 
 Whole, and appealed to the House to prevent the ' double damnation of such legis- 
 lation.' 
 
 " The question was taken on the motion of Mr. Curtis, and it was carried by a vote of 
 54 to 28. This is in effect killing the bill." 
 
 ELEVATED RAILWAYS, WITH LOCOMOTIVES. 
 
 4th. The Locomotive Elevated Railway project has been presented 
 in various forms of construction, but it is generally conceded that 
 
83 
 
 such a road can only be made practicable or safe by being placed 
 upon metal girders which shall reach across the street and be sus- 
 tained upon a row of pillars along each curbstone line, with several 
 tracks over the street. 
 
 Such a plan appears in Frmik Leslie's Fictorial^ March 3d, 1866, 
 in a large-sized drawing. There are several reasons why such a road 
 will never be tolerated or built. It spoils the appearance of any 
 street. Its noise would drive vehicles off from it entirely. In a word, 
 it would ruin the property on any street where it was permitted. Va- 
 riations of this scheme, by which no girders across the streets are 
 proposed, are unsafe, and a satisfactory rate of speed could not be 
 attained without a sense of danger to all persons in or near the 
 streets. Without a weighty " locomotive " or dummy," the fric- 
 tion to start and stop cars can not be obtained. Hence speculations 
 on this plan, like those on perpetual motion, are simply a waste of 
 time. 
 
 Thus all prominent rival plans have been considered, and lest the 
 conclusions arrived at, that they are, for the present, impracticable 
 or improbable^ may be considered special pleading by a prejudiced 
 party, let the "Polytechnic Branch of the American Institute" 
 speak. This respectable body of professional engineers and savans 
 is reported in the New-York Tribune as having held a meeting at 
 Room No. 24, Cooper Institute, during the last session of the Legis- 
 lature to consider the special subject for the meeting, which was 
 *' means of transit between different parts of New- York City." The 
 reporter gives the names of some prominent engineers, and says that 
 others took part in the debates, and after noting their remarks, adds : 
 
 " When the hour of adjournment arrived, the only point of f^eneral agreement seemed 
 to be that some means of transit between the different parts of this island, better than 
 any which now exist, are imperatively needed and must be had." 
 
 This is the same as to say that they had seen no plan at that time 
 worthy of their recommendation, although all the above were be- 
 fore them. 
 
 These plans comprise all at present proposed, and seem to offer no 
 real claims for legal authorization in comparison with the patented 
 method. 
 
 PATENTED RIGHTS. 
 
 J. Van Santvoord, Esq., who in 1864 resigned his position as Act- 
 ing Examiner in the National Patent Office, which he had occupied 
 for the eleven previous years, was engaged by the Companies as their 
 Consulting Patent Counsel, and in a written certificate says : 
 
 Patent Agency, 41 Park Row, Nevt-York City, June 6, 1866. 
 Directors N. Y. Patent Railway Cos. : At your request I went to the Patent 
 Office at Washington last week and searched for patents prior to Harvey's, and those 
 
 3 
 
84 
 
 now controlled by you, but I did not find any patent conflicting or interfering with 
 them. I have also examined the British Patents, down to the end of the indices, and 
 do not find any thing that conflicts or interferes with his invention. I found in the 
 course of my examination that comparatively few inventions, and these very crude, 
 have been patented either in this country or in Great Britain which relate to moving 
 cars or vehicles by chains or cables. 
 
 I have examined, critically, the patent of May, 1866, and those granted in 1864 and 
 1865, and I find that the said patents, six in number, comprise thirty (30) distinct 
 claims, most of which are for independent features, the balance of such claims being for 
 combinations. And further, that the pending (or allowed) application contains ten (10) 
 new and distinct claims for novel and important features, and that the caveat filed in 
 April, 1866, embraced thirteen (13) additional claims or features, making the whole 
 number of claims about fifty. 
 
 I am of opinion that your invention is fully and adequately protected and covered, so 
 that you can restrain persons from using the same. 
 
 I have given a good deal of study and reflection to the invention and system of loco- 
 motion contained and embodied in these several patents and cases, and I can not con- 
 ceive how the claims can be successfully evaded, nor how any mechanical substitutes 
 can be found therefor. Very respectfully yours, 
 
 J. Van Santvoord. 
 
 This looks like a strong Patent case, and that the protegee of the 
 U. S. Patent Office have a "veto" power also in this matter. 
 
 This is a case where the Legislature and Corporation of New-York 
 find another authority necessary, and in view of which the present 
 law was eminently judicious. The United States Government can 
 step in to the triangle on the petition of the Patentee, which it has 
 bound itself to protect, and forbid either the State or the City from 
 using the particular method of propulsion proposed until the com- 
 panies w4io control the patented rights to the routes in question con- 
 sent thereto. This is an important element to the subject. 
 
 THE ARCHITECTURAL APPEARANCE. 
 
 Perhaps in no one particular does the superiority of the Patented 
 Plan show more plainly over all others than in considering its ap- 
 pearance when erected. On such an important street as Broadway, 
 of course, no expense should be spared to make it correspond in ap. 
 pearance with the magnificent buildings in front of wOiich it may 
 stand. The Patentee has convinced the Directors that a line of the 
 proposed railway can be erected ichich will add to the perspective 
 beauty of Broadway itself He proposes to substitute the columns 
 of the structure for the present lamp-posts, and do away with the 
 latter altogether along the line. By introducing the gas-pipes into 
 the hollow columns, and having branching pendants for the gas- 
 lights, Avith reflectors upon the frames above, the light would be in- 
 tensified upon the pavement, and the whole street at night would 
 present a superb appearance, unrivaled in any city in the world. 
 By bronzing the iron work and using ornamental brackets and iron 
 filagree work, the whole structure would not offend the most fasti- 
 dious taste. To show how little room it is necessary to occupy, the 
 engraving on the opposite page is referred to. 
 
35 
 
 The pavement in front of Mr. Stewart's store, between Chambers 
 and Reade street, on Broadway, is over 150 feet long by ISj feet 
 wide, making about 2800 square feet. Of this the Common Council 
 would allow one half per cent to be taken up by 7 columns 15 
 inches in diameter near curb-stone, and 3 columns 12 inches in diam- 
 eter near buildings. 
 
 But the construction would be undertaken viith only 7 posts of 9 
 inches diameter, if staid against the building properly, in which 
 case less than one fifth of one per cent of the surface will be used ! 
 
 If a person were to stand on the opposite side of the street he 
 would find less than one fiftieth of the building hid from view. If 
 he should stand under the railway he would find not quite one fif- 
 teenth of the sidewalk shaded by the structure. 
 
 With these facts, it seems impossible to found an assertion that 
 the proposed railway will obstruct the streets ; and if it can be made 
 ornamental withal, all possible objections would seem to be obviated, 
 and the enterprise ought to go on, if proved a mechanical success, 
 which is thus the only real question to decide, and which the pro- 
 posed tests would fully, fairly, and finally do. 
 
 MEMORIAL SENT TO C03IM0X COUNCIL. 
 
 On the 24th day of July, 1866, the following Memorial was ad- 
 dressed to the Common Council, and sent so in duplicate to each 
 branch, and was appropriately referred to committees by both 
 boards the same day. 
 
 To the Ron. Common Council of the City of 2^eiD -Yorlc : 
 
 The undersigned Memorialists, being citizens of and property-holders in the 
 city of Ne\v-York, respectfully beg leave to represent that they are impressed 
 with the belief that the greatest public want of the city is a new method of 
 transit between points on Manhattan Island and the northern suburban vil- 
 lages, and which shall aflford more capacity and rapidity than is presented by 
 existing roads. 
 
 The present meagre facilities weigh heavily on all classes of the community. 
 Our business men average a loss of at least one tenth of their business hours 
 daih^ from the slow locomotion now only obtained between their residences 
 and business localities. 
 
 From the same cause our mechanics and laboring men, in order to reach their 
 places of occupation at commencement ol working hours, are obliged to place 
 their families in tenement-houses, in the lower wards of the city, until the den- 
 sity of population is a disgrace to our city, and the source of incalculable mor- 
 tality and discomfort to great numbers of our industrious and worthy inhabit- 
 ants. 
 
 If the unoccupied upper portion of our city could be made accessible by 
 quick and cheap locomotion, vast numbers of citizens would remove there, and 
 obtain desirable homes, and an impetus would be given to building upon the 
 large territory now but sparsely settled, to the mutual benefit of landlord and 
 tenant. 
 
 Your Memorialists, while heretofore realizing these facts and their import- 
 
86 
 
 ance, have felt constrained to oppose the various projects for underground and 
 elevated locomotive railways, as impracticable or unjust to public or private 
 interests. 
 
 The first would obstruct our streets for j-ears in construction, if seriously 
 attempted. 
 
 The second would injure our streets in appearance, and become a nuisance 
 in attempting to have locomotive power applied as proposed. 
 
 The attention of your Memorialists has lately been called to a patented system 
 of elevated railway which, in the opinion of eminent engineers w^hom the 
 undersigned have consulted, offers a solution of this difficulty, and is not liable 
 to most of the objections urged against other plans previously made public. 
 
 No locomotives are used on the proposed railway, as the motive-power is con- 
 fined to a series of noiseless, endless, propelling wire-ropes, which is driven by 
 engines made stationary beneath the street pavements, consequently neither 
 smoke, cinders, oil, or noise can be offensive to the ordinary uses of the public 
 streets. 
 
 The structure will project less than thirty inches over the sidewalk, or like- 
 wise over the carriage-way, and will occupy less than fifteen inches in diameter, 
 or its equivalent, once in not less than twenty feet of length, which actually is 
 no more obstruction than is now common along our streets. 
 
 The speed and capacity of the proposed railway is superior to any of the 
 projects heretofore agitated, if it should prove a mechanical success, as engi- 
 neers almost unanimously predict will be the case. 
 
 Your Memorialists have investigated the* patents, and find that experts con- 
 sider them as valid, and comprehending the principles necessary to the operat- 
 ing of a street railway by such means. 
 
 Competent legal authorities have also been consulted, and report that the 
 Legislature has granted full authority for the construction of railways upon this 
 system, (and this only as to new routes,) in the city of New- York, by act of 
 April 20, 1866, to which your attention is respectfully invited, and in accord- 
 ance with which the undersigned propose to obtain corporate existence, and to 
 receive your legal permission for prosecuting the contemplated enterprise. 
 
 Your Memorialists have negotiated with the patentee, and have obtained the 
 control of the patents on the principal routes of this city, provided the same 
 can be brought immediately into use. 
 
 They now propose to erect an experimental section upon Greenwich street, 
 of one half mile in length, which shall be made the means of judging of the 
 value of the system, and which will satisfy your Honorable Body, the public, 
 and themselves, on that point, and finally decide all questions of the expedi- 
 ency of its extension or its removal. 
 
 If it does not answer the purpose, it will be for the interest of your memo- 
 rialists to abandon the project, and remove the trial -line at their own expense. 
 
 But if it does supply the want now becoming an absolute necessity in our 
 city, then every resident on this island will feel interested in its extension as 
 rapidly as possible. 
 
 Your Memorialists are willing to take the risks of failure and loss on the 
 trial, for the right to proceed in its extension without delay, in case of success, 
 which is submitted to your Honorable Body and to the public as a reasonable 
 and just consideration for making the experiment, and assuming the risks inci- 
 dent thereto. 
 
 During the recent session of the Legislature an atterapfwas made to grant 
 the right of laying a railway upon Broadway, to a body of corporators of over 
 one hundred in number, mainly residing outside of the city, and many of them 
 in remote portions of this State, the personal or local influence of the corpo- 
 rators with legislators being counted on to secure a grant of the proposed fran- 
 chise. 
 
 This measure was defeated only by the energetic remonstrance and efforts 
 of some of the undersigned, and other real estate owners in this city. 
 
 Such attempts will be renewed, and it is in view of their possible success 
 that your Memorialists ask you to place this subject as far as practicable within 
 
37 
 
 the control of the citizens of this city, whose property is affected by, and whose 
 interests are involved in, having the means of transit raade as ornamental, as 
 capacious, as safe, as cheap, and as rapid as possible. 
 
 Your Memorialists beg leave to add, that they are wilHng that a reasonable 
 percentage of receipts of proposed railways shall go into the city treasury, to 
 increase as the present national and State taxes are reduced, and to aid in light- 
 ening the burdens of our city taxations. 
 
 Your Memorialists also beg leave to state that they desire your Honorable 
 Body to pass a resolution which shall protect the interests of the city in an ex- 
 plicit manner as to the occupancy of the streets by such railway, but at the 
 same time leave the constructors at liberty to modify and improve the plans 
 and mode of construction, and operating as experience shall be gained and im- 
 provements suggested by practical operation of the experimental section pro- 
 posed. 
 
 No expense will be spared in rendering it effective in and ornamental to the 
 city. 
 
 In view of the fact that farther State legislation may be needed to perfect the 
 mode of acquiring property for such enterprises and otherwise developing their 
 usefulness, your Memorialists will suggest the importance of obtaining your early 
 consent to the trial section proposed, that the same may be put into operation by 
 the time when the next Legislature will assemble, and afford practical proof to 
 the committee which the Honorable Senate has appointed to especially consider 
 this subject in its relations to our city, and to report at the next ensuing session 
 of the Legislature, which will convene in less than six months from this date. 
 Respectfully submitted. 
 
 JOHN P. YELVERTON, W. H. APPLETON, 
 
 TURNER BROTHERS, W. S. GURNEE, 
 
 CHAUNCEY VIBBARD, S. M. PETTINGILL, 
 
 FREDERICK B. FISK, JOHN H. HALL, 
 
 JOHN B. MURRAY, ALANSON TRASK, 
 
 WILLIAM W. W. WOOD, ISAAC SCOTT, 
 
 MOSES A. HOPPOCK, STEPHEN CUTTER, 
 
 JOHN PERKINS, D. CRAWFORD, Jr., 
 EDWIN BOOTH, ^ F. T. JAMES, 
 
 A. D. AVILLIAMS, F. WORK, 
 
 CHARLES D. BIGELOW, GEORGE L. TRASK, 
 
 DEWITT CLINTON JONES, H. F. LOMBARD, 
 H. F. SPAULDING. 
 
 The Committees held the same until the 31st day of July, when 
 they made the following report : 
 
 [official.] 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF COmiON COUNCIL. 
 
 STATED SESSION. 
 
 Tuesday, July 31, 1866, ) 
 2 o'clock P.M. f 
 The Board met, pursuant to adjournment, in their Chamber, No. 16 City 
 Hall. 
 
 Present — J. Wilson Green, Esq., President, in the chair, and the following 
 members : 
 
 Councilmen Keenan, Long, Flynn, Stacom, Robinson, O'Brien, Kenney, 
 Hartman, Brinkman, Koster, Watts, Keech, White, Mackay, Tyng, Thomas 
 Halloran, Roberts, Pullman, Hettrick, and Imlay — 22. 
 
 The minutes of meeting, held July 26, were read and approved. 
 
38 
 
 REPORTS. 
 
 The Committee on Railroads of the Board of CouBcilmen, to whom was re- 
 ferred the memorial of J. P. Yelverton, Turner Brothers, W. H. Appleton, and 
 others, praying for permission to erect an experimental section of a patented 
 Elevated Railway on Greenwich Street, with conditional privileges of extending 
 the same, beg leave to 
 
 REPORT. 
 
 That they have had the same under consideration ; have examined the plans 
 and models and patents referred to ; have prepared appropriate resolutions to 
 carry into effect the request of the memorialists, and at the same time protect 
 the interests of the city. 
 
 Your Committee recommend immediate and favorable action by this Coun- 
 cil for the following reasons : 
 
 1st. The memorialists who propose to try the experiment are all, or nearly 
 all citizens of the city of New York, and some of them property owners upon 
 Broadway and other streets named, and will take a local pride and interest in 
 the success of the experiment, different from those named in legislative 
 charters, selected possibly because of personal interests of, or relations to, the 
 the individual legislators, (and not on account of local affinities,) which is a 
 principle against which this Council has often protested. 
 
 2d. The resolutions proposed by your Committee bind the project, if suc- 
 cessful, to pay into the City Treasury five per cent of its gross earnings, (less 
 certain extraordinary existing and exceptional taxes,) and thus establish the 
 principle that such roads should assist in paying taxes caused by expenses 
 incurred in protecting their property in common with all others, in the city 
 from which their income is derived. 
 
 3d. The resolutions restrict the space to be occupied on the surface of the 
 streets or sidewalks to an average of fifteen inches diameter in twenty feet, 
 near the curbstone, and to twelve inches diameter next to buildings once in 
 forty feet, except at street-crossings, or where staircases are at intervals of 
 one fourth mile, to be erected under the inspection of the Street Commissioner. 
 The horizontal surface to be covered by the structure, at the altitude of not 
 less than fourteen feet above the level of the street, is also restricted to three 
 square feet to each foot in length, except at stations, stairways and turnouts, 
 when platforms can be used. 
 
 The track, of course, will be more than three feet wide, but as it is to be 
 left more or less open between the rails, the average horizontal surface occu- 
 pied will be less than the maximum named ; hence no building will be injured 
 by being shaded by the proposed structure when erected, as thus restricted. 
 Within these limits the interests of the city are doubtless sufficiently protected, 
 and the constructors can be safely left to choose their own plans of construc- 
 tion in accordance with such specifications. 
 
 4th. The means of propulsion will be ropes of wire, or other material, 
 attached to engines placed below the streets, and by ingenious patented 
 devices, the conductor within the car can stop or move the same at 
 pleasure. Your Committee inspected the patents covering the invention, 
 and a certificate from an ex-examiner of patents, expressing the opinion 
 that they covered all available methods of making that form of propulsion 
 practicably successful. Also, the written opinion of the State Engineer 
 of New- York, the Engineer of the Croton Aqueduct Department, and 
 others of the most reputable engineers in this country,* expressing a 
 favorable opinion of the invention and of its being worthy of a trial. By 
 this plan all unusual noise, dust, cinders, smoke, and use of oil in the 
 streets are avoided, and the safety of the passengers increased, over any 
 other plan hitherto made public. In fact there seem to be less valid ob- 
 jections to this plan than to any other ever proposed. 
 
 5th. The memorialists propose to erect an experimental section of half a 
 mile in Greenwich street, subject to the inspection of the Corporation, 
 
 * The United States General Inspecting Engineer of the ironclad ram Dunderberg being one. 
 
39 
 
 through its Street Commissioner. If it does not answer the desired 
 purpose, they will remove it at their own expense ; if it is found the best 
 available plan, then, without farther legislative action, they desire per- 
 mission to erect three lines, with branches, in order to accommodate the 
 longitudinal travel upon Manhattan Island. 
 
 No more reasonable proposition can, in the opinion of your Committee, 
 be expected from any source, and it is due to the public that no delay 
 shall occur in making the proposed experiment. 
 
 It is patent to all that the present means of transit are overcrowded 
 and slow, and that some means of relief is anxiously looked for by the 
 public. 
 
 The Legislature have already appointed a Committee to visit this city, 
 and report on the subject, and some law may soon be expected under the 
 legislative authority, ostensibly to remedy the evil, if this Council does 
 not act in the mean time. 
 
 The Legislature has, by a recent enactment, invited the Corporation to 
 adopt this style of road, if deemed desirable, but has forbidden all other 
 systems until farther laws are enacted by it. 
 
 Under these circumstances, your Committee unanimously recommend that 
 the prayer of the memorialists be granted, and that the accompanying reso- 
 lutions be adopted, and ask to be discharged from the further consideration of 
 the subject. 
 
 GEORGE HETTRICK, 
 MILXOR IMLAY, 
 JAMES LONG, 
 ANTHONY HARTMAN, 
 A. H. KEECH, 
 
 Committee on Railroads. 
 
 RESOLUTIOX OF ASSENT. 
 
 EesoUed, That permission be and is hereby given, and the assent of the 
 Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty is granted to the West Side and Yonkers 
 Patent Railway Company, or its assigns, to construct an elevated railway, 
 according to general plans and specifications to be filed in the ofiice of the 
 Street Commissioner. 
 
 Such railway shall be constructed upon a series of iron columns placed 
 along and adjoining the building side of the line of curbstone, (so called be- 
 tween the carriage-ways and sidewalks ;) such columns to be at least twenty 
 feet apart, except as hereinafter mentioned, and supporting a track at least 
 fourteen feet above the level of the streets along which such railway may be 
 constructed. Such columns shall not exceed a size equal to a superficial area 
 of a circle of fifteen inches in diameter ; and if the same are made in an eUip- 
 tical or oblong form, their breadth shall not exceed twenty inches, and their 
 thickness shall be proportionately reduced at surface of pavement. For the 
 purpose of preventing the tendency in above-mentioned line of columns to lat- 
 eral oscillation, similar columns may be erected along the curbstone line of 
 cross-streets, and connected with the main line of track ; and the first connect- 
 ing column at cross-streets may be placed at a distance equal to the width of 
 the sidewalk adjoining the main line of columns aforesaid, and columns also for 
 the same purpose be placed at intervals of not less than forty feet along the ex- 
 terior line of sidewalks or street boundaries ; wherever the consent of owners 
 of adjoining buildings is not tendered to said company to the satisfaction of its 
 attorney and constructing engineer, for bracing their track by awning frames 
 or otherwise to the said buildings, or when no available buildings occur for 
 bracing purposes as aforesaid. Provided, that no existing door-way or window 
 shall be obstructed by any column as aforesaid, nor shall such second row of 
 columns next to building side of streets or sidewalks exceed twelve inches in 
 diameter. 
 
 Said main line of columns shall support a line of single railway track not 
 
40 
 
 more than fifty-six and a half inches wide, and the frame-work of which shall 
 not occupy an aggregate solid horizontal surface space of more than three solid 
 superficial square feet to each foot in length, except at stations or stairways or 
 turnouts, where covered platforms may be used. 
 
 Said Company may construct such line of railway, with a single track, on 
 each side of Greenwich street, commencing at Battery place, and extending 
 thence through and along Greenwich street to its intersection M^ith Ninth 
 avenue, or along streets or avenues connecting with said Ninth avenue, by the 
 most eligible route in the opinion of the constructor's engineer, to and across 
 the Harlem river, on its route to the village of Yonkers, in the county of West- 
 chester ; including also the right to the said West Side and Yonkers Patent 
 Railway Company to extend branches from the Greenwich street route to the 
 west side of Broadway or to the ferry landing on North River, along any of the 
 lateral streets south of Grand street, under and with the following conditions, 
 to wit : 
 
 First. The said West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway Company, before con- 
 structing said railway along other sections of the route or routes designated, 
 shall erect a section of one half mile in length, beginning at Battery Place and 
 extending northwardly along Greenwich street, within six months from the 
 passage of this resolution, and the period of any delay occasioned by causes 
 which said company could not prevent or control, to be added to said six 
 months ; and when said half mile of railway shall have been completed and put 
 in operation, if the Street Commissioner shall not within ten days thereafter 
 report to this Common Council that passengers can not be transported thereon 
 safely at an average rate of at least six miles an hour, or that a greater surface 
 on the pavement is occupied by the columns of the structure than is equal to 
 a circle of fifteen inches in diameter, once in each twenty feet in length of the 
 curbstone line, or a circle of twelve inches in diameter, or its equivalent space 
 at face of sidewalk, once in forty feet in length of the outer line of sidewalk, 
 next to buildings, except at street crossings, or at stairways located at intervals 
 of one fourth mile, as near as may be, and to be approved by him, then said 
 company may proceed to erect and complete said elevated railway upon and 
 along the residue of the route first above designated ; but if said Commissioner 
 shall report as above set forth, and the facts shall warrant such reports, then 
 the said erection of railway of one half mile in length shall be removed at the 
 expense of said company within thirty days after such report shall be approved 
 by the Common Council. 
 
 Second. That upon the completion of said railway, and entering upon the 
 use of the same, or any part thereof, said company shall execute and deliver to 
 the Comptroller of the city their bond in the penal sum of five hundred thou- 
 sand dollars, conditioned that they and their successors and assigns shall pay 
 into the City Treasury, quarterly, five per cent of the gross earnings of said 
 railway on the said routes, as far as they are within the city limits, less such 
 sum as shall be levied upon the same earnings or profits therefrom by State or 
 National, City or County authority ; and the Street Commissioner is hereby 
 authorized and directed to remove any obstruction which may exist, and the 
 constructing engineer shall designate as necessary to be removed, in order that 
 said railway or any part thereof, may be constructed as mentioned ; and also 
 to permit the excavation of vaults under the streets or sidewalks for the recep- 
 tion of the propelling machinery and engine, with appurtenances and fuel, or 
 the construction of foundations for piers for the support of iron columns, or for 
 piers or lines, and in spaces aforesaid ; and said Commissioner shall require 
 that such streets and sidewalks shall, within a reasonable time, be restored to 
 their original surface condition, and shall providd that no public pipes or 
 sewers shall be disturbed by such construction, except under the direction 
 of the Croton Aqueduct Board, and also that such construction shall commence 
 at Battery Park, and continue northwardly continuously to the northerly limits 
 of the city. 
 
 Resolved, That permission be and is hereby given, and the assent of the 
 Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty is granted to the Broadway and Yonkers 
 
41 
 
 Patent Railway Company, or its assigns, to construct an Elevated Railway, 
 similar to that specified in the preceding resolution, on the route commencing 
 at Battery Park and Bowling Green ; and thence upon and along both sides of 
 Broadway to its intersection with Ninth avenue at or near Sixty-fourth street ; 
 and thence along Broadway or the Bloomingdale road, so-called, or Ninth 
 avenue, or streets or avenues connecting therewith, to and across the Harlem 
 river towards the village of Yonkers, in the county of Westchester ; provided, 
 that if said company shall adopt for its line the same route or streets or 
 avenues northwardly from said Sixty-fourth street as shall be adopted by the 
 West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway Compan}^, then in such case this com- 
 pany shall build a single track upon one side of the street, and the former- 
 named company a single track on the other side of same street ; and the two 
 companies shall operate the same in conjunction, to the end that but a single 
 track except turnout and switches, shall be erected upon one and the same 
 street. And provided further, that the said railway shall not be commenced 
 upon said last-named route until the aforesaid trial section shall have been 
 erected and tested upon Greenwich street, and the owners thereof shall be at 
 liberty to extend their line of railway under the restrictions of the resolution 
 authorizing the same; and provided, also, that said Broadway and Yonkers 
 Patent Railway Company shall file a similar bond and shall pay into the City 
 I'reasury the same percentage of earnings, and shall be entitled, in matters of 
 construction and operating, to the same privileges granted, and subject to the 
 regulations and liabilities imposed by the preceding resolution upon the said 
 West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway Company. 
 
 Besolved, That permission be and is hereby given, and the assent of the 
 Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty is granted to the East Side and New-Ro- 
 chelle Patent Railway Company, or its assigns, to construct an Elevated Rail- 
 way, similar to that mentioned in the first preceding resolution on the route 
 commencing on Pearl street, at or near the Battery Park ; thence along and 
 upon both sides Pearl street to New-Bowery, and Bowery streets, and upon and 
 along both sides of the same to Third avenue, and upon and along both sides 
 of Third avenue to and across Harlem river toward the village of New-Rochelle, 
 in the county of Westchester, including also the right to erect branches with 
 lines of track upon each side of the streets or places hereinafter named, as 
 follows : From Third avenue to Broadway, via Astor Place ; from the Bowery 
 to Broadway, via Park Row ; from the Bowery and the Third avenue to the 
 several ferry landings on the East river, by the most direct lateral streets ; 
 from the line on Pearl street to and along and upon South and West streets, 
 and between the same, with privilege of establishing short branches on such 
 docks as the lessees or owners shall in writing request or permit. The routes 
 and branches herein indicated to be definitely located and established by the 
 Constructing Engineer, who shall have power to construct the same between 
 points mentioned by such streets as shall appear, upon survey, the most direct 
 and feasible, whether named in this resolution or not. 
 
 Provided, however, that the said East Side and New-Rochelle Patent Railway 
 Company shall not commence the construction of any part of their line herein au- 
 thorized until the trial section upon Greenwich street has been erected and tested, 
 and the constructors thereof shall be at liberty to extend the line upon Green- 
 wich street and elsewhere, under the restrictions of the resolution authorizing 
 the same. 
 
 Provided, also, that the said East Side and New-Rochelle Patent Railway 
 Company shall file a similar bond, and shall pay into the city treasury the 
 same percentage of earnings, and shall have and enjoy the same privileges 
 granted, and be subject in matters of construction and operating to the same 
 regulations and liabilities as imposed by the first preceding resolution upon the 
 West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway Company. 
 
 Resohed^ That the foregoing permissions are given conditioned that the 
 Common Council may, from time to time, regulate the speed at which the cars 
 may be propelled on said railways, so far as [that] the same shall not endanger 
 the public safety, and may also require that draw-bridges shall be erected on 
 
42 
 
 the several lines at intervals of not less than one mile, on such streets as they 
 may designate, which bridges shall be opened for loaded vehicles of unusual 
 height to pass, under such reasonable rules and regulations as the Council may 
 from time to time prescribe. 
 
 At points where the line of streets are now open through places of unusual 
 width, the Street Commissioner shall have power to prescribe the intervals at 
 which the necessary columns may be erected at such places, subject to existing 
 special regulations of the Common Council at the time of construction relating 
 thereto. 
 
 The permission contained in the foregoing resolutions shall be considered as 
 in consideration of the payment of five per cent upon the gross earnings of the 
 several railways as hereinbefore mentioned, and shall be revocable only in case 
 of persistent default in such payments as aforesaid. 
 
 Such reasonable changes in matters of construction of such railways as the 
 progress made in their erection or operating shall develop as reasonable and 
 proper, the Common Council may hereafter permit by suitable resolutions, 
 without waiving the claims to the payment as hereinbefore mentioned. 
 
 Pending the reading of the same — 
 
 Councilman Pullman moved that the further reading be suspended, and the 
 paper printed in full in the minutes. 
 
 Which was lost. * 
 After the reading — 
 
 Councilman Keech moved that the resolution be adopted. 
 Councilman Stacom moved the previous question. 
 
 The President put the question, "Sliall the main question now be put?" 
 Which was decided in the affirmative. 
 
 The President then put the question on the adoption of the resolution. 
 Which was carried by the following vote : 
 
 Affirmative— Councilmen Keenan, Long, Stacom, Flynn, Robinson, O'Brien, 
 Kenney, Hartman, Brinkman, Koster, Watts, Keech, Green, Mackay, Halloran, 
 Hettrick and Imlay — 17. 
 
 Negative — Councilmen White, Tyng, Thomas, Roberts, and Pullman — 5. 
 
 And the same was directed to be sent to the Board of Aldermen for concur- 
 rence this evening. 
 
 The report was adopted, and the resolutions passed by the 
 Board of Councilmen by the vote of 17 yeas to 5 nays. They were 
 sent to the Aldermen, and adopted the same day by a vote of 13 
 yeas to 1 nay, and ordered to be sent to the Mayor. 
 
 A. T. STEWART'S COMPLAINT AND INJUNCTION. 
 
 Alexander T. Stewart's complaint, upon which an injunction was 
 granted by Judge Barnard, from original on file in office of Clerk of 
 the Supreme Court : 
 
 NEW-YORK SUPREME COtJRT. 
 City and County of Keic- YorTc. 
 
 Alexander T. Stewart, 
 Pl'ff, 
 
 against 
 
 The Mayor, Alder^ien, and 
 Commonalty of the City 
 of New-York, Def'ts. 
 
 The above-named plaintiff complains of the above-named defendants, and 
 respectfully shows to this Court, 
 That for many years past he has resided, and still resides, in the said city 
 
43 
 
 of New- York, and has been assessed to pay taxes therein, and has paid all 
 taxes so assessed, amounting annually to many thousands of dollars ; 
 
 That he has also for many years past owned and occupied real estate fronting 
 on the street known as Broadway, in said city, and is now the owner in fee 
 simple of the land and premises following, all fronting on said Broadway : 
 
 I, The plot of ground, located on the east side of said Broadway, extending 
 from Reade to Chambers street, having a frontage of one hundred and fifty 
 feet. 
 
 II, The plot of ground, located on the east side of said Broadway, extending 
 northerly from the corner of Prince street, fronting on said Broadway upward 
 of two hundred and seventy-seven feet, and now occupied by the Metropolitan 
 Hotel. 
 
 III, The plot of ground, located on the east side of said Broadway, between 
 Fourth street and Astor place, known by street numbers 726, V28, and 730 
 Broadway, and fronting thereon upward of one hundred and twenty-five feet; 
 
 That he is also owner of a leasehold estate for a long term of years yet to 
 come and unexpired, with covenants to renewal, in the land and premises front- 
 ing on said Broadway, and extending about two hundred feet along the easterly 
 side thereof from Ninth to Tenth street ; 
 
 That said premises, first, third, and last described, are covered by very ex- 
 pensive buildings and warehouses worth many hundred thousand dollars, hav- 
 ing attached thereto, and used in connection therewith, extensive vaults under 
 the sidewalk and carriage way of said Broadway, in front thereof, costing 
 many thousand dollars, and the use of which is worth annually many thousand 
 dollars ; that the vaults in front of the premises first and lastly described he 
 constructed with the permission of the defendants, and for the right to so con- 
 struct said vaults, and use and occupy the same, underneath said sidewalks 
 and carriage way, he paid to the defendants many hundreds of dollars ; 
 
 That said Broadway is an ancient street, opened as such by the owners of 
 land fronting thereon at different periods, commencing prior to 1G95 as to that 
 portion below Maiden lane; the portion between Maiden lane and Dume street, 
 in front of the premises first described, after 1095 and before 1767 ; the portion 
 between Duane street and Astor place, in front of the premises second and 
 thirdly described, after 1795 and 1784; and the portion between Astor place 
 and Fourteenth street, in front of the premises lastly described, after 1784 and 
 before 1813; 
 
 That the fee simple of said street called Broadway, within the limits afore- 
 said, is in the owners of the property fronting thereon, subject only to the pub- 
 lic easement over the same and every part thereof for the ordinary purposes of 
 a highway, and for no other purpose or use whatever; 
 
 That said Broadway was so originally opened by said owners for their own 
 convenience, and for the convenience of the public traveling thereon with their 
 horses, carriages, and ordinary vehicles, and the same has ever since been used 
 in such manner, and not otherwise ; that to appropriate said street for railroad 
 purposes, whether elevated or otherwise, would be appropriating it to a new 
 use inconsistent with the purpose for which said street was opened, and would 
 be highly injurious and detrimental to all property fronting thereon ; that said 
 street is the great business street and thoroughfare of the city of New-York, 
 having located thereon large and valuable warehouses, requiring free and unin- 
 terrupted access thereto to conduct the business now carried on therein, and 
 any thing which would tend to interrupt such use or access would depreciate 
 the value of the property on said street in a very great degree ; 
 
 That placing an elevated or other railroad in said street would produce such 
 interruption, and depreciate the value of each city lot of twenty-five feet in 
 width fronting thereon m.any thousands of dollars ; 
 
 That on July 31st, 1866, the Boards of Aldermen and Councilmen of the de- 
 fendants passed and adopted a resolution or ordinance, of which a copy is hereto 
 attached, marked A, and afterward sent the same to the Mayor of said Corpo- 
 ration for his approval ; 
 
 That on August 13th, 1866, and within the time allowed by law for the pur- 
 
44 
 
 poses, said Mayor returned the said resolution or ordinance to the Board in 
 which the same originated without his approval, but with his objections thereto, 
 a copy of which objections are hereto attached, marked B ; 
 
 That, notwithstanding such objections, the defendants threaten to pass and 
 adopt said resolution, and to perfect the same as an ordinance without the ap- 
 proval of said Mayor ; 
 
 That if said resolution or ordinance is again passed or adopted by said Board 
 of Aldermen and Councilmen, as they now threaten, the granters named therein 
 will enter upon said Broadway and construct an elevated or other railway 
 therein, to the great and irreparable injury of all the property fronting thereon, 
 and to the special injury and damage, to the extent of many thousands of dol- 
 lars of the said property of the plaintiff and of the said vaults in front thereof; 
 
 That the grantees named in said resolution are possessed of no property, re- 
 sponsibility, or ability at all adequate to or commensurate with the injuries and 
 damage their acts, in constructing the railway in and by said resolution proposed 
 to be authorized, will produce to the property fronting on said Broadway, or to 
 the said property of the plaintiff, and unless the defendants are restrained from 
 perfecting said resolution or ordinance the plaintiff and the other owners of prop- 
 erty fronting on said street will be remediless in respect to the injuries and dam- 
 ages their said property will sustain from the acts contemplated or authorized 
 by said resolution or ordinance. 
 
 The plaintiff is informed and believes, and therefore avers, that the defend- 
 ants have no legal right, power, or authority to pass or adopt such resolution 
 or ordinance, or to authorize the construction of the railwa}^ therein contem- 
 plated, or the doing of the various acts as in said resolution contemplated and 
 intended ; 
 
 That said resolution or ordinance was not passed by unanimous consent, and 
 although acted upon by both Boards of Aldermen and Councilmen on the same 
 day, there did not then exist in said city of New-York either war, pestilence, 
 or famine, nor was the same, before being passed by either Board, published, 
 with the Ayes and Noes and with the names of the persons or members of 
 either Board voting for and against the same, in the newspapers employed by 
 the defendants as part of the proceedings of either Board ; 
 
 That the defendants derive a large revenue from granting permission to prop- 
 erty owners on said Broadway and other streets in the city to open the surface 
 of said streets and construct vaults underneath the same, for the use of such 
 owners, in front of and in communication with their property ; and the permis- 
 sion given by said resolution to the grantees therein named to construct and use 
 vaults underneath said Broadway and other streets, is without any adequate 
 compensation and in violution of the rights of the owners of the property on 
 and in said streets, and of the rights of the plaintiff as owner of the fee in said 
 Broadway in front of his said property ; 
 
 Further, that the various rights and privileges attempted to be granted and 
 conferred by said ordinance or resolution are very valuable, and the compensa- 
 tion therein pretended to be reserved and acquired by the defendants is wholly 
 inadequate, besides being so uncertain under the peculiar phraseology of said 
 resolution as to render it in the highest degree probable that no reserve or 
 compensation will ever be received therefrom by the defendants ; that the right 
 to construct and operate a railroad in said Broadway at a fare of six cents per 
 passenger is worth at least a million of dollars, a sum far beyond what would 
 or could ever be realized by the defendants under the provisions of said resolu- 
 tion or ordinance; 
 
 That said resolution or ordinance, if adopted and passed hereafter by said 
 Boards, will be illegal and void ; but the acts of the grantees named therein, un- 
 der color of the authority conferred thereby, will be productive of great and ir- 
 reparable injury and damage to the plaintiff and all owners of property on said 
 Broadway ; 
 
 Wherefore the plaintiff demands judgment that the defendants, the Mayor, 
 Aldermen, and Commonalty of the city of New- York, and each member of the 
 Common Council thereof, and each and every officer, head of department, and 
 
45 
 
 clerk of the defendants, be absolutely enjoined and restrained from passing or 
 adopting said resolution or ordinance, and from voting upon, passing upon, 
 perfecting, or adopting the same, or any resolution or ordinance of a like 
 term, import, or nature, or any resolution or ordinance authorizing or pre- 
 tending to authorize the execution or construction of any railroad in or upon 
 the street called Broadway, in the city of Nevv-York, or permitting or author- 
 izing, or attempting to permit or authorize the entering upon said street by any 
 person or company for the purpose of erecting any structure connected with or 
 to be used in connection with a railroad therein, and from doing any act or 
 thing tending to perfect, or adopt, or pass said resolution or ordinance, or any 
 resolution or ordinance of a like term or import, or tending to interfere with the 
 rights of the plaintiff as owner in fee in front of his said property in Broadway 
 aforesaid. Henry Hilton, 
 
 Henry H. Rice, of Counsel. 
 
 Pl'fF's Att'y. 
 
 City and County of Xew- ¥01% ss. 
 
 Alexander T. Stewart, of said city, plaintiff herein, being duly sworn, says : 
 That the foregoing complaint is true of his own knowledge, except as to the 
 matters therein stated upon information and belief, and as to those matters he 
 believes it to be true. Alex. T. Stewart. 
 
 Sworn before me this 17th ) 
 
 day of August, A.D. 1866. f 
 
 J. M. Hopkins, Notary Public. 
 
 Hemarks. 
 
 It is amusing to notice that owing to the peculiar construction 
 of the sentences, Mr. Stewart inadvertently asserts that Broadway 
 was originally opened for the convenience of the owners on each 
 side, and for the convenience of the public traveling there with 
 their horses and carriages, and ordinary vehicles ! Foot-passengers 
 will please take notice that they have no right to go on BroadAvay, 
 except with their horses, etc., ancl "not otherwise." 
 
 Mr. Stewart also says, that " although acted upon (that is, the 
 Resolutions) by both Boards of Aldermen and Councilmen on the 
 same day, there did not then exist war, pestilence, or famine." 
 
 If Mr. Stewart expected, as the language indicates, that this action 
 of the Common Council would cause the existence of war, pestilence, 
 or famine, the reverse was happily the fact ; for within the following 
 month peace was declared in Europe, the cholera began to subside 
 in this city, and the President of the United States feasted on a 
 twenty-thousand-dollar dinner at Delmonico's, furnished by Stewart 
 and associates ! 
 
46 
 
 NEW-YORK SUPREME COURT; 
 City and County of N'eic- Yorh 
 Alexander T. Stewart 
 against 
 
 The Mayor, Aldermen, and 
 Commonalty of the City 
 of New- York. 
 
 It appearing to my satisfaction that the plaintiff is entitled to the relief de- 
 manded in the complaint, and that the same consists in restraining the defend- 
 ants, the members of their Common Council, the Officers, Heads of Depart- 
 ments, and Clerks of the said Corporation as hereinafter provided ; 
 
 It is hereby ordered : That the defendants show cause before me at the 
 Chambers of this Court, at the City Hall, in the city of New- York, on the 
 twenty-fourth day of August instant, at 12 o'clock noon, why an injunction 
 should not issue, as demanded in and by said complaint. 
 
 And in the mean time, and until the further order of this Court, the said 
 defendants, the Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty of the city of New- York, 
 and each and every member of the Common Council, and Board of Aldermen 
 and Councilmcn thereof, and each and every Officer, Head of Department, and 
 Clerk of defendants, be, and they and each of them are hereby absolutely en- 
 joined and restrained from passing or adopting a certain resolution or ordinance 
 heretofore, and on July 31st, 1866, adopted by said Common Council, author- 
 izing the construction and use of an elevated railway in Broadway,. Greenwich 
 and other streets in said city, and subsequently returned by the Mayor of said 
 city without his signature or approval, (a.copy of which resolution or ordi- 
 nance is attached to said complaint.) Also from voting upon, passing, or perfect- 
 ing, or adopting the said resolution, or any resolution or ordinance of a like 
 tenor, nature, or import, or any resolution or ordinance authorizing or pretend- 
 ing to authorize the erection or construction of any railroad in, over, or upon 
 the street called Broadway, in said city, or permitting, or authorizing, or at- 
 tempting to permit or authorize the entering upon said street by any person or 
 company for the purpose of erecting any structure connected, or to be used in 
 connection with a Railroad therein, and from doing any act or thing tending to 
 perfect or adopt or pass said resolution or ordinance, or any resolution or ordi- 
 nance of a like tenor or import, or tending to interfere with the rights of the 
 plaintiff, as owner in fee, in front of his property on said Broadway. 
 
 And hereof fail not, at your peril. 
 Dated New-York, August 17th, 18G6. 
 
 (Signed) George G. Barnard, 
 
 J. S. P. 
 
 Legal advisers make the following answer to the whole matter : 
 If Stewart's allegation is true that the acts of the Council are null 
 and void, it is not the business or practi^ce of the courts to enjoin 
 nullities ; especially where positive injury to plaintiff does not neces- 
 sarily follow, and ample time must occur for his securing full protec- 
 tion by ordinary legal remedies. If, on the other hand, it is not 
 true, and, as Judge Bos worth and other judges, assert the Counci 
 have authority to act, then it is not the province of the courts to 
 prevent the exercise of the lawful discretion of the Council." There- 
 fore, in either case, on Mr. Stewart's own showing, no injunction could 
 properly be granted. 
 
47 
 
 IMPARTIAL OPINIOl^S OF THE NEW -YORK CITY 
 PRESS HERETOFORE PUBLISHED. 
 
 "H. G.," in the Tribune, of February 2cl, 1866, says : 
 OUR city's need. 
 
 Several hundred thousand persons — rich and poor, male and female, wise and sim- 
 ple — earn their living by personal effort in that narrow corner of ibis island which lies 
 south of Grand street. We can not live here : for most of this area is needed for 
 stores, banks, offices, factories, workshops, etc. ; and it is inconvenient to live across the 
 arms of the sea on either hand. We want to live up-town, or in the adjacent county 
 of Westchester ; and we want facilities for getting quickly, cheaply, comfortably, from 
 our homes to our work and back again. 
 
 Street Railroads and Omnibuses have their uses; but we have reached the end of 
 them. They are wedged for hours at night and morning with men, women, boys, and 
 girls, sitting, standing, and hanging on ; it would not be decent to cnrry live hogs (hns, 
 and hardbj dead ones ; they are unchangeably too slow ; and their capacity is exhaust- 
 ed. To put on more cars or construct more roads is only to monopolize our streets 
 and virtually drive all carriages out of them, 
 
 Gentlemen of the Legislature ! give us both the Underground and the Aerial Rail- 
 way ! Don't lettheir promoters kill each other's project; for we badly need them both, 
 and with them we may come and go ten to twenty miles per day in forty to eighty min- 
 utes, instead of thrice the time, as at present. Don't let the lobby make the bills, but 
 make them yourselves, and see that they are framed in the interest of the public and 
 not of the stockholders exclusively. Let the city have a slice of the profits, if profits 
 there shall be ; and let those who ride feel that their comfort, safety, and advantage have 
 been considered in the premises. Such roads, made ten years ago, would have saved to 
 our State millions of taxable property which has been absolutely forced over into Jersey 
 in search of room to live on. Our rents, already fearful, are going up twenty to thirty 
 per cent ; and there is no sense in scolding the landlords : they take what they can get, 
 like every body else. Give us a chance to breathe ! 
 
 The following is from the New-York Herald of January 25, 1866 : 
 
 The incapacity of Broadway to adequately meet the requirements of so important a 
 thorouglifai e has long had the consideration of the community. It is notorious that the 
 peculiar formation of Manhattan Island, with heavy bodies of water on each side run- 
 ning its extreme length, confines the extension of the city to one direction alone, while 
 into the lower or more commercial part of the city is thrown an amount of traffic so 
 vast that its superficial extent is not equal to the demands made on it. This concentra- 
 tion needs the most direct available eomnmnications, and Broadway, according to one 
 view, necessarily becomes the main channel. 
 
 Seriously, we are in favor of the relief of Broadway whenever a proper plan is sug- 
 gested. We have none of our own; but we believe that in the end the real relief of 
 the thoioughfare xoill he found either in an overground (that is, elevated) railroad or in 
 two broad avenues constructed on each side of the great highway. In the mean time we 
 invite oui- reudeis to examine the numerous plans suggested in another part of this pa- 
 per, and select one to suit themselves. 
 
 In July, 18G6, probably during one of the "heated term " days, the 
 editor of the Times discourses as follows: 
 
 MEANS OP LOCOMOTIOX IN" NEW-YORK. 
 
 The great inferiority of New-York to a European capital — London, for instance — is 
 precisely in that department of practical life where we should least expect it — that is, 
 in the means of locomotion. Here is a mercantile community distinguished the world 
 over for attaining their ends, no matter at what expense — accustomed to great plans 
 and to executing them — proverbially active and impatient — to whom time every day is 
 more than money — yet submitting year after year to a stupid, dilatory, inconvenient 
 system of locomotion, which would disgrace a village in Turkey, and apparently doing 
 nothing to reform it. 
 
 It may be estimated that fifty per cent of the most active and energetic business men 
 
48 
 
 of New York live, during at least the summer season, at a distance of from ten to thirty 
 miles from the city. The remaining portion reside at from three to five miles from the 
 business quarter. 
 
 It is well known that thousands of people of moderate means are more and more re- 
 moving to the country, on account of the enormous expenses of the city. These find 
 this delay and^ inconvenience in getting to the business streets a great loss and annoy- 
 ance. Xor do' the inhabitants of New-York, who reside here the year round, fare much 
 better.' The bulk of the business community is constantly moving northward. In ten 
 years, the fashionable quarter will be around' the Park. 
 
 And even now tens of thousands of people come from above Fortieth street. All 
 know the horrors and delay of that dreary journey in winter or in stormy weather, 
 from "up-town" to the Court-House — the crowd, the bad ventilation, the weary stand- 
 ing, the length of time, and the wretched condition in which the exhausted passenger 
 reaches either his home or the terminus at the Astor House. 
 
 The time from Fortieth street to Wall street is frequently as much as is taken by an 
 EngUsh passenger in a first-class railway carriage, coming from a villa forty miles out to 
 the very centre of London, and in the most economical manner. Nothing of this weary- 
 ing inconvenience and delay is known to the English public in getting about through 
 the great metropolis. The cabs will do their three miles in fifteen minutes, in the most 
 comfortable way, allowing the merchant to look over his letters or papers in privacy. 
 The railroads come in from the country over the tops of the houses or under the cellars, 
 and thus give the passengers full speed through the heart of London. The river boats 
 take one from the foot of one street to another, in the most pleasant and rapid manner, 
 where omnibuses, or cabs, or railroads convey you to your destination. The whole 
 machinery of life, by which one can do more and lose less in friction, is vastly superior 
 in London'to what it is here. And yet, when one considers the short business-day in 
 New-York — scarcely five hours— the gigantic plans made and executed in that brief in- 
 terval, where hundreds of thousands of dollars depend on a few minutes more or less of 
 time, where, to many a merchant, nothing which he could pay for improved locomotion 
 could be compared with the advantage to himself in time, rest, and vigor gained, 07ie is 
 surpriaed that the inventive Yankee brain and the all-povxrfid capital of New-York have 
 never coidrivcd some better system of locomotion. 
 
 The World lectures the Legislature thus : 
 
 THE STEASr EAILPvOAD. 
 
 The fixilure of the State Legislature to authorize the construction of some kind of 
 steam railroad on this island will be sincerely regretted by the great mass of our citizens. 
 The experience of the last three months has proved to the most skeptical the fact that 
 New-York is very much overcrowded. Ten thousand additional houses are needed to- 
 day in New- York and Brooklyn. Could they be built in one week, they could be rented 
 the next at remunerative rates. Capitalists and builders still decline to supply this 
 want, because they fear it will not pay as a permanent investment. High wages, the 
 cost of material, and greenback prices generally, require so much money to be spent in 
 the construction of houses, that they will not pay interest when gold is again currency. 
 If, however, a steam railroad from the Battery to Harlem River were under way, it would 
 add so much to the value of land on the dipper end of the island that it would imme- 
 diately stimulate the building of houses on each side of the Central Park. Those 
 who now live up-town require traveling facilities additional to those furnished by the 
 horse-cars. 
 
 But it is idle to complain. The duty of our citizens is plain. Before the next Legis- 
 lature meets, some plan must be agreed upon for a steam road, or two steam roads, as 
 the case may be. It has become a metropolitan necessity ; and the interests of rival 
 corporations should not again be allowed to deprive our city of this much-needed public 
 improvement. 
 
 The Post favors the " underground " railroad for the following 
 reasons : 
 
 If we consider that the crowds on our present city railways extort double service 
 from their equipment, which yet falls far short of meeting the public wants, this need of 
 the underground road appears beyond dispute. Our street cars were designed to carry 
 twenty-five passengers each, whereas they carry fifty ; and even seventy are not unfre- 
 quently crowded into one of them. Yet the walking throng up and down the city is 
 greater than it was before the building of "these roads. They might double their equip- 
 
49 
 
 nient, and still fail to dissipate the crowd ; but that would double their a<rgression on 
 the public streets, which would be quite unbearable. Indeed, the streets in the lover part 
 of the cdu wdl he<ir no more ob-'frutfion, edher of railways or any thbicf else. A 
 new kind of vehicle has come into use within a few years — a huge, pondt-rous wagon, 
 three times the length of a common cart, which must have two horses abreast, or three 
 in tandem, taking up a large space of the street especially in turning corners and cross- 
 ing main avenues. The prodigious burden born^ by these land-ships gives them such 
 momentum that they can not be resisted, and smaller vehrcles are like pasteboard against 
 them. The numerous express wagons also are a new feature since the old slow days of 
 ten years ago. To pilot women and children across Broadway is now no small part of 
 the employment of the ^^etropolif.an police. It is as much as an active man can do to 
 traverse that gre<d hippodrome with safety. 
 
 It is the intention of the underground railway managers to carry all the freight that 
 now employs so many of these wagons. The practice of the London road is to stop 
 the pa.'Jseiiger business at certain hours and set the freiglit trains in motion. Jn Xew- 
 York this would simply divert passengers to the surface-trains during those hours. 
 
 It also susj^ects that the horse-railroad helped to " kill " the iiiider- 
 
 groiind, and dislikes Commissions. 
 
 Adjournment of the State Legislattre. — It is with a feeling of great relief 
 that we announce the adjournment of the Albany I egislature. It can do no more mis- 
 chief this year, unless an extra session be held, which Heaven forbid ! It must be ad- 
 mitted, however, that this body has not been as corrupt as some of its predecessors. If 
 the members have made money apart from their salaries, it has been by killing bills, not 
 passing them. We presume the existing horse-railroad companies must have had a hand 
 in the general slaughter of all the vew railway projects, including the underground 
 and aerial roads. There was a good deal of meddling with city matters ; but, then, we 
 have got off with oue great Commission, instead of some half dozen, as was threatened. 
 
 The correspondent of the Xew-York Tinies^ under date of April 
 
 12tli, 1866, lias the following short notice: 
 
 The Senate, to-day, passed a queer bill amendatory of the General Railroad Law, 
 providing that companies may be organized to propel cars by stationary engines, to 
 which may be attached chains or ropes. \Vhat kind of railroads are to be allowed by 
 this bill, or where it is desired to locate them, I am not informed. 
 
 The correspondent of the Wj?'Id under date of April 20th, being 
 
 the day of adjournment, has the following : 
 
 There was a desperate effort in the Senate to-night to pass an immense job for the 
 City Railroads. Ttie Assembly had passed the bill to incorporate a Westchester Road, 
 which Senator Low called up just before the final adjournment ; the members were 
 anxious to get away, and paid little attention to the bill, which was about being passed, 
 when Senator Williams called attention to the fact that it allowed the construction of 
 every road recently asked for by the surface people. The Senate was astonished. Low 
 expressed ignorance, and the bill died a natural death. 
 
 The Brooklyn Uagle, August 14th, 1866, says : 
 
 The Elevated Railroad, — Mayor Hoffman has vetoed the resolution of the Xew- 
 York Common Council, granting the privilege of building elevated railroads in certain 
 streets in Xew-York. The reason assigneil is, that the Common Council had no power 
 to make such a grant. It seems that local bodies have no longer any power to do any 
 thing. Public convenience demands either elevated or underground railroads on which 
 steam can be used. As to the means by which the railroad companies may obtain their 
 grants, it makes little difference to the people, whether the privilege is bought at Albany 
 or in Xew-York. The establishment of steam lines of communication through Xew- 
 York, will be followed by similar enterprises in Urooklyn, consequently we feel an in- 
 terest in this matter. Mayor Hoffman has not consulted the best interests of Xew-York 
 in vetoing this measure. The people want the railroad accommodation, and the shortest 
 way to get it is the best. 
 
 Finally, the editor of the Albany E^iening Journal^ on the day 
 4 
 
50 
 
 after adjournment, gives the following advice to the citizens of ISTew- 
 Tork generally, and is entitled to notice, as from a disinterested 
 party : 
 
 There is an unfortunate odor of the lobby about all New-York railroad bills. They 
 cpme here in charge of men loho have been seen here too much and too often. Now if 
 New-Yorkers want a Broadway railroad — below ground, on the ground, or above 
 ground — let them adopt some means of expressing their desires openly, through legiti- 
 mate chrmttels, and without the necessity for summoning the instrumentality of the pes- 
 tilent gad-flies who buzz about hotel parlors and in the vestibules of the legislative 
 halls. 
 
 (Is not the Council of JVeic- York its legitimate channel ?) 
 
 But another startling flxct has not been mentioned — namely, that 
 there were forty-three violent deaths in this city in the first six 
 months of the present year by being run over in the street, as j^roven 
 by the coroners' records. 
 
 Let those who have not examined the subject scan the following 
 record of deaths in our streets, for the first six months of this year, and 
 see the appalling fact that 25 males and 8 females were killed by horse 
 cars alone, and 10 more persons on the two steam roads. The number 
 killed by vehicles would swell the rate to 100 per annum probably. 
 Does not this fact demonstrate the necessity of some new mode of 
 transit ? The Elevated Railway, when properly constructed, is incom- 
 parably more safe, and Avould unquestionably save much of the 
 slauijhter of the citizens now occurrincf from the overcrowdino- of the 
 streets : 
 
 Coroner'' s Record of tlie Icilling of Persons in the Streets of ISfew-YorTc, hy Sur- 
 face Cars, during the first and second Quarters, 186G. 
 
 
 
 Avenue Horse Railways. 
 
 >> 
 
 u 
 
 b 03 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Wl 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^ p 
 
 Month. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 n 
 
 c .-3 
 
 « r3 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 C ^ 
 
 
 
 a 
 
 o 
 
 t- 
 
 
 
 c 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 o 
 o 
 Wj 
 
 1 ill 
 
 o 
 
 y, 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 bO 
 
 H 
 
 ^3 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 March,* 
 
 8 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 April, 
 
 8 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 Mav, 
 
 5 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 Totals, 
 
 43 
 
 3 
 
 5 
 
 2 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 7 
 
 9 
 
 Note. — It is estimated that there are five accidents from same cause to each reported, 
 where limbs are broken or contusions occui', which are not fatal. 
 
 A list of non-fatal accidents in the streets during the same six 
 months as the above death list was commenced for the Company, but 
 
 * Mr. Brophy was crushed to death between horse-car knd curbstone, name of line 
 not given. Mr. Bogert died in St. Luke's Hospital, New- York ; injuries by Flushing 
 Raih'oad. Of above number eight were ladies. Highest number killed in one day, 
 three. 
 
51 
 
 it was too long, and the data not reliable. Tiie papers average a 
 mention of an accident daily, but half or more are not reported. 
 There are at least live serious accidents to one death reported. This 
 would indicate five hundred serious accidents annually. The list is 
 often fearful. That published in the Xew-York Times of August 24 
 for the preceding day is : 
 
 One lady, killed. 
 Two ladies, seriously injured. 
 One man, hip broken. 
 One man, feet crushed. 
 One man, arm broken. 
 
 Total accidents, 6 ; and all by street-cars. 
 
 Two of the accidents were thus mentioned at the time : 
 
 Reckless Driving of tiik City Cars. — Scarcely a day passes that an accident 
 does not occur in this city from reckless driving-, the principal offenders being the 
 drivers of the city cars. It is quite true that it is more difficult to stop one of these 
 vehicles, when going at even a moderate rate of speed, than it is to stop an omnibus or 
 carriage; but this fact should make the car-drivers more cautious. Frequently they 
 dash through narrow streets, crowded with vehicles, in a manner that makes their pas- 
 sengers fear a collision at any moment. Too often tliey are unwilling to allow time for 
 their passengers to get off or on. Yesterday an accident occurred in Thompson street, 
 near Fourth, from the recklessness or perhaps stupidity of a car-driver, which might 
 have had a most serious result. A young lady was riding on horseback through Tliomp- 
 son street, when a car came rapidly up behind her, and at the same moment another car 
 "was driven at considerable speed round the corner of Fourth street. The lady saw her 
 danger, and called to tlie driver of the down car to stop; but he paid no heed to this, 
 and in a moment the lady's horse was caught between the two cars and thrown to the 
 pavement. The lady was badly bruised, but fortunately no bones were broken. This is 
 but one of the numerous accidents which are daily occurring, and of many of which the 
 public never hear. 
 
 Pushed from a Car. — John Keating, a carpenter, aged about fifty years, sustained 
 a fracture of the hip, and was otherwise injured, by being jostled from a railroa(i-car 
 while in motion. Several endeavored to jump out at the same time, and hence the ac- 
 cident. Keating was found in the street by a policeman, who, laboring under the im- 
 pression that his unsteady gait was from the effects of liquor, took him to the Forty- 
 second Precinct Station-house. The real nature of the case being ascertained, he was 
 conveyed to the City Hospital. 
 
 The same p;iper, of another date, has the following : 
 
 A Painful Accident. — A correspondent asks special attention to a painful occur- 
 rence. He says : A sad and not unfrequent accident occurred to-day on one of the city 
 cars, which calls for a word of caution. A passenger sat with his elbow out of the 
 ■window, when the stake of an empty cart struck it. The arm was jammed so violently 
 against the window-post as to shake the whole car. The poor man said, 'My arm is 
 broken,' and sank back and fainted. This is the second time the writer has witnessed 
 precisely the same painful crushing of an arm in a city car. Few are aware tliat the 
 danger is I'ar greater in these than on the swiftest locomotive trains. The streets are 
 narrow; they are lined with great stores, and filled with carts; the hubs of these carts 
 pass under the narrow part of the car, and the strong stakes graze along the windows, 
 and woe to him who heedlessly leans an arm outside. 
 
 If killing and maiming are so common now, what will occur when 
 the population of New- York is doubled ? 
 
 The overcrowding of the street surface is caused by street-cars and 
 heavy drays and wagons. If a Society can find scope here for the pre- 
 vention of cruelty to animals, why may not the promoters of this 
 
52 
 
 project be considered as a society to prevent deatli and cruelty to 
 pedestrians ? 
 
 Attention is, in conclusion, recalled to the assertion of the Even- 
 ing Post, that " the streets in the lower part of the city will hear no 
 more obstruction, either of railways or any thing else.''"' 
 
 The Elevated Railways do not obstruct the streets, as Judge Bos- 
 worth, in his opinion, so forcibly remarks, and hence do not come 
 under the rule laid down by the Post. And at the same time 
 the Elevated Railways do not obstruct, in any manner, the horse- 
 railways. 
 
 As to competing with them in the carrying of passengers, it is 
 evident that one class which have short distances to go will continue 
 to patronize the horse-cars, and only those who have comparatively 
 long distances to go will take the trouble to reach the second-story 
 depots. Under this obvious classification it appears reasonable to 
 suppose that there will be ample business for both railways, even on 
 the same street, and hence there need be no feeling of rivalry be- 
 tween the two interests. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 The annexed facts as to the overcrowded condition of New- York City are too pertinent and valuable 
 to be lost sight of in considering the question of the value and importance of a system of elevated 
 railways. 
 
 For those who appreciate their importance, the same are placed in this Appendix, for reference and 
 information in detail. 
 
 EFFECTS OF IMPURE AIR. 
 
 Dr. Youmans, in his Hand-Boole of Household Science^ after showing that 
 the various fevers, dysentery, cholera, or other forms of pestilence, consump- 
 tion, and other forms of scrofula, are caused by impure air, remarks as follows : 
 
 Art. 323. "Bad Air Undermines the Vital Powers. — And yet the ftital 
 effects of mephitic air are by no means confined to those terrible maladies, 
 Cholera, Fevers, Consumption, and Infantile disease, by which the earth is 
 ravaged ; by undermining the health it paves the way for all kinds of disorders. 
 . . . Individuals may often continue for years to breathe a most unwhole- 
 some atraorjphere without apparent ill effects, and when at last they yield, and 
 are prostrated or carried off by some sudden disease, the result is attributed to 
 the more obvious cause, the long course of preparation for it by subtle and in- 
 sidious poisoning being entirely overlooked. The mass of mankind refuse to 
 recognize the action of silent, unseen causes. Our youth in the morning of 
 their days, and men in the meridian of their strength pass abruptly away, and 
 we will be satisfied with no solution of the problem which refers the mournful 
 result to reprehensible human agency." 
 
 Dr. Griscom, in his Uses and Ahuses of Aii\ besides showing that impure air 
 is the cause not only of all the various fevers that afflict the human race, also 
 of dysentery and of infantile diseases, and of the various forms of pestilence, 
 when speaking of consumption and other forms of scrofulous disease, remarks 
 as follows : 
 
 ''M. Baudelocque afflrms 'that the repeated respiration of the same atmosphere 
 is a primary and efficient cause of scrofula, and that if there be entirel}^ pure 
 air, there may be bad food, bad clothing, and want of personal cleanliness ; but 
 that scrofulous diseases can not exist,' and supports the assertion by numerous 
 cases and incontrovertible facts." 
 
 Again, Chap. XVI., Dr. Griscom rem^arks : " One of the most insidious means 
 by which impure air or inefficient respiration assails the happiness and under- 
 mines the health of mankind, is through the action of the superabundant carbon 
 upon the brain during sleep. . . . The slow and gradual poison of carbonic 
 acid covers its approaches and secretly and silently saps the constitution of the 
 teetotaler as well as the intemperate ; of the industrious laborer as well as the 
 spendthrift ; of infancy and youth as well as old age ; of the rich as well as the 
 indigent ; and, in too many instances, of the learned as of the ignorant. In 
 fact, people seem to be generally unaware in regard to atmospheric impurities, 
 that an invisible cause is capable of producing a visible effect, and because they 
 do not here see that cause, they think they need not dread its effects. This 
 error of judgment is the more glaring and inconsistent, as they are in the habit 
 of admitting the former principle and rejecting the latter in almost every other 
 department of philosophy." 
 
 Besides the long catalogue of diseases caused by impure air, which really 
 carry off more than seven eighths of the human race, he shows, Chap. XIII., 
 that, 1st, " Vitiated air produces inapitude for study, and, therefore, ignor- 
 
54 
 
 ance;"that, 2d, " the judgment is perverted by it and it produces quarrel- 
 someness ; that, 3d, "vitiated air encourages intemperance in the use of intoxi- 
 cating drinks ;" that "impure air encourages vice, the most degrading vices 
 that 6th, "vitiated air produces deformity, imbecihty, and idiocy." ° ' 
 
 Note. — E. Hare's, Register of Vital Statistics, certificate is published in the Xe«--York 
 Times, showing that for tlie last week in August, 1866, the mortality in the cities of Xew- 
 York and Brooklyn combined was 843, out of an estimated population (census of 1865) 
 of 1,012,499, which was not above the proportionate average of several vears past. 
 
 Of these, the deaths classified from foul air diseas&'i was 412 ! and from accidents 
 22, (of which several were from street-car accidents, but numbers were not specially 
 given.) The deaths from cholera (71) were not classed as above. Thus it ajipears that 
 more than half of the recent deaths in Xew-York and Brooklyn are from foul air and 
 accidents — the two causes which the Elevated Railway is calculated to relieve more 
 than all other agencies combined. 
 
 Extracts fkom REroRT of toe Council of Physicians to the Citizens' 
 Association of New-York, tpon the "Sanitary Condition of toe City. 
 
 In submitting this Report to the Citizens' Association of New- York, the 
 Council of Hygiene would state that its cliief object will be to exhibit tlie prac- 
 tical conclusions which are clearly deducible from the accumulated records and 
 reports of the Sanitary Inspectors, who have recentl}'- completed an extended 
 hygienic survey and inspection of the city. As mentioned in the special report 
 of the Executive Committee of this Council, herewith presented, the carefully- 
 recorded observations and inquiries of the Inspectors furnish a vast fund of fresh 
 and most valuable information. 
 
 To individuals and to comnuuiities health is a priceless boon. It is equally 
 valuable to the poor and to the rich. Its influence extends not only to 'the 
 social and moral condition and prospects of the individual, but to society at 
 large, and public health becomes a public blessing. In view, therefoi-e, of the 
 fact that in gr-eat cities, and particularly in New-York, both Life and Health are 
 peculiarly jeoparded by various and very active causes, wiiich forethought, in- 
 quiry, science, art, and good governmental regulations may remove or altogether 
 prevent, this Council has cheerfully accepted the task of instituting a system of 
 voluntary efforts, with the design to observe and point out that class of causes, 
 with reference to practical measures for controlling them. 
 
 sanitary necessities and evils of crowded cities. 
 
 The progress of civilization in all countries is marked by the aggregation of a 
 large proportion of their population in cities and commercial towns. However 
 unfavorable to public health and to personal morals this circumstance may be 
 regarded, it is manifestly a fact which we must accept, and duly estimate in all 
 our plans for the physical and the social welfare of society ; for it is an inevitable 
 tendency of an advancing civilization, with its institutions of science and art, and 
 with its ever augmenting connnercial and social necessities, thus to centralize 
 vast populations in cities. The city of New-York affords at the present moment 
 a striking illustmtion of this strong tendency; and not onl}'- has it alread}^ be- 
 come one of the most populous and densely-crowded cities in the world, but it 
 is plainly its destiny to become at once the most populous and the most over- 
 croicdcd of the great maritime cities. The evils, therefore, which now imperil 
 health and life in consequence of overcrowding, etc., in this city, will tend to 
 increase as the population increases. 
 
 In all the problems we may devise for the sanitary or the social welfare of this 
 great metropolis, we must accept and duly estimate the fact that its vast popu- 
 lation is already more densely crowded in its domiciles than that of almost any 
 other city ; and that the evils attendant upon overcrowding and the aggregation 
 of vast numbers will be continually augmented as the population increases, 
 unless the resources of Sanitarv Science and the beneficent operations of wise^ 
 ly administered sanitary regulations are interposed. 
 
55 
 
 PREVENTABLE CAUSES OF DISEASE AND DEATH. 
 
 In a city like New- York the avoidahle causes of sickness and mortality are 
 numerous and very active. There is reason for the conclusion that to tliis class 
 of causes alone should be attributed nearly one third of the deaths that have 
 occurred in this city during- the last ten or fifteen years. That is, had the avail- 
 able resources of sanitary knowledge, and a wise administration of municipal 
 and domestic regulations based thereon, been kept actively and very generally 
 in operation, the greater part of the avoidable sickness and mortality would 
 have been prevented. The annual death-rdte in a comminiity, considered with 
 reference to its average, or with reference to its variations in a series of succes- 
 sive years, furnishes a sort of barometer of health and the chances of life in 
 such a community. The fact will repeatedly appear in this Report that the 
 chief causes of the excessively high death-rate in the city of New-York are 
 definite and iirei^entable. 
 
 THE STANDARD OF HEALTH SICKNESS-RATE. 
 
 There are good reasons for the conclusion, that in the city of New- York there 
 occur not less than from twenty-five to thirty cases of sickness to every death 
 that takes place ; and that in those sections of the city in which the rate of 
 mortalit}^ is greatest, the ratio of the total sickness to the total mortality is 
 much higher than the aventge ratio and sickness-rate in the city. 
 
 In two contiguous tenant-houses fronting on Pearl street, it was found that 
 among seventy-four families, and three hundred and fortj'-nine persons of the 
 ordinary laboring class, there were, upon the da}'" of the inspection, one liun- 
 dred and fifteen persons sick and diseased with various maladies; and further, 
 that the death-rate for the preceding twelve months had reached the fearful 
 maximum of one in nineteen of the total population. But it will be observed 
 that while the death-rate was so alarming, the constant sickness-rate was even 
 more excessive ; nearly one third of the population of the two houses being 
 sick on the da}'' of inspection, which was during the healthiest period of the 
 year. 
 
 MORTALITY IN NEW-YORK. 
 
 The total number of deaths reported by the City Inspector, during the year 
 18G3, amounted to 25', 190. This was an increase of 3052 upon the mortality 
 of the previous year. The mortality of the year 18G4 was greater by several 
 l^ndred than in 18G3. The death-rate in 1803 was a little less than 1 in 35 ; 
 and in 1804 there was a slight variation from the ratio of the previous year. 
 But as this estimate is based upon the assumption that the rate of increase of 
 the population since 1800 has been about Jue per cent per annum^ which ex- 
 ceeds the rate of increase during the period from 1850 to 1800, the exact ratio 
 can be accurately determined oidy after the absolute population of the city has 
 been ascertained. Yet, for the purposes of our present inquiry, it suffices to 
 know that for twenty-five years past the rate of mortality in this city has been 
 increasing, and that it has fluctuated from the ratio of 1 death to every 3!) of 
 the population, to as great an increase as 1 death to every 27, and even to every 
 22^ of the living ; and that our death-rate invariably keeps above the highest 
 average of other American cities ; it also continues to be higher than that of 
 the largest cities of Great Britain and France. 
 
 The reference which is here made to the rates of mortality in other cities, 
 might be followed up to some very important conclusion respecting relative 
 degrees of insalubrity and mortality ; but it must be admitted that the island 
 and city of New- York possess such natural advantages of salubrity that the 
 comparison of this with other great cities, American or European, would be 
 unequal, unless these natural advantages are at the same time properly estimat- 
 ed as being in favor of a lower denth-rnte and a higher average of health in this 
 than in other cities. The fact that the rate of morality in New-York exceeds 
 that of most other great cities, may justly be regarded as positive proof that 
 the mortality in this city is excessive and unnecessary. 
 
56 
 
 The death-rate in the Fourth TVard, in 1863, was about 1 in 25. In the Fif- 
 teenth Ward, in 18(53, it was 1 in 60 of the population. And why does this 
 wide difference in the death-ratios of these neighboring districts exist ? The 
 resident population have just about the same distribution into families with 
 young children ; they dwell in private houses, in hotels, and boarding-houses, 
 in about the same proportions in the several districts, with the single exception 
 that modern tenant-houses have encroached but a little way upon the Fifteenth, 
 or healthful district; yet in the district last mentioned, experience demon- 
 strates that the expectation or chance of human life, counting all ages together, 
 has more than twice, yes, two and a half times the value that can be claimed 
 for the inhabitants of the insalubrious districts previously mentioned. 
 
 THE TENANT-HOUSES OF NEW-YORK. 
 
 The sanitary wants and the social evils of this city have become fearfully 
 centralized in the densely-crowded tenant-house districts. The most zealous 
 philanthropy and the incessant efforts of religious teachers are striving to in- 
 terpose such moral and social infiuences as shall mitigate the evils which for 
 some time past have been rapidly augmenting in connection with the tenant- 
 house system. The moral and the political dangers which stand connected 
 with this subject are beginning to be appreciated by reflecting minds, but the 
 actual extent and importance of the sanitary wants and physical evils of the 
 tenant-house population as a class are by no means adequately regarded b}^ the 
 more favored classes of the community; while, with but few exceptions, it is la- 
 mentably true that the suffering classes — the tenant population themselves — 
 from the very circumstances that surround them, remain comparatively un- 
 conscious of their own peril and disability, both as respects ph3'sical conditions 
 and moral infiuences. 
 
 The officers and physicians of our medical charities have had constant occa- 
 sion to note the peculiar sanitary wants and the prevalent diseases of the ten- 
 ant-house class. The public dispensaries of New-York annually provide 
 medical care for about 150,000 persons, nearly all — probably more than nine 
 tertths — of whom are inhabitants of tenant-houses; the various hospitals receive 
 nearly all their patients from the same class ; while the almshouse and the 
 penitentiary scarcely recognize any other persons than those long familiar with 
 tenant-house life. We thus speak of the inhabitants of tenant-houses as con- 
 stituting a class, and as being allied with the causes of sickness, pauperism, and 
 crime. Circumstances incident to the growth and commerce of the city have 
 nearly blotted out the private residences of the middle classes in the coM- 
 munit}^, and with the loss of that class of domestic homes, the people that have 
 been driven from them to the common tenant-house have become assimilated to 
 the poorer classes from which the almshouse, the hospital, and the public dis- 
 pensaries are filled. 
 
 The tenant-houses of this city are unlike the habitations occupied by the 
 poorer classes in any other city, and f)rincipally in the following respects, 
 namely: 1. That the occupants have less personal interest in and control 
 over the character, cleanliness, and surroundings of their domiciles than is 
 usual in other cities. 2. That the rate of crowding, both as regards the allow- 
 ance of superficial area and of air-space to each person, far exceeds the ordi- 
 nary degrees of aggregation of the poorer classes in other cities. 3. There is 
 less concern and expenditure for the welfare of the tenants, and at the same 
 time a higher rate of rental for domiciles, than prevails in other cities. 4. 
 There is relativel}' as well as numerically a vastly larger proportion dwelling in 
 crowded tenant-houses in New-York than in any other great city 
 
 Not only has the total population of New-York been doubled during the last 
 twenty years, but that large portion — always a majority of the whole — that com- 
 prises the laboring and poor classes, has become more and more concentrated 
 upon given areas and in particular streets and districts, until a degree of crowd- 
 ing has been attained which by itself has become a subject of sanitary inquiry 
 and public concern. 
 
 The origin and growth of the evils that now characterize the ordinary tenant- 
 
57 
 
 housfs of this city have resulted from simple conditions that ought to have 
 been anticipated and provided for, and which may still be met. Tlie report 
 that was made upon the condition of tliese houses by a special committee of 
 the Legislature, in the year 1857, faitiifully describes the growth of the tenant- 
 house system. That committee reported upon this point as follows: 
 
 " The tenant-house is the offspring of municipal neglect, as well as of its 
 primary causes, over-population and destitution. As a city grows in com- 
 merce, and demands new localities for traffic and manufacture, the store and 
 workshop encroach upon the dwelling-house, and dispossess its occupants. 
 
 ^ As our wharves became crowded with warehouses, and encompassed 
 by bustle and noise, the wealthier citizens, who peopled old ' Knickerbocker' 
 mansions near the ba}', transferred their residences to regions beyond the din, 
 compensating for remoteness from their counting-houses by advantages of in- 
 creased quiet and luxury. Their habitations then passed into the hands, on 
 the one side, of boarding-house keepers; on the other, of real estate agents; 
 and here, in its beginning, the tenant-house became a real blessing to that class 
 of industrious poor whose small earnings limited tl)eir expenses, and whose em- 
 ploj-ment in workshops, stores, or about the wharves and thoroughfares, ren- 
 dered a near residence of much importance. At this period rents were mode- 
 rate, and a mechanic with family could hire two or more comfortable, and 
 even commodious apartments, in a house once occupied by wealthy peoj)le, for 
 less than half what he is now obliged to pay for narrow and unhealthy 
 quarters. This state of tenantry comforts, however, did not continue long ; 
 for the rapid march of improvement speedily enhanced the value of proj)ert3'' 
 in the lower wards of the city ; and as this took place, rents rose, and accommo- 
 dations decreased in the same proportion. . . . The spacious dwelling- 
 houses then fell before improvements, or languished for a season, as tenant- 
 houses of the type which is now the prevailing evil of our cit}' ; that is to say, 
 their large rooms were partitioned into several smaller ones^ without regard to 
 proper light or ventilation, the rate of rent being lower in proportion to space, 
 or height from the street ; and they soon became filled, from cellar to garret, 
 with a ckiss of tenantry living from hand to mouth, loose in morals, improvi- 
 dent in habits, degraded or squalid as beggary itself. This, in its primary 
 aspects, was tiie tenant-house system, which has repeated itself in every phase 
 as it followed the track of population from ward to ward, until it now becomes 
 a distinguishing feature of our social state, the parent of constant disorders, 
 and the nursery of increasing vices. 
 
 " It was soon perceived by astute owners and agents of property that a 
 greater percentage of profits would be realized by the conversion of houses and 
 blocks into barracks, and dividing their space into the smallest proportions 
 capable of containing human life between four walls. ... Blocks weie 
 rented of real estate owners, or ' purchased on time,' or taken in charge at a 
 percentage, and held for underlettmg." * 
 
 Such has been the progress of the tenant-house S3'stem. Its evils, and the 
 perils that surround it, are the necessary results of a forgetfulness of the poor, 
 and of an absence of sanitary regulations and advice. That the evils and 
 abuses of the sj'stem continue undiminished, is seen on every hand. Not only 
 does filth, overcrowding, lack of privacy and domesticity, lack of ventilation 
 and lighting, and absence of supervision and of sanitary regulation, still char- 
 acterize the greater number of them ; but they are built to a greater height in 
 stories, there are more rear tenant-houses erected back to back with other 
 buildings, correspondingly situated on parallel streets; the courts and alleys 
 are more greedily encroached upon and narrowed into unventilated, unlighted, 
 damp, and well-like holes between the many-storied front and rear tenements ; 
 and more fever-breeding wynds and culs-de-sac are created as the demand for 
 the humble homes of the laboring poor increases.* 
 
 The evils which we have so freely illustrated, are so various and so numer- 
 
 * Report of select committee to examine the condition of tenant-houses m New 
 York. Made to the Legislature, March, 1857. 
 
68 
 
 ous throughout the city, that each of the Sanitary Inspectors, excepting only 
 the Inspector of the Harlem district, has reported a great number of exaulples, 
 and notwithstanding the unusually dry and healthful seasons of the past year 
 (18G4) such examples of overcrowded, badly-planned, and malconstructed ten- 
 ant-houses have always been reported upon by these physicians as having a direct 
 relation to certain prevailing diseases and an excessive death-rate. It is to be re- 
 marked also that all the evils of tenant-house crowding, and its attendant insalu- 
 brity are rapidly encroaching upon the up-town districts, and that they are being 
 thrust into the midst of blocks hitherto occupied by private residences. More- 
 over it is to be observed that the dwelHngs of the middle-classes, the artisans, 
 clerks, and persons of moderate means and large fjimihes, are yearly becoming 
 more and more embarrassed, narrowed and insalubrious ; and it may reason- 
 ably be feared that unless this important portion of the community puts forth 
 some intelligently-directed and combined efforts to procure the construction 
 of dwellings adapted to their necessities, this city may ere long present the 
 strange anomaly, for an Amei'ican community, of the entire absorption of the 
 artisan and middle classes into the common herd of the utterly dependent and 
 tenant house class.* 
 
 No example can yet be shown of the successful attainment of all the essential 
 conditions and appliances of healthy homes in a tenement-house on a large scale, 
 or upon single lots and ordinary areas. In view of this fact, the Council has 
 made some inqmry regarding plans that have met with success in Great Britain, 
 where the whole subject of UweUing Improvements has been carefully consid- 
 ered. In the overcrowded cities of that country the same questions that are 
 most prominently presented in New-York, are also under consideration. But 
 there, capital, philanthropic effort, and scientific skill have combined to work out 
 the problems that now command the same combination and same liberality here. 
 The plans and efforts that have enlisted the minds of Pi'ince Albei-t, Lord 
 Shaftesbury, and the leading friends of humanity in England, have reached such 
 maturity of results as to satisfy the highest anticipations and promises, both as 
 regards the saving of life, health, and public moi'als, and the actual compensa- 
 tion of the capitalist. So well convinced of this fact was Mr. Peabody,J,he well- 
 known American banker in London, that his munihcent gift for the benefit of 
 the London poor has been already largely applied in Model Dwelling Lnprove- 
 ments.t 
 
 * The diagram here presented, furnishes a fresh illustration of the perilous evils to 
 which even the best up-town tenant-houses are exposed. This is the Jfoor plan of a 
 recantly-constructed multiple domicile designed for, and now occupied by twelve families 
 on each flat. Situated on Broadway, and another desirable street, near the Central Park, 
 this unveniilated and fever-breeding structure will doubtless continue to be filled to its 
 utmost capacity with families of the middle-classes who pay well for rents, and wish to 
 live respectably. 
 
 Here are twelve living-rooms and twenty-one bed-rooms, and only six of the latter 
 have any provision or possibility for the admission of light and air, excepting through 
 the family sitting and living-room ; being utterly dark, close, and unventilated. The liv- 
 ing-rooms are but 10 by 12 feet ; the bed-rooms, 6|- by 7 feet ! 
 
 f One tliir I of the £150,000 given by Mr, Feabody to the London poor has already 
 been expended in model tenant-houses and lands for that purpose. Five blocks of the 
 building are completed. The essential features of the first one occupied are thus de- 
 scribed : 
 
 " It is a stately edifice, more than 200 feet long, on Green Man's Lane, containing 
 fifty-seven tenements, all occupied, and nine shops in Commercial street, Spitalfields. 
 
 "The living-rooms throughout the building average 13 feet by 10 feet, and the bed- 
 rooms 13 feet by 8 feet, while their uniform height is 8 feet. The staircase and ctn-ridors 
 are well lit with gas, and the fourth or top floor is occupied by laundries, areas for drying 
 clothes, and as a playground for the children in wet weather, and by bath-rooms. There 
 are lavatories on every floor for ordinary toilet purposes, and a bath can always be ob- 
 tained by the short and simple process of asking the superintendent for the key of the 
 room, in fine weather the inclosed yard is an admirable play-ground for the tenants' 
 children, and, a rule excluding all playmates from the outside being rigidly enforced, they 
 
59 
 
 (1) TJiere exist such excessive overcrowding^ uncleanness, and utter want of 
 ventilation, that typhus is liable to occur at any time ; and when once 
 infected with the virus of that fever, such houses will become sources of 
 domestic pestilence and of danger to the public health; (2j that the number 
 of localities which are already infected with the fever-poison (including both 
 typhus and typhoid fever) in this city, is believed to be not less than jUe 
 liumlred,^ and (3) that the total number of insalubrious quarters which are 
 particularly liaMe to an outbreak or endemic fever, is not less than about one 
 fifth the total number of tenant-houses and inhabited cellars, or not less than 
 three thonsdiid houses and places; (4) lastl}', that the causes which have 
 localized fever in five hundred different places in this cit}^, and which threaten 
 its outbreak in thousands of other localities in the various wards, can be 
 removed and prevented only by thorough ventilation of the houses in which 
 the fever exists or is threatened by cleansing and purifying, hy thinning out 
 the hidh/ overcrowded hnildings^ and by the perpetual vigilance of an 
 intelligently directed Sanitary Police. 
 
 As we have said in a former section, the progressive sciences and arts, and 
 the genius of the age can be trusted to work out any problems which hygiene 
 requires to be practically applied. But the fact needs to be borne in mind 
 that while the total population of New- York is rapidly increasing, the relative 
 proportion of the poorer and ignorant classes is advancing by a rapid ratio, 
 for the wealthier classes are as rapidl}^ peopling the entire suburban district 
 over a radius of many miles from the counting-houses of the city. The facts 
 relating to the ratio of increase and the prospective aggregates and location of 
 the population, are so well presented in a connnunication recently made to us 
 by Dr. Franklin B. Hough, the Superintendent of the Census for the State 
 of New-York, that we beg leave to present them here : 
 
 " The accompanying table shows the inci'case and decrease of tlie population 
 of the city of New York, constructed from the census returns since tlie year 
 1790.* The apparent decrease of population in some wards is due, in most 
 instances, to subdivision in the formation of new ones ; still it is apparent 
 that the j)opulation of the lower portion of the island" [city] "is steadily 
 decreasing as the demands of commerce crowd upon the area formerly occupied 
 by families." 
 
 Years. 
 
 Aggregate Population. 
 
 Percentage of Increase in 
 Last Decennial Period, 
 
 . Annual Percentage of In- 
 crease. 
 
 1830 
 
 240,827 
 
 
 
 1840 
 
 892,147 
 
 G2.8 
 
 0.28 
 
 1850 
 
 693,058 
 
 7G.9 
 
 7.G9 
 
 18G0 
 
 1,145,338 
 
 65.1 
 
 6.51 
 
 are preserved from evil associates and consequent contamination. In tlie centre of the 
 ground tloor, and dividing the shops pretty equally on either hand, are the offices and 
 dwelling-rooms of the superintendent, an old soldier, whose duty it is to keep the books, 
 receive the weekly rent, and see that the few and simple rules laid down by the trustees 
 are properly observed. A copy of these is supplied to each tenant at the commencement 
 of his term." 
 
 ^ * The total number of patients with typhus and typhoid fevers admitted to 
 Bellevue Hospital, and the Fever-Tents on Blackwelfs Island, during the year 1864, 
 was 1209. 
 
 The total number of patients with the same fevers admitted to the hospitals of the 
 Commissioners of Emigration during the year was 1130. 
 
 The total number of deaths from these fevers in the city, including those in the 
 hospitals, during the year 1863, was 951. 
 
60 
 
 The future rate of increase of New-York and its dependencies, as a great 
 metropolis, may be safely estimated as high as 7 per cent per annum, 
 although the distribution among wards, and even among counties, depends 
 upon facilities of communication and the demands and location of business. 
 
 "The island of Manhattan, the west end of Long Island, the lower part of 
 TTestchester Count}^ the neighboring shores of Xew-Jersey, and the north 
 half of Staten Island, are destined to receive an aggregate population greater 
 than that of an}' metropolis now existing, or that shall then be existing in the 
 world. "We do not borrow from imagination ; for taking the last census 
 returns of the city of New- York, the city of Brooklyn, a third of Westchester, 
 a third of Queens, and half of Staten Island, as constituting the metropolis, we 
 have the following absolute and comparative numbers. 
 
 " While we can foresee nothing that will have a tendency to check the general 
 growth of New-York and its dependencies, as a whole, there are doubtless many 
 things still unknown, which will tend greatly to accelerate its growth in 
 population and wealth. 
 
 JOSEPH M. SMITH, M.D., President, 
 WILLARD PARKER, M.D., Vice-President, 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M.D., 
 EDWARD DELAFIELD, M.D., 
 And twelve others, Members of the Council. 
 
 As a sample of what misery there is in New-A'ork, we subjoin a part of the 
 Report of the Fourth Sanitary Inspection District : ^ 
 
 Boundaries. — The Fourth District, comprisinrjf the Fourth Ward, is hounded 
 hj Chatham, Catherine, and South Streets, Peck Slip, Ferry, and Spruce 
 Streets. Its average length and hreadth are respectively ahout 1900 and 1600 
 feet. 
 
 TorooRAPriY. — Deducting the surface occupied by streets, etc., a superficies 
 remains of about 2,240,000 square feet, or about 8227 square rods, equal to 
 890 building lots 254-100 feet. The soil is sandy and porous. About one fifth 
 of the entire area is artificial, having been filled in at a remote period. It in- 
 cludes a depressed space near its western border, formerally known as Beelc- 
 man's Siramp, which contains about 100,000 square feet, and still retains its 
 paludal designation among the leather dealers, by whose places of business it is 
 now chiefly occupied. 
 
 The north-east and the north-west corners are the most elevated points, each 
 being about thirty-six feet above high-water mark. From the former, the 
 ground slopes rapidly south and west. From the latter, the slope is by a 
 somewhat abrupt declivity, south and east. The average elevation of the dis- 
 trict above high-water mark is about sixteen feet. Its natural drainage is good, 
 as the ground, except in the vicinity of the river, is generally sloping, the 
 declivity being steepest in those streets which run from Chatham to South. 
 
 The following named streets and parts of streets have no sewers within the 
 boundaries of this ward : East Broadway, Henry, Hague, Chestnut, New 
 Chambers, South, Front, Water, Cherry from Catherine to Roosevelt, Pearl 
 from William to Bowery, Madison from Pearl to Roosevelt, Oliver from Chat- 
 ham to ^ladison, Frankfort from Cliff to Bowery. All the sewers empty into 
 the East River below high-water mark ; for about one half their entire length 
 the}' are swept out by their refiuent tide. 
 
 Of the 71-4 buildings classed as tenant-houses, less than one half were found 
 to have a waste-pipe or drain connected directly with the sewer. Where this 
 is wanting, liquid refuse is emptied on the sidewalk or into the street, or in 
 some instances into sinks in the domiciles communicating with a common pipe 
 which discharges its contents into the open gutter to run perhaps hundreds of 
 feet, giving forth the most noisome exhalations, and uniting its fetid streams 
 
 * Statistics included in the lengthy report of these gentlemen show that olFenses 
 against police regulation have been reduced from twenty-four to fifty per cent where the 
 experiment of reform in workingmen's homes has been tried in England. 
 
61 
 
 ^vith numerous others from similar sources, before reaching its subterranean 
 destination. 
 
 Slops fl ora rear buildings of such premises are usually emptied into a shallow 
 gutter cut in the flagging and extending from the yard, or space between front 
 and rear buildings, to the street. This is often clogged up by semi-fluid filth, 
 so that the alley and those parts of the yard through which it runs are not un- 
 fiequently overflown and submerged to the depth of several inches. 
 
 There are more thin four hundred families in this district irhose homes can 
 only he reached hy leading through a disgusting deposit of filthy refuse. In 
 some instances, a staging of plank, elevated a few inches above the surface, is 
 constructed through the alleys. This affords to the residents the advantage of 
 a dry walk, but in a sanitary point of view its influence is scarcely favorable, 
 since it prevents the removal of the offensive matters beneath. 
 
 Tenant and Crowded Houses. — Under this head I have included, first, 
 all tenant-houses built as such ; and, second, all those used chiefly or wholly as 
 residences, in which the occupied space gives 2, pro rata of less than 800 cubic 
 feet to each inhabitant, without reference to the number of families or the 
 population, or to the original design or construction of the buildings. The 
 total of these is 714, of which G56 are brick and 58 are wood. 
 
 Description of an Ordinary Tenant-House. — As an example of an ordinary 
 tenant-house, I select one from James street for description. It is a brick 
 building five stories high. A door of entrance and a liquor-store occupy the 
 front of the first story. Entering a hall 4:} feet wide, we grope our way up a 
 steep staircase 2^ feet wide, which is perfectly dark, and reach the second- 
 story landing, from which open four doors communicating with the same num- 
 ber of domiciles. 
 
 Calling at the first of these we enter a room 14 x 12 feet with ceiling 8 feet 
 high, having on one side two moderate-sized windows. The small fire-place is 
 closed, and a stove exhausts rapidly the scanty aimospheric supply which finds 
 its way into the apartment through crevices of the door and windows. AVe 
 observe that a pungent odor of coal-gas pervades the apartment. 
 
 Opening into this room is another, having an area of 9 x 12 feet, with the 
 same height of ceiling as the former. It has no other opening than the door of 
 communication, and of course possesses no means whatever of efficient ventila- 
 tion. Looking into this we see two beds beside a quantity of bedding on the 
 floor between them, indicating that this is the dormitory of half a do/en per- 
 sons. A sickening and stifling odor, most offensive to the unaccustomed 
 senses, pervades this apartment and poisons the atmosphere inhaled by the 
 residents. 
 
 The simple fact that this is the abode of six persons might be a sufficient ex- 
 planation of the latter phenomenon ; but when we recollect that they belong 
 to a class who attribute most of their physical ills to a cause the exact reverse 
 of that to which they are generally due, namely, to exposure to the external 
 atmosphere, and whose sanitary creed teaches them to exclude it from their 
 apartments as far as possible, we can only wonder that the mephitic gases 
 generated and concentrated in these abodes do not destroy health and life even 
 more speedily than they appear to do. 
 
 AVe find in this domicile a ipro rata of about 370 cubic feet to each occupant. 
 At the time of visit, the mother and two small children are the only members 
 of the family present. The latter we find to be types of a class. xVlthough 
 they have no form of active disease present, they are strumous, debilitated, 
 and lacking in muscular development. We notice that the conjunctiva is in- 
 flamed, and learn without surprise that every member of the family has been 
 affected with ophthalmia. The mucous membrane of the eyes as well as of 
 the air passages presents the constant irritation of smoke and dust. 
 
 The remaining domiciles are counterparts of the first as to arrangement and 
 condition, and almost so as regards their occupants. The halls are practically 
 destitute of ventilation. The occasional opening of the door of entrance below, 
 or of those of the domiciles above, scarcely has any favorable influence on the 
 condition of the atmosphere. From the latter sources, indeed, the halls are 
 
62 
 
 constantly filled with noisome and fetid exhalations. Their floors are washed 
 occasionally though rarely, but the walls frequently remain for years without 
 whitewashing or cleansing. Wherever the hand, comes in contact with them 
 they impart a sticky or pasty sensation ; and when scraped, an actual deposit of 
 filth is brought away. 
 
 Pursuing our investigations, we next examine the rear of the premises. 
 
 Through a narrow alley, we enter a small court-yard which the lofty build- 
 ings in front and rear keep in almost perpetual shade. Entering it from the 
 street on a sunny day the atmosphere seems like that of a well. The yard, 
 which is about 25 feet square, is filled with recentl3^-washed clothing suspended 
 to dry. In the centre of this space are the privies used by the population of 
 both front and rear-houses. Their presence is quite as perceptible to the smell 
 as to the sight. 
 
 Making our way through this inclosure, and descending four or five steps, 
 we find ourselves in the basement of the rear-building. We enter a room 
 whose low ceiling is blackened with smoke, and its walls discolored with damp. 
 In front, opening on a narrow area covered with green mould, two small windows, 
 their tops scarcely level with the court-yard, afford at noonda}^ a twilight illumi- 
 nation to the apartment. Through their broken panes they admit the damp 
 air laden with efiiuvia which constitutes the vital atmosphere inhaled by all 
 who are immured in this dismal abode. 
 
 A door at the back of this room communicates with another which is entirely 
 dark, and has but this one opening. Both rooms together have an area about 
 eighteen feet square, and these apartments are the home of six persons. The 
 father of the family, a day laborer, is absent. The mother, a wrinkled crone at 
 thirty, sits rocking in her arms an infjint whose past}" and pallid features tell 
 that decay and death are usurping the place of health and life. Two older 
 children are in the street, which is their only playground, and the onl}^ place 
 where they can go to breathe an atmosphere that is even comparative!}^ pure. 
 A fourth child, emaciated to a skeleton, and with that ghastly and unearthly 
 look which marasmus impresses on its victims, has reared its feeble frame on a 
 rickety chair against the window-sill, and is striving to get a ghmpse at the 
 smiling heavens whose light is so seldom permitted to gladden its longing eyes. 
 Its youth has battled nobly against the tei-ribly morbid and devitalizing agents 
 which have oppressed its childish life — the poisonous air, the darkness, and 
 the damp ; but the battle is nearly over, it is easy to decide where the victory 
 will be. 
 
 My district contains one tenant-house which has become rather notorious in 
 consequence of having been the subject of several special reports, one of which 
 I made about three years since. As this establishment is very extensive, and 
 possesses some peculiar cliaracteristics, and as the description of these premises 
 and their population which I gave in that report is equally applicable now, I 
 quote from it here : * 
 
 " The building known as No. — and No. — Cherry street forms a part of 
 what has heretofore been known as 'Gotham Court.' As measured, it is 34 
 feet 4 inches wide in front and rear, is 234 feet long and 5 stories high. On the 
 north it is contiguous to a large tenant-house fronting on Eoosevelt street. 
 On the west an alley, 9 feet wide, separates it from a similar structure forming a 
 part of the 'Court.' On the east another alley, 7 feet wide, divides it from the 
 rear of a number of houses on Roosevelt street. 
 
 " In the basement of this building are the privies, through which the Croton 
 water is permitted to run for a short time occasionally ; but this is evidently 
 insufficient to cleanse them, for their emanations render, the first story exceed- 
 ingly offensive, and may be perceived as a distinct odor as high as the third 
 floor. 
 
 "The contents of the privies are discharged into subterranean drains or 
 
 * The Inspector of the Fourth District prepared the special report here referred to 
 when he was Visiting Physician to the New-York City Di^^pensary iu the same district 
 in the year 1859-60. — Editor. 
 
63 
 
 sewers, which run through each alley and communicate with the external 
 atmosphere bv a series of grated openings, through which fetid exhalations are 
 continually arising. These openings receive the drainage of the buildings, 
 besides the refuse matter which is not too bulky to pass through the gratings, a 
 bordering of disgusting filth frequently surrounding them. 
 
 This structure contains twelve principal divisions, each having a common 
 staircase communicating with 10 domiciles, making 120 tenements in all. Each 
 tenement consists of two rooms, the largest of which is 14 feet 8 inches long, 9 
 feet 6 inches wide, and 8 feet 4 inches high. The smaller, having the same 
 length and height, is 8 feet 6 inches wide. The two apartments together con- 
 tain Idoo^ cubic feet. Each room has one small window. The doors leading 
 from the landings are contiguous to the wall in which these windows are situ- 
 ated, so that it is impossible for a current of air to pass through the rooms under 
 any circumstances. 
 
 xVt the time of visit 49 of the tenements were cither vacant or the occupants 
 absent. In the remaining 71 there were reported as residing 504 persons, 
 averaging a little more than 7 persons to each occupied domicile. The entire 
 amount of space in the rooms occupied is 138,840 cubic feet, which would be 
 equal to a single room 118 feet square, and about 10 feet high, giving each in- 
 dividual an average of about 275 cubic feet, equal to a closet 5 Icet square and 
 11 feet high. It must be recollected that the above total space contains not 
 only its 5u4 inhabitants, but their furniture, bedding, and household utensils, 
 besides no small portion of their excretions, as is painfully evident to every one 
 who, in these regions, has the misfortune to possess an acute sense of smell. 
 Of the entire number of tenements, four only were found in a condition ap- 
 proaching cleanliness. It need scarcely be said that the entire establishment 
 swarms with vermin. 
 
 ''In seven of the tenements tailoring was carried on. In five out of seven 
 the articles manufoctured were for the use of the army. In two of these rooms 
 patients were found sick of contagious diseases. One was a case of typhus fever, 
 the other of measles. 
 
 " It was admitted that 19 persons were unvaccinated. These were chiefly 
 children, but it is probable that a much larger number are unprotected from 
 variola, for in several instances those who asserted that the operation had been 
 successfully performed, foiled, on examination, to exhibit a vaccine scar. 
 
 The average length of time that the residents have occupied the premises 
 is reported to be about two years and eight months. There have been 138 
 births, including 12 still-born, in these families during their term of residence 
 in the building. Of these only 77 are now living, showing an infant mortality 
 of over 44 per cent in two years and eight months ; but as by far the greater 
 number of these deaths occux during the first 3'ear, it may be safely assumed 
 that 30 per cent of those born heie do not survive a twelvemonth. The total 
 number of deaths reported as occurring in the families now occupying the prem- 
 ises during their term of residence there, is 98, or about 19^ per cent of the 
 population for that period. 
 
 " Of the 504 inmates, 14G, or about 29 per cent, were found to be suffering 
 from diseases of a more or less serious character, among which were four cases 
 of small-pox, (three of them unvaccinated,) eight cases of typhus fever, seven 
 cases of scarlatina, and four of measles in the eruptive stage, twenty-seven 
 cases of infantile marasmus, twelve cases of phthisis pulmonalis, five cases of 
 dysentery, three cases of chronic diarrhea, and a large number of slight cases 
 of diarrhea and of cutaneous eruptions. 
 
 " It is difficult to form a satisfactory estimate of the comparative frequency 
 of the different diseases heretofore prevailing, the inmates being, in a great pro- 
 portion of cases, ignorant of their character. It is, of course, equally difficult 
 to arrive at the causes of death, but it is pretty well ascertained thai at least 
 twenty cases of small-pox occurred during the past year, of which six were 
 fatal. Scarlatina is assigned as the cause of sixteen deaths occurring during 
 the above period. Typhus fever undoubtedly claimed numerous victims, as it 
 has been quite prevalent. To the unaccustomed eye it is a sad and striking 
 
64 
 
 spectacle to witness the attenuated forms, the sunken eyes, the pinched and 
 withered faces of the httle patients, young in years but old in sufferine, who 
 are the prey of infantile marasmus. A glance is sufficient to designate \his as 
 one of the ghostly janitors, ever ready to open wide the gate which leads to 
 early death. 
 
 *' A* description of these premises would be incomplete without, at least, a 
 passing notice of two establishments occupying the front portion of the first 
 story. One is termed a grocery, the other a liquor-store. Both are apparently 
 pretty well patronized. At the former are retailed a variety of articles of food 
 including partially-decayed vegetables, rather suspicious-looking solids, bearing 
 respectively the names of butter and cheese, and a decidedly suspicious fluid 
 bearing the name of milk. Beer and alcoholic compounds are also dispensed. 
 At the adjoining shop the staple commodities are those indescribable com- 
 pounds of sundry known and unknown ingredients, which are sold as ' pure 
 imported wines and liquors.' I believe from what I could ascertain that these 
 liquors are used to a considerable extent b}^ almost every family on the prem- 
 ises ; a tact, indeed, whicli might be expected, for in such apartments as they 
 occupy the poisonous air begets a deadly lassitude, and generates an inordinate 
 desire for stimulants. To the effect of these unwholesome viands and poison- 
 ous beverages ma}^ probably be traced much of the diarrhea which prevails 
 here even at this season, and which is vastly increased in amount during the' 
 summer months. 
 
 " On the whole, perhaps, this section of Gotham Court presents about an 
 average specimen of tenant-houses in the lower part of the city in respect to 
 salubrity. There are some which are more roomy, have better means of ven- 
 tilationj and are kept cleaner ; but there are many which are in f\ir worse con- 
 dition, and exhibit a much higher rate of mortality than this." 
 
 The number of inhabited basements and cellars is 224, occupied by 208 fam- 
 ilies, or about 1400 persons. Their depth below the "curb" or street level 
 varies from 2 to 8 feet, averaging about 4^ feet. 
 
 The floors of 16 are below high-water mark. 
 
 " 91 " less than 10 feet above high-water mark. 
 
 " 84 " from 10 to 20 
 
 " 28 " " 20 to 30 " " " 
 
 u 5 u Q^gj. 30 u u u 
 
 In the sub-tidal basements 19 families, or 110 persons, live lencath tie level 
 of the sea. 
 
 This submarine region is not onl}- excessively damp, but is liable to sudden 
 inroads from the domains of Neptune. At high-tide the water often wells up 
 through the doors, submerging them to a considerable depth. The constant 
 repetition of this aquatic episode in domestic life, has led to the abandonment, 
 as residences, of several of these basements, the number now occupied being 
 much smaller than it was foi-n)erly. 
 
 They are all damp, those in the least elevated localities, of course, being most 
 so. In very many cases the vaults of privies are situated on the same or a 
 higher level, and their contents frequently ooze through walls into the occupied 
 apartments beside them. Fully one fourth of these subterranean domiciles are 
 pervaded by a most offensive odor from this source, and rendered exceedingly 
 unwholesome as human habitations. These are the places in which we most 
 frequently meet with typhoid fever and dysenter}^ during the summer months. ! 
 I estimate the amount of sickness of all kinds affecting the residents of base- 
 ments and cellars compared with that occurring among an equal number of the 
 inhabitants of floors above ground, as being about in the ratio of 3 to 2. 
 
 Rents, — In regular tenant-houses the rent of each domicile at present aver- 
 ages §9 per month, or $108 per year ; the entire rent of each of these houses 
 thus averaging $950 per annum. 
 
 Excessive Crowding of Houses iqjon Lots. — In some cases front and rear ; 
 buildings are situated on lots less than 80 feet deep. They are generally 
 
I 
 
bird's-eye view of a xeav feyer-xest on the ayexues. 
 
 The Ground-Plan, with Explanatory Symbols. 
 
65 
 
 crowded into the smallest possible space, and are constructed in the cheapest 
 manner. 
 
 They are, in many instances, owned by large capitalists, by whom they are 
 farmed out to a class of factors who make this their especial business.* These 
 men pay to the owners of the property a sum which is considered a fair return 
 on the capital invested, and rely for their profits (which are often enormous) on 
 the additional amount which they can extort from the wretched tenants whose 
 homes frequently become almost untenantable for want of repairs, which the 
 "agent" cleems it to his interest to withhold. These men contrive to absorb 
 most of the scanty surplus which remains to the tenants after paying for their 
 miserable food, shelter, and raiment. They are, in many instances, proprietors 
 of low groceries, liquor-stores, and "policy-shops" connected with such prem- 
 ises — the same individual often being the actual owner of a large number. 
 Many of the wretched population are held by these men in a state of abject de- 
 pendence and vassalage little short of absolute slavery. 
 
 Massing of Tenements. — The following is a fair illustration of the manner in 
 which building lots are often crowded : A row of four or five-story brick tenements 
 stands facing the street, twenty or t\vent3'-five feet in the rear of which stands a 
 similar row, on the rear portion of the same lots on which the front houses stand. 
 In the rear of these rear houses, at a distance varying from a few inches to two 
 feet, stand the corresponding rear houses of the next street, and twenty or twen- 
 ty-five feet in front of these last mentioned stands the corresponding row of front 
 houses. In this manner twenty houses, each twenty feet wide, and as high as 
 it pleases the owner to rear them, may stand on a space of less than 20,000 
 square feet ; and allowing each front house to contain eight, and each rear house 
 •four families, (a moderate estimate,) we have to each famil}^ about lfi-4 square 
 feet of ground. The wood-cut on the next page presents a bird's-eye view and 
 ground-plan of the locality here described. It is the western section of a newly 
 built-up square, not far from the great hotels on Fifth Avenue and Broadway, 
 and will almost inevitably become a fever-nest. 
 
 * The diagram on the opposite page represents an area eighty yards long and fifty 
 yards wide, including the nd-dc-sac at the termination of Clifif street. It illustrates the 
 proximity to crowded habitations of offensive and dangerous nuisances, ofren observed 
 in the lower part of the city. The diagram presents an accurate ground-plan of each 
 tenant-house which it embraces. Within this space are 20 dwellings occupied by 111 
 families, and having a population of 538 persons. A soap-and-candle factory, a tannery, 
 and five stables, in which are kept not less than 30 horses, are also wholly or partially 
 included within its limits. 
 
 A, B, C, D, E, are tenant-houses fronting on Yandewater street. An alley four feet 
 wide running through C forms the sole communication with the five tenant-houses F, G, 
 H, I, J, which open into the small court R, in which stands their common privy,/, sit- 
 uated within three feet of the hall-door of one of the houses, which is constantly per- 
 vaded by its noisome odor ; c, </, are privies situated immediately under the windows 
 of the houses F, G, H ; a and b are privies belonging to the tenant-houses A and B ; 
 K, L, M, N, are tenant-houses standing back to back with two of those in the court 
 above mentioned and with three stables to which access is had from Yandewater street. 
 The position of two stables fronting on Cliff street will also be observed. The soap-and- 
 candle factory, whose frontage is shown in the cut, is a very extensive one, and its ema- 
 nations vitiate the atmosphere for a considerable space around. 
 
 T, T, T, represent a series of tan-vats, in the rear of a leather factory on Frankfort 
 street, which generally contains a large number of green hides in a very offensive con- 
 dition. The peculiar stench from this source is usually quite perceptible through the 
 entire area shown in the engraving. 
 
 This locality lies on the borders of a former marsh known as " Beekman's Swamp." 
 The appearance of every inhabitant of this region indicates a low and vitiated condition 
 of the system, rendering it specially susceptible to adynamic forms of fever, which, 
 during epidemic visitations, have on several occasions spread with terrific rapidity 
 through the entire quarter. Typhus fever has prevailed during the past year to a con- 
 siderable extent in some of these houses, while small-pox has been rife in the tenant- 
 houses on Yandewater street. It has been observed that scarlatina is especially malig- 
 nant and fatal here. 
 
 5 
 
66 
 
 All the evils connected with the tenant-house system in Xew-York have been 
 steadily increasing for several 3'ears past ; and although the system itself, as it 
 exists here, is peculiar to this city, there is reason for believing that both the 
 system and all its evils might be effectuall}' controlled by the timely and well- 
 directed efforts of the inteUigent and wealthy classes of citizens. A few wor- 
 th}^ citizens and wealthy capitalists have given excellent examples of improved 
 construction and care of such houses, but there is wanted a comprehensive ap- 
 preciation of the peculiar necessities and perils of the city, and of the real wants, 
 disabilities, and sufferings of the poorer classes of the population in consequence 
 of the gross defects, overcrowding, and insalubrity of the miserable abodes of 
 these classes. The limited area of the city, the unparalleled increase of popu- 
 lation, particularly of the foreign emigrant class, and necessitous conditions 
 that induce the poor to accept such fever-nests and dens of death as avaricious 
 and unscrupulous speculators have constructed solely for purposes of rapid 
 gains, have become matters of public concern.* 
 
 EXTRACT FEOM REPORT OF DR. JANES, INSPECTOR, TWENTIETH DISTRICT. 
 
 For what calls most imperatively for reform, is the present construction of 
 tenant-houses as regards light, ventilation, and every necessar}^ comfort. Not 
 only does the present system of overcrowding these pent up and unventilated 
 apartments, and the consequent necessity of inhaling an atmosphere loaded with 
 carbonic acid gas, and the poisonous exhalations from human bodies, enervate the 
 physical }jowers, and predispose to diseases of the worst type, but its demoral- 
 izing effects are fearful to contemplate, and instead of being the most attractive, 
 home is often rendered the most uncomfortable and uninviting spot on earth. . 
 Hence it is that the husband spends his evenings at the neighboring dram-shop 
 or the gambling-house, in search of comforts which his own fireside denies him. 
 Hence it is that children reared amid the^e scenes of poverty, intemperance, and 
 the whole train of their attendant evils, becoming dailv more familiar with pro- 
 fanity and every species of wickedness, grow up willing and early victims to 
 whatever vicious or criminal course may seem to them more attractive than their 
 own miserable abodes. And hence I believe much of the vice, immoralit}', and 
 crime of our city to be due to the construction, overcrowding, and mismanage- 
 ment of tenant-houses. 
 
 Efforts are from time to time made to relieve the condition of the poor, for which 
 associations and individuals have contributed largely, all of which, however, is 
 but a sprinkling of rain upon this great waste of human misery and destitution. 
 The man of God who, in the exercise of his sacred ofhce, fi"equents these abodes 
 of poverty in the hopes of directing the attention of some poor creature to the 
 one thing needful, too often encounters only that sullen or desponding indiffer- 
 ence resulting from a long fiuniliarit}^ with ever}' thing that is cheerless and un- 
 attractive, if we would elevate the condition of these people, we must begin by 
 relieving their social and domestic necessities, and furnishing them with habita- 
 tions where they can enjoy sunshine and pure air, with abundant facilities for 
 personal and domiciliar}' cleanliness. "We then shall have taken the first step 
 toward improving their moral as well as physical condition, and pointing them 
 to the fulfillment of man's higher destiny. But the dark and cheerless rear ten- 
 ment, with its unventilated apartments, its damp and dingy walls, and the at- 
 tendant neglect of all sanitary measures, is wholly incompatible with man's so- 
 cial and moral nature, destroys all noble aspirations, ruins the most vigorous 
 health, and opens wide the gate to mental, moral, physical, and spiritual death. 
 
 The Sanitary Inspector of the Fourteenth District (eastern hali of Seventeenth 
 Ward) submits a record of 49 places where typhus prevails, or has recently 
 occurred in his district, under circumstances similar to the causes that localized 
 the same fever in the places just described in the Sixth District ; and from the 
 Fifteenth District the following condensed report of three fever-nests is sub- 
 mitted : 
 
 * Outline of tlie Progress of Sanitary Improvement. By Dr. E. Harris. Wiley & 
 Halstead. 1858. 
 
67 
 
 No. — East 
 No. — East 
 No. — East 
 
 a 
 
 §3 
 
 10th, Vear, 4 stories. 
 11th, rear, 3 stories. 
 4th, Lront and rear. - 18 
 
 40 
 
 16 
 
 SI 
 
 •=3 *>'3 
 
 « 2 
 
 2; 
 
 o , 
 
 o § 
 
 c s 
 
 iz; 
 o 
 
 EH 
 
 10 lin4 
 
 O SI, 
 
 lin 10 
 
 6 8 in 24 lin S 
 
 27 lins'linlH 
 
 I I 
 
 Remarks. 
 
 Overcrowded unven- 
 tilated, privies and 
 court very filthy. 
 I Here are 4 cases of 
 V typhus, and 1 of 
 ) small-pox. 
 I Here are 8 cases of 
 
 tyi)lius, and 
 sniall-pox. 
 
 2 of 
 
 In the dbox:e 'buildings the average length of human life is nine years ! 
 
 EXTRACT FKOM REPORT OF JAMES L. LITTLE, M.D., INSPECTOR OF NORTH HALF OF 
 
 TWENTIETH WARD. 
 
 Tenant-Houses. — In my district there are 417 tenant-houses, of which 345 
 are built of brick ; 72 are frame buildings. There are 3G1 front and 56 rear 
 buildings. Of this number 321 are furnished with proper sewerage, and the 
 remaining 105 have no communication with the sewers. Slops, etc., are thrown 
 into the street-gutters and garbage-boxes. There are 2G14 families, comprising 
 11,993 individuals, living in these tenant-houses, of whom 337 live in cellars. 
 
 Ventilation. — These houses are constructed so as to contain as many families 
 as possible, and generally no attempt is made to secure for the inmates proper 
 ventilation. This is one of the chief causes of the high rate of mortality which 
 occurs in these dweUings. In the words of a meinbcr of the Council of Hy- 
 giene, ''The close, uncleansed, unventilated residences of the poor become the 
 homes of disease and pauperism; the crowded tenements into which avarice 
 drives poverty, in filthy streets and noisome courts, become perennial sources 
 of deadly miasmata that may be wafted to the neighboring mansions of wealth 
 and refinement, to cause sickness and mourning there."' 
 
 Impurity of the air and a miserable home involve ill-health, degradation, 
 and an early death; and the subject of providing proper homes for the poor 
 and the laboring classes of tliis city, is one which should engage the earnest 
 attention of our Legislature. 
 
 Fig. 2. 
 
 According to authority, a person 
 breathes 14 cubic feet of air per hour. 
 This quantity of air, when returned 
 from the lungs exhausted of the vital 
 element, oxygen, is charged with car- 
 bonic acid to such an extent that it vi- 
 tiates to a great and poisonous degree 
 100 cubic feet more of air. The an- 
 nexed figure represents this 14 cubic 
 feet which is used per hour by each 
 individual. The adjoining figure 2 re- 
 presents a space of 125 cubic feet. 
 
 The inclosed figure represents a 
 man of ordinary size compared with 
 the above cubic space, and it shows at 
 a glance the small amount of air pro- 
 vided for the individual. The next fig- 
 ure, 3, shows a space of 512 cubic feet 
 as compared with the size of an ordi- 
 
68 
 
 nary person.* Novr, many of the dor- 
 mitories of these tenant-houses con- 
 tain about this amount of space, and 
 are generally occupied by two adults 
 and several children. 
 
 This engraving (Fig. 4) shows the 
 proportion which 1000 cubic feet bears 
 with the above, and this amount few, 
 if any, of the dormitories give to a 
 single individual. This in an hour 
 would contain nearly five times the 
 amount of carbonic acid, and soon 
 there would be an excess of impure 
 air for each individual. 
 
 The following table will show the 
 average cubical feet to persons living 
 in tenant-houses in this district, as given in the returns of the Sanitary In- 
 
 Fig. 4. 
 
 spection 
 
 103 
 330 
 1486 
 2355 
 2351 
 1G89 
 1239 
 903 
 1587 
 
 persons have between 200 and 300 cubic feet. 
 
 300 
 400 
 500 
 600 
 TOO 
 800 
 900 
 
 400 
 500 
 600 
 700 
 800 
 900 
 1000 
 
 1000 and more 
 
 EXTRACT FROM REPORT OF R. L. PARSONS, M.D., IXSPECTOR OF TWEXTT-SECOND 
 
 DISTRICT. 
 
 Overcrowding. — Apartments are often so overcrowded that only from four to 
 six hundred cubic feet of air are allowed to each occupant, taking into estimate 
 the whole suite of apartments ; and b}^ night the number of cubic feet to each 
 individual is often reduced as low as two hundred feet. A house with these 
 overcrowded apartments very often contains from fifty to sixty individuals, and 
 not unfrequently from eighty to one hundred or one hundred and twenty. 
 This overcrowding of apartments is a direct and powerful cause of the general 
 deterioration of health in the occupants. It is especially manifest in the sick- 
 ness and death ratio among children, who are almost constantly exposed, and 
 have less powers of resistance. For examples of the large sickness ratio among 
 the children inhabiting these crowded apartments, it is only necessary to visit 
 them and make a cursory inspection. x\nd it may be added that of all the causes 
 that tend to deteriorate the health of children, this is probably among the most 
 efficient. In addition to the general cachexia above referred to, the occupants 
 are predisposed to contract contagious and endemic diseases which they might 
 escape if in better health; and when contracted, these diseases are rendered, 
 by the above conditions, more difficult of control, and more fatal in their re- 
 sults. Thus we often see an endemic disease, as typhus fever, attacking in 
 succession every unprotected inmate of an apartment. But instead of one 
 crowded apartment there is usually a large number, so that the evil is multi- 
 plied still further. And not only this, but there are whole squares filled with 
 these crowded houses, forming vast centres for the incubation and dissemina- 
 tion of disease. The remedy is simple, whether it is practicable or not, namely, 
 the limitation of the number of persons occupying apartments and domiciles. 
 
 * The Builder, Yol. XYII. page 54. 
 
69 
 
 Local Mortuary Statistics. 
 
 The following statistics of two houses, front and rear, pertaining to these premises 
 ■were reported to the Council of Hygiene in the month of January, 1865, in the form 
 prescribed for " Special Reports upon the Sickness, 2IortaUty, and Physical Condition in 
 Cro wded Tenant-Homes. ' ' 
 
 Street, and No. of the House. 
 
 Xos. 37 and 39 Park Street. 
 
 Character and surroundings of 
 the House. 
 
 These tenant-houses are 6 stories in height, with a basement. 
 An immense junk-store and a 7 story tenant-house on the 
 south side, extend the entire depth of lots, and thereby 
 entirely shut off ventilation and lijrhting from that direc- 
 tion. There are stables at the back of the rear houses. 
 
 No. of Families in the House. 
 
 65. 
 
 No. of Persons in the House. 
 
 307. fW^ith an. allowance of 300 cubic feet of air-space.J 
 
 No. of Children in the House, 
 under 10 years of age. 
 
 42. 
 
 No. of Children that have died 
 during the last 6 months. 
 
 6. 
 
 Total No. of Deaths at all ages 
 during the last year. 
 
 u. 
 
 Total No. of persons now Sick 
 and Diseased. 
 
 77. 
 
 The Ratio and total Sickness 
 in total population. 
 
 1 in 4 constantly sick. 
 
 The Ratio total Mortality in 
 population for the year. 
 
 1 in 22. 
 
 Remarks. 
 
 Small-pox and typhus have existed for some time in these 
 domiciles. 
 
 The statistics of the next tenant-houses, southward in the same block, a vast junk 
 store intervening as just mentioned, are given as follows by Mr. S. B. Halliday, the faith- 
 ful missionary to the city poor, and present Superintendent of the five Points House of 
 Industry : 
 
 . . "The lot on which this building stands is 48 feet 2 inches wide, by 91 
 feet 6 inches in depth. There is both a front and rear building. The front building, 
 including the basement, is eight floors or stories. The basement is crowded with fam- 
 ilies, and there are two groggeries in the front portions of the next floor, fiimilies living 
 back of the shops ; so that" families are piled up in this establishment one above the 
 other, eight tiers high. In the front building I found 50 families, with two tenements 
 or sets of apartments unoccupied. In these families were 52 men, 57 women, 30 boys, 
 and 46 girls. The number of children which have died in these families is 38. The 
 number of still births, 11. The whole number of living children, 76; whole number 
 deceased, 49 ; nearly two thirds as many having died as have survived. In 13 of these 
 families no children had been born, and in 28 families with children no deaths had oc- 
 curred, so that 49 children have died in the remaining 14 families, an average of almost 
 four deaths to each family. I give the ages of the deceased children : 
 
 2 of 11 years 
 9 " 
 6 " 
 4 " 
 3 " 
 2 " 
 
 18 months. 
 
 2 of 17 months 
 
 14 
 13 
 12 
 10 
 
 8 
 6 
 
 1 of 5 months 
 
 2 " 3 " 
 2 " 2 " 
 
 2 U J u 
 
 2 " 3 davs 
 1 " 1 " 
 11 still-born. 
 
 " The families in this building, with few exceptions, are from Ireland, and with as 
 few exceptions, are Catholics. They are as a class possessed of more intelligence than 
 the generality of the Irish people, tlie great majority being able to both read and write. 
 The ages are as follows : 
 
70 
 
 25 01 1 
 
 year 
 
 2 of 19 
 
 12 " 2 
 
 
 4 " 20 
 
 n u o 
 
 y o 
 
 u 
 
 1 " 21 
 
 6 " 4 
 
 (( 
 
 4 " 22 
 
 5 " 5 
 
 
 " 23 
 
 1 D 
 
 ({ 
 
 6 " 24 
 
 7 
 
 
 1 " 25 
 
 X o 
 
 (( 
 
 
 2 " 9 
 
 (( 
 
 10 " 27 
 
 2 " 10 
 
 (( 
 
 9 " 28 
 
 1 " 11 
 
 (( 
 
 2 " 29 
 
 3 " 14 
 
 (( 
 
 17 " 30 
 
 1 " 16 
 
 u 
 
 1 " 31 
 
 1 " 18 
 
 (( 
 
 2 " 32 
 
 1 of 33 years 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 34 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 35 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 u 
 
 36 
 
 (( 
 
 
 1 
 
 " 
 
 37 
 
 " 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 40 
 
 u 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 41 
 
 
 (( 
 
 6 
 
 
 45 
 
 u 
 
 (( 
 
 1 
 
 
 46 
 
 
 (( 
 
 1 
 
 
 49 
 
 it 
 
 u 
 
 1 
 
 
 50 
 
 a 
 
 (( 
 
 1 
 
 
 55 
 
 u 
 
 (( 
 
 1 
 
 
 60 
 
 (( 
 
 u 
 
 1 
 
 
 65 
 
 a 
 
 *' In the rear building there were 17 families. In these 17 families there were 16 
 men, 22 women, 18 boys, and 7 girls ; in all, 63 persons. 16 of these families are 
 Irish, and one German. The ages were as follows: 
 
 5 of 1 
 
 year 
 
 2 of 14 
 
 years 
 
 1 of 34 rears 
 
 1 " 2 
 
 
 1 " 15 
 
 
 1 " 36 ' " 
 
 2 " 3 
 
 (( 
 
 1 " 16 
 
 <( 
 
 2 " 38 " 
 
 1 " 4 
 
 
 1 " 20 
 
 (( 
 
 5 " 40 " 
 
 2 " 5 
 
 (( 
 
 1 " 21 
 
 (( 
 
 1 " 41 " 
 
 1 " 6 
 
 (( 
 
 1 " 22 
 
 (( 
 
 1 " 45 " 
 
 2 " 7 
 
 (( 
 
 3 " 23 
 
 (( 
 
 2 " 48 " 
 
 1 " 8 
 
 (C 
 
 1 " 24 
 
 (( 
 
 . 1 " 49 " 
 
 1 " 9 
 
 (( 
 
 1 " 25 
 
 u 
 
 4 " 50 
 
 3 " 10 
 
 (( 
 
 2 " 27 
 
 (( 
 
 2 " 55 " 
 
 1 " 12 
 
 u 
 
 4 " 30 
 
 (( 
 
 2 60 " 
 
 2 " 13 
 
 (( 
 
 1 " 32 
 
 (( 
 
 1 " 65 " 
 
 *' In two of these families no children had been born. In the other 15 families the 
 children that had died exceeded the number of living nearly one third. There were 25 
 living; and, hicluding one still-birth, there had been 37 deaths of children in the 15 
 families. The ages of these children at their decease was as follows : 
 
 of 26 years 
 
 " 24 
 
 
 " 18 
 
 
 " 12 
 
 (( 
 
 " 11 
 
 (( 
 
 " 10 
 
 (C 
 
 " 8 
 
 (( 
 
 " 6 
 
 C( 
 
 1 of 5 Tears 
 
 2 
 
 (1 
 
 3 ' " 
 
 2 
 
 " 6 " 
 
 3 
 
 
 3 " 
 
 1 
 
 u 5 u 
 
 2 
 
 
 18 months 
 
 3 
 
 " 4 " 
 
 1 
 
 u 
 
 16 " 
 
 2 
 
 a 2 " 
 
 1 
 
 l( 
 
 15 " 
 
 1 
 
 u 1 .c 
 
 3 
 
 (( 
 
 14 " 
 
 2 
 
 " 3 weeks 
 
 1 
 
 u 
 
 10 
 
 2 
 
 " 7 days. 
 
 1 of 9 months 
 
 *' The average age of these children at death was a fraction over three and one third 
 years. Not including the six oldest, the average age of the remainder is a fraction over 
 one year. 
 
 " It is a shocking fact, that more children by one third should have died than have 
 survived in these families ; yet I have no doubt that a critical examination of the facta 
 in regard to the deaths in the families of the five blocks, the census of which was taken 
 by me, would have shown a nearly similar result. The whole nuinber of persons dom- 
 iciled on this lot was 24S." — Montldy Record of the Five Foints House of Industry. 
 
7L 
 
 Prevailing Diseases in one Square in 1864,^)?7'or to Oct. Ist. 
 
 [Domiciles in which sickness occurred are designated by letter.] 
 
 Two infants died of diphtheria. 
 
 An infant died in warm weather. 
 
 Two infants, spoon-fed, died in warm wea- 
 ther, twelve and fourteen days old. 
 
 An infimt has had the bowel-complaint 
 during the six weeks preceding Oct. 1st. 
 
 An infant has been sick several weeks, and 
 is now much reduced, the mother says, 
 '■''icith its teethy 
 
 An infant died of cholera infantum in 
 warm weather. 
 
 A boy two years old had typhus fever in 
 September. An infant died in the sum- 
 mer. 
 
 An infant had bowel-complaint in hot 
 weather. 
 
 An infant had- bowel complaint in hot 
 weather. 
 
 A spoon-fed infant died of cholera infan- 
 tum. A girl about eight years old has 
 typhus fever at present, (Oct. 1st.) 
 
 Two children had dysentery. 
 
 Two children had inflammation of the eyes. 
 
 A child twenty-one months old had diar- 
 rhea all summer. 
 
 Two infonts had cholera infantum ; one 
 died. One child has inflammation of the 
 eyes. 
 
 An infant one year old had cholera infan- 
 tum. 
 
 An infant had cholera infantum in the 
 summer. A girl had fever, (probably 
 typhus.) 
 
 Two cases of dysentery, and three of 
 
 cholera infantum, in hot weather. 
 One case of cholera infantum. 
 An infant in the summer very sick with 
 
 cholera infantum. A girl eight years 
 
 old now has fever. 
 An infant had cholera infantum. 
 Severe attack of dysentery in an adult. 
 An infant died in warm weather with- the 
 
 bowel-complaint. 
 An infant died of cholera infantum. 
 An infant sick with diarrhea in summer, 
 
 recovered. 
 
 TENTH AVENUE 
 
 m 
 
 I/O 
 
 lOT"? AV. HORSE CAR 
 R.R. STABLES 
 
 □ 
 
 4 
 
 00 
 
 ©?l □ 
 
 Or 
 
 n 
 
 do 
 
 5 
 
 IXI 
 
 O Q 
 
 NINTH 
 
 AVENUE 
 
 Diagram of one Block in Twenty-second 
 Ward. 
 
I