city. This
description will apply with almost equal force to a large part of the
First Ward, lying along the North River side of the island. The Fourth
and Sixth Wards are also among the most densely populated, being the
smallest wards in extent in the city.

The streets in this section are generally narrow and crooked. The
gutters and the roadway are lined with filth, and from the dark, dingy
houses comes up the most sickening stench. Every house is packed to its
utmost capacity. In some are simply the poor, in others are those whose
reputations make the policemen careful in entering them. Some of these
buildings are simply dens of thieves. All the streets are wretched
enough, but Baxter street has of late years succeeded to the reputation
formerly enjoyed by its neighbor, Park street. It is a narrow, crooked
thoroughfare. The sidewalk is almost gone in many places, and the street
is full of holes. Some of the buildings are of brick, and are lofty
enough for a modern Tower of Babel. Others are one and two story wooden
shanties. All are hideously dirty. From Canal to Chatham street there
is not the slightest sign of cleanliness or comfort. From Franklin to
Chatham street there is scarcely a house without a bucket shop or
"distillery," as the signs over the door read, on the ground floor. Here
the vilest and most poisonous compounds are sold as whiskey, gin, rum,
and brandy. Their effects are visible on every hand. Some of these
houses are brothels of the lowest description, and, ah, such terrible
faces as look out upon you as you pass them by! Surely no more hopeless,
crime-stained visages are to be seen this side of the home of the damned.
The filth that is thrown into the street lies there and decays until the
kindly heavens pour down a drenching shower and wash it away. As a
natural consequence, the neighborhood is sickly, and sometimes the
infection amounts almost to a plague.

Between Fourteenth street and the Battery, half a million of people are
crowded into about one-fifth of the island of Manhattan. Within this
section there are about 13,000 tenement houses, fully one-half of which
are in bad condition, dirty and unhealthy. One small block of the Five
Points district is said to contain 382 families. The most wretched
tenement houses are to be found in the Five Points. The stairways are
rickety and groan and tremble beneath your tread. The entries are dark
and foul. Some of these build