ngate, whose admirable papers on "Tenement House
Life," published by the "Tribune" in 1884-1885, must be regarded as
authority for the sanitary phases of the question. Little by little
these have bettered, till the death rate has come within normal limits
and the percentage of crime ceased to represent the largest portion of
the inhabitants. Yet here, on this familiar battle-ground, civilization
and something worse than mere barbarism still struggle. For which is the
victory?

Under the great Bridge, whose piers have taken the place of much that
was foulest in the Fourth Ward, stands a tenement-house so shadowed by
the structure that, save at midday, natural light barely penetrates it.
The inhabitants are of all grades and all nationalities. The men are
chiefly 'longshoremen, working intermittently on the wharves, varying
this occupation by long seasons of drinking, during which every pawnable
article vanishes, to be gradually redeemed or altogether lost, according
to the energy with which work is resumed. The women scrub offices,
peddle fruit or small office necessities, take in washing, share, many
of them, in the drinking bouts, and are, as a whole, content with
brutishness, only vaguely conscious of a wretchedness that, so long as
it is intermittent, is no spur to reform of methods. The same roof
covers many who yield to none of these temptations, but are working
patiently; some of them widows with children that must be fed; a few
solitary, but banding with neighbors in cloak or pantaloon making, or
the many forms of slop-work in the hands of sweaters. Sunshine has no
place in these rooms which no enforced laws have made decent, and where
occasional individual effort has power against the unspeakable filth
ruling in tangible and intangible forms, sink and sewer and closet
uniting in a common and all-pervading stench. The chance visitor has
sometimes to rush to the outer air, deadly sick and faint at even a
breath of this noisomeness. The most determined one feels inclined to
burn every garment worn during such quest, and wonders if Abana or
Pharpar or even Jordan itself could carry healing and cleansing in their
floods.

The dark halls have other uses than as receptacles for refuse or filth.
Hiding behind doors or in corners, or, grown bolder, seeking no
concealment, children hardly more than babies teach one another such new
facts of foulness as may so far have chanced to escape them,--baby
voices reciting a ritu