atively
cheap, so that the highest blessing of the laboring class would be
attainable--of separate homes for each family. But, on this narrow
island, business is so peculiarly concentrated, and population is so
much forced to one exit--towards the north--and the poor have such a
singular objection to living beyond a ferry, that space will inevitably
continue very dear in New York, and the laboring classes will be
compelled to occupy it.

To add to the unavoidable costliness of ground-room on this island, has
come in the effect of bad government.

It is one of the most unpleasant experiences of the student of political
economy, that the axioms of his science can so seldom be understood by
the masses, though their interests be vitally affected by them. Thus,
every thoughtful man knows that each new "job" among city officials,
each act of plunder of public property by members of the municipal
government, every loss of income or mal-appropriation or extravagance in
the city's funds, must be paid for by taxation, and that taxation always
falls heaviest on labor. The laboring classes of the city rule it, and
through their especial leaders are the great public losses and
wastefulness occasioned.

Yet they never know that they themselves continually pay for these in
increased rents. Every landlord charges his advanced taxation in rent,
and probably a profit on that. The tenant pays more for his room, the
grocer more for his shop, the butcher and tailor and shoemaker, and
every retailer have heavier expenses from the advance in rents, and each
and all charge it on their customers. The poor feel the final pressure.
The painful effect has been, that the expense for rent has arisen
enormously with the laboring classes of this city during the last five
years, while many of the other living expenses have nearly returned to
the standard before the war.

The influence of high rents is to force more people into a given space,
in order to economize and divide expense.

The latest trustworthy statistics on this important subject are from the
excellent Reports of the Metropolitan Board of Health for 1866. From
these, it appears that the Eleventh Ward of this city, with a population
of 58,953, has a rate of population of 196,510 to the square mile, or 16
1/10 square yards to each person; the Tenth Ward, with 31,587
population, has a rate of 185,512 to the square mile, or 17 1/10 square
yards to each; the Seventeenth Ward, with 79,563,