It reduced the "house room" of the
island by eight hundred acres, which would have afforded comfortable
accommodations for seventy-two thousand persons, and naturally crowded
the lower quarters of the city to a still greater extent. A careful
estimate has been made by the Sanitary Association of New York, and
they report that with three fourths of the population there is an
average of six families to every house.
The poorer classes are to be met with in all parts of the city, but
they are most numerous along the East and North rivers, and between
Fourteenth and Canal streets. The majority of them are, beyond a doubt,
honest, and willing to work, and in times of great commercial activity
nearly all can find some means of employment; but in dull seasons, when
merchants and manufacturers are forced to discharge their employes,
thousands are thrown out of work, and the greatest suffering and
distress prevail in the poor districts. Besides these there are
thousands of vagrants, drunkards, and disreputable persons, who would
rather steal, or beg, than work, and whose misery is frightful.
We must not be understood as intimating that all who desire employment
can procure it in New York. Indeed the contrary is the case. Labor and
skill of almost every kind are in excess here. For every position of
regular labor there are at least five applicants, so that four fifths
of the poor have to resort to any and all means to maintain an honest
existence.
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