196 ROBERT W. DE FOREST 



any building or health regulation. He may be fairly left free 

 to suffer the consequences of his own misuse of his Hberty. 

 His death, and that of his family, from disease so caused may, 

 as an awful example, do more to advance civilization by mak- 

 ing his neighbors more careful, than would his hfe and theirs 

 under enforced sanitary regulation. But if that same man 

 is separated from you and me only by a board partition or 

 twelve inch wall, and our families meet every time they go into 

 the street or into the back yard, his liberty must be restricted 

 in some degree in order to enable you and me to enjoy ours. 



How and why has tenement house law been evolved in 

 American cities? In the same way in which the Anglo-Saxon 

 mind deals with any such problems. Just as it evolved com- 

 mon law, and for the same reasons. First a case — that is, an 

 evil — to be remedied; afterward a decision — the application of 

 the remedy, and the establishment of a principle or law by 

 which similar evils shall be remedied. It is not according to 

 the genius of our race to provide the remedy in advance of 

 the supposed disease. Better be sure that the disease really 

 exists, even if some few die from it, and then provide the reme- 

 dy which will be sure to meet actual conditions, than to burden 

 the community with advance remedies for diseases that after 

 all may prove to be imaginary. Even if the disease be not 

 imaginary, such remedies are apt to be worse than the disease 

 itself. Thus, in Anglo-Saxon countries, a conflagration has 

 usually preceded precautions against fire, and the evils of 

 sunless, airless and unwholesome tenements have preceded any 

 attempt to prevent these deplorable conditions. Eventually 

 we act, and when we do we act practically. 



It may be well to define what is meant by a tenement 

 house, for without definition there is infinite confusion in the 

 use of this term. In one of the recent civil service examina- 

 tions in New York, a candidate, evidently learned in the law, 

 or supposing himself to be so, defined it as being ''that which 

 is neither land nor hereditament." It has its popular and its 

 legal meaning. Popularly, it is used to designate the habita- 

 tions of the poorest classes, without much thought of the num- 

 ber of families living under any particular roof. The National 

 Cyclopedia significantly says: 'Tenement houses, commonly 



