202 ROBERT W. DE FOREST 



man in any particular city can pay approximates a fixed 

 quantity. Any legislation which materially increases this 

 rent, or which prevents building and therefore prevents his 

 finding shelter, is quite certain to be repealed. This proposi- 

 tion, however, is not so discouraging as it may appear at the 

 outset. The standard of living among our working classes is 

 steadily improving. What yesterday was a luxury, to-day is 

 a necessity. In many cities, apartments which are not pro- 

 vided with running water are unrentable. Bathing facilities 

 are increasingly in demand, and are frequently being provided. 

 Families that have once lived in apartments where the bed- 

 rooms have light and air, will not hire apartments which are 

 dark and unventilated. The supply must meet the demand. 

 Interest rates are receding; economies in construction are 

 being introduced, which some time ago were unknown, largely 

 by the building of houses by the wholesale. The large profits 

 which were demanded as the normal income on tenement 

 houses in the past are no longer expected. Rooms up to the 

 standard of the modern tenement house law can be provided 

 without increasing the rental. 



Another limitation in many cities is the prevailing lot 

 dimension. If Dante were to-day writing his Inferno, the 

 lowest depth would be reserved for those men who invented 

 the twenty five foot lot and imposed it on so many American 

 cities. In unbuilt districts, where several lots, whatever be 

 their dimensions, can be purchased and built upon together, 

 the lot dimension does not necessarily control the frontage of 

 the building, and the tendency in such districts in New York 

 is to build tenement houses of wider frontage, which admit of 

 better court arrangement, but there are usually so many lots 

 separately owned, and so many which are situated between 

 lots already built upon, so that their enlargement is impossible, 

 that any proposed legislation prescribing court areas which, 

 however desirable, puts the prevailing lot unit at a disadvan- 

 tage, will meet with overwhelming resistance. 



There is another practical limitation, not necessarily to the 

 enactment of tenement house law, but to its permanence, in 

 the extent to which it, either actually or supposedly, interferes 

 with the profits of builders and material men; and perhaps no 



