400 [Assembly 



years, for a sum which will yield a fair interest on the cost. The 

 owner is thus relieved of tile great trouble incident to the changes of 

 tenants, and the collection of rents. His income is sure from one in- 

 dividual, and obtained without annoyance or oppression on his part. 

 It then becomes the object of the lessee, to make and save as much 

 as po^ssible, with his adventure, sufficient sometimes to enable him to 

 purchase the property in a short time. 



The tenements, in order to admit a greater number of families, 

 are divided into small apartments, as numerous as decency will ad- 

 mit. Regard to comfort, convenience, and health, is the last motive; 

 indeed, the great ignorance of this class of speculators (who are 

 very frequently foreigners and keep a grog shop on the premises) 

 would prevent a proper observance of these, had they the desire. 

 These closets, for they deserve no other name, are then rented to the 

 poor, from week to week, or month to month, the rent being almost 

 invariably required in advance, at least for the first few terms. The 

 families moving in first, after the house is built, find it clean, but 

 the lessee has no supervision over their habits, and however filthy 

 the tenement may become, he cares not, so that he receives his rent. 

 He and his family are often found steeped as low in depravity and 

 discomforts, as any of his tenants, being above them only in the 

 possession of money, and doubtless often beneath them in moral 

 worth and sensibility. 



It is very frequently the case that families, after occupying rooms 

 a few weeks, will change their location, leaving behind them all the 

 dirt which their residence has occasioned. Upon this the next com- 

 ers will sit down, being so much occupied with the hurry of moving, 

 and with the necessity of placing their furniture immediately in or- 

 der, that attention to cleansing the apartment is out of the question, 

 until they are "settled," and then, if done at all, it is in the most 

 careless and inefficient manner. Very often, perhaps in a majority 

 of the cases in the class of which I now speak, no cleaning other 

 than washing the floor is ever attempted, and that but seldom. 

 Whitewashing, cleaning of furniture, or bedding, or persons, in many 

 cases is never attempted. Some have old pieces of carpet which are 

 never shaken, (they would not bear it,) and are used to hide the filth 

 on the floor. Every corner of the room, of the cupboards, of the en- 

 tries and stairways, is piled up with dirt. The walls and ceilings, 

 with the plaster broken of! in many places, exposing the lath and 

 beams, and leaving openings for the escape from within of the efflu- 

 via of vermin, dead and alive, are smeared with the blood of unmen- 



