422" [Assemblt 



of the circle of which they are a part, compel an observance of the 

 separation of the sexes, and other social proprieties. They grow up 

 habituated to correct deportment and moral restraints, which accom- 

 pany them into all their relations of life. But confine that same 

 family to one room, compel them to perform all their personal and 

 domestic duties in view of each other, to sleep, dress, and undress in 

 each other's presence, and can it be doubted that the nice moral 

 distinctions so necessary to a life of virtue, will be greatly subdued, 

 or overthrown, the heart be hardened against the teachings of the 

 moralist, and the wave of lustful passion become of increased power? 

 Yet this is the condition of hundreds of families, who would gladly 

 escape the Maelstrom of morals which threatens to engulph them. 

 And this is undoubtedly a principal source of the dreadful amount of 

 licentiousness infesting this city. 



As breathing an impure atmosphere will produce a depressed tone 

 of bodily feeling and positive physical disease, so will a vitiated 

 moral atmosphere, induce a relaxed state of nK)ral feeling, and posi- 

 tively licentious habits. 



Whence issue, in times of riot and tumult, the disturbers of the 

 peace, but from the cellars and alleys, where they have never been, 

 taught to respect themselves, much less others. 



If a family of good disposition be reduced by force of circumstan- 

 ces to occupy the same premises with numbers of others of a different 

 character, it will be next to impossible to maintain their former 

 tone of morals, or domiciliary cleanliness and order, and they must 

 soon lapse into the same habits and feelings as their neighbors., 

 adding thus their numbers to those who before swelled the list of the 

 profane and evil disposed. 



I have remarked upon the influence of the impure atmosphere, the 

 damp and crowded apartments, and other circumstances upon the 

 health of the poorer residents of New York:; — the following extract 

 from an able writer* must commend itself, in this connection, to the 

 judgment of every right thinking man. 



"Although it is most true that the calamity of sickness, or even- 



• of death itself, is nothing compared with crime, yet it is also true, 



that sickness induces poverty, which is one of the tempters to crime, 



and. that a deranged condition of the physical system, often urges tO' 



•Hon. Horace Mann. 



