426 [Assembly 



Answer 5th. Then in reference to the fifth question, I would say, 

 that the health officer should be empowered to levy the fine upon 

 landlords who transgressed the law. The officer should be empower- 

 ed also to remove the family into some healthy abode, taking care 

 that the fine be enough to cover expenses, and that having done so, 

 the unhealthy place should be locked up, and the key kept by the 

 officer, until a guarantee be given, that if possible, the place be ren- 

 dered habitable. 



Answer 6th. I would recommend that the corporation build, and 

 encourage the building of houses suitable for the poor, so constructed 

 that each family may have at least two rooms; do this, and many of 

 those evils which now exist will be done away, and the blessings of 

 many who are now ready to perish, will come upon them. 



From J B. Horton, Missionary of the 1th Ward. 



New- York August 23d, 1844. 



Dr. Griscom. — Dear Sir — Your questions in relation to the demo- 

 ralizing influences resulting from the unhappy physical condition of 

 a multitude of families in this city — both as it regards the numbers 

 of all ages and each sex, jammed into one apartment — that with 

 some miserable additions to its list of uses reminds us of the poor 

 cobbler's stall in, the song, which " He us'd for kitchen, for parlor, 

 for hall," — and the negligfence of personal and domiciliary cleanli- 

 ness; with others concerning the best means of obviating those evils, 

 requesting me to give such answers to each and all, as my judgment 

 and experience shall dictate, with such illustration of facts, as my 

 Missionary labors in this city for ten years past may have furnished, 

 are before me, and shall receive due attention. 



For I hail with joy any feasible project, or attempt, to meliorate 

 the natural ox moral condition of man, and especially of that class of 

 my own fellow-citizens, who so far from reposing on beds of roses 

 or down, seemed doomed to endless toil by day — and by night to lie 

 down, perhaps in a crowded, uncleanly, and unventilated apartment, 

 where before their slumbers are ended, the air has been so often i/i- 

 haled, that it would need but little farther diminution of its vital qual- 

 ities, to become so foul as to cause them "to sleep, to wake no more.'" 

 And I rejoice, sir, that you have undertaken the task of presenting to 

 the authorities of this city and the public, such views of the physical 

 and moral condition of our city, and the appropriate means of im- 



