Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/495

 A MODEL MUNICIPAL DEPARTMENT 477

tor down near the Brooklyn bridge. The walls of every room here shook so violently from the vibrations of the machinery two buildings away that it was entirely impossible to lie still on a bed or couch. And in this instance, too, the machinery was often kept running during the night on rush orders, so that sleep for a nervous mother and child was almost out of the question. Such cases the board pronounces to be public nuisances, and orders their abatement, and the owner of the factory must usually comply as best he can, even though it means moving his whole outfit to another building in a different part of the city where there are fewer tenement dwellers to be annoyed.

The writer also paid several visits to sweat-shops and other small clothing factories to inspect the general sanitary condi- tions. At one time it was to answer a complaint which read :

Kindly send an inspector to Hilsens Segar Factory and make them Venti- late the place as we working People are in Distress the windows are always closed and it is killing us.

(Signed) An Employe.

In this case the windows were, indeed, closed and the air foul in the extreme. Such matters ought more properly to be referred to the factory inspector although the department can and does see that all defects in the plumbing are properly remedied.

Perhaps the worst instance of all unsanitary conditions en- countered was that of a second-hand tailor's shop and living apartment in a tiny, dark, foul-smelling cellar along the Bowery. It was the best place which the poor fellow could afford, he said, in order to display his goods properly. For, although there was no show window, the little cellar stairway gave him just enough room to hang his wretched garments where they could be seen by the vast throng passing overhead. In return for this privilege he was willing to do his work in a little living-room approxi- mately 8 X 10 feet, with but one tiny basement window half cut off from the light by the pavement above, and to live with his wife and two children in a rear room IOX 12 feet, which had no windows in it at all and no access to the fresh air except through the shop door. What kind of an apology was this for a shop and home ? Yet a cruel landlord was wringing from his tenant