Page:Letters on the condition of the African race in the United States.djvu/34

32 in no portion to that extent as was found in a small portion of Moyamensing, among the blacks, principally in the smaller streets, courts, and alleys, between Fifth and Eighth, and South and Fitzwater Streets.

"Respectfully, your friend, "N. B. LEIDY." "A visit to the scene of this distress, made in the latter part of the ninth month, 1847, is thus described:— "The vicinity of the place we sought was pointed out by a large number of colored people congregated on the neighboring pavements. We first inspected the rooms, yards, and cellars of the four or five houses next above Baker street, on Seventh. The cellars were wretchedly dark, damp, and dirty, and were generally rented for twelve and a-half cents per night. These were occupied by one or more families at the present time; but, in the winter season, when the frost drives those who in summer sleep abroad in fields, in board-yards, in sheds, to seek more effectual shelter, they often contain from twelve to twenty lodgers per night. Commencing at the back of each house are small wooden buildings roughly put together, about six feet square, without windows or fire-places, a hole about a foot square being left in the front, alongside of the door, to let in fresh air and light, and to let out foul air and smoke. These desolate pens, the roofs of which are generally leaky, and thin floors, so low that more or less water comes in on them from the yard in rainy weather, would not give comfortable winter accommodation to a cow. Although as dismal as dirt, damp, and insufficient ventilation can make them, they are nearly all inhabited. In one of the first we entered, we found the dead body of a large negro man, who had died suddenly there. This pen was about eight feet deep by six wide. There was no bedding in it, but a box or two around the sides furnished places where two colored persons, one said to be the wife of the deceased, were lying, either drunk or fast asleep. The body of the dead man was on the wet floor, beneath an old torn coverlet. The death had taken place some hours before; the coroner had been sent for, but had not yet arrived. A few feet south, in one of the pens attached to the adjoining house, two days before, a colored female had been found dead. The hole from which she was taken appeared smaller than its neighbors generally, and had not as yet obtained another tenant.

"Let me introduce you to our 'Astor House,' said our guide,