[Illustration: A CUL-DE-SAC, SHOWING OVERCROWDING, NEAR SLAUGHTER-HOUSE AND STABLES
In the court is found generally that most pestiferous of all the sources of civic uncleanliness and unhealthiness--the privy and cesspool. These receptacles are rarely drained into the sewers, and consequently require for their cleanliness the frequent and faithful attention of the scavenger. The reports of the sanitary inspectors prove that this work is most irregularly and imperfectly done. Hundreds of places were found where these nuisances existed within, under or beside large tenant-houses, creating a vast amount of disease and death. Numerous instances of this kind are detailed in these reports, which are almost too revolting to be believed. I will quote but one or two illustrations:
“The privies (two in one) of Nos. -- and -- West Twenty-fourth Street need instant cleaning. They are overflowing the yard, and are very offensive. The privy No. -- Seventh Avenue, as in the preceding two adjoining houses, is in the yard, and adjoins the house, and is on a line with the southerly wall of house No. -- (the adjacent house), which has a back area; the wall of said area being part of the foundation of the privy. At times the fluid portion of the privy oozes through its own and the area wall.
“The privy of the rear tenant-house No. -- West Twenty-second Street is used by 42 persons; it has five subdivisions, one for every two families. The compartments are so small that a person can scarcely turn round in them, and so dark that they have to be entered with an artificial light. The cellar itself, as has been stated, is damp, dark, and without ventilation. Under such circumstances the emanations of the excrementious matter of 42 persons can find no escape; thus this privy-cellar is worse than a Stygian pit.”
The Inspector of the Fifth Ward says: “Very few tenements have water-closets in the house; they have privies in the yards, which, as a rule, are insufficient for the accommodation of the numbers crowded into the houses; many are not connected with the sewers; are seldom cleaned, being allowed to overflow in some cases, rendering the neighborhood offensive with insalubrious emanations.”