With the failure of this appeal to the owner, I had exhausted, apparently, every legal and moral means of abating a nuisance dangerous to life and detrimental to health.
In this extremity I visited the office of the _Evening Post_ and explained the matter to Mr. William Cullen Bryant, then editor of that newspaper. He was at once interested in the failure of the power of the City Government to remedy such a flagrant evil. In the absence of laws and ordinances, Mr. Bryant proposed to make the case public in all of its details, and for that purpose suggested that the police should cause the arrest of the delinquent owner, and he would send a reporter to make notes of the case. A charge was made against the landlord, and he was required to appear at the Jefferson Market Court. On entering the court he was confronted by the reporter, pad and pencil in hand, who pressed him with questions as to his tenement house.
Greatly alarmed at his situation, the owner inquired as to the purpose of the reporter, and was informed that Mr. Bryant intended to publish the proceedings of the court in the _Evening Post_, and to expose his maintenance of a fever nest of the worst description. He begged that no further proceedings be taken, and promised the court that he would immediately make all necessary improvements. He promptly vacated the house, and made such a thorough reconstruction of the entire establishment that it became one of the most attractive tenements in that East Side district. For many years that house continued to be entirely free from the ordinary contagious diseases of the tenement houses of the city. It is an interesting fact that the landlord subsequently thanked the writer for having compelled him to improve his tenement house; for he had secured first-class tenants who paid him high rents.
This incident came to the attention of several prominent citizens, physicians, lawyers, and clergymen, who became profoundly impressed with the revelation that there were no laws under which such a glaring violation of the simplest principles of health, and even of common decency, could be at once corrected.
For many years there had been a growing sentiment in favor of a reform of our health regulations, stimulated by the writings of Dr. John H. Griscom, Dr. Joseph M. Smith, Dr. Elisha Harris, and others, and the Academy of Medicine had occasionally passed resolutions favoring adequate health laws; but no results had been secured.