Again, by legal enactment, we have prevented the
overcrowding of our emigrant ships: the same thing should be done in our
cities, to prevent the overcrowding of our tenement-houses. No house should
be allowed to receive more than a fixed maximum of dwellers in proportion
to its size and accommodations. These are simple propositions, but, if
properly carried out by enactment, they would secure an incalculable good.
[Footnote: Since writing the preceding sentences, we have been gratified to
see that a bill proposing the creation of a Metropolitan Board of Health
has been introduced into the Legislature of New York. If the bill becomes a
law, as we trust it may, the board will be invested with power "to enact
ordinances for the proper government and control of buildings erecting or
to be erected, ... to compel the lessees or owners of dwellings to put the
same in proper order, and to provide sufficient means of egress in case of
fire." The New-York Evening Post of March 23, in giving an account of this
bill, says,--and there is no exaggeration in its statements,--
"The nearly one million of souls of this great city are left to take care
of themselves,--to be crowded mercilessly by landlords into houses without
light, air, or water, and without means of egress in case of fire; and the
street filth is allowed to accumulate till the city has become as the
famous Pontine Marshes, to breathe whose exhalations is certain
disease. All this results, as is proved by comparison with other cities, in
the unnecessary loss of five thousand to eight thousand lives annually, and
of many millions of dollars expended for unnecessary sickness, and the
consequent loss of time and strength,--all of which might be saved, as they
are actually saved in other and larger cities, by the application of
sanitary laws by intelligent and efficient officers.
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