CHAPTER XII.

TENEMENT AND LODGING-HOUSES.

The wisdom of the legislature, beyond which courts ever hesitate to go, has been vindicated in the experience of the laws framed for tenement and lodging-houses in large cities. The Court of Appeals of New York has said of them: "These houses, as a known and distinct class, are recognized and defined by law. They are apt to be ill-ventilated, unclean, and packed full of inmates, and to become centers or radiating points of contagious disease. As such they might be the proper subjects of sanitary regulation in the interest of the public health." The court adds, speaking of the title of "An act to improve the public health in the city of New York, by prohibition of the manufacture of cigars and the preparation of tobacco, in any form, in the tenementhouses of said city:" "Nobody would infer, and nobody was bound to imagine that, under a title regulating the tenement-houses alone, there was enacted in the first section a law affecting, not tenement-houses as such, but all the dwelling-houses in the city; a law as to which the title did not only not relate, but by its narrow terms, affirmatively and positively excluded it." Other reasons conspire to sustain this peculiar legislation, and when we consider the great number of these houses and their teeming people, making up a large part of the mass of the resident population of the city of New York, exposed to dangers and to a necessity for protection, which does not extend to private habitations, it is evident that at times their safety must be of critical importance to the rest of the city, and always they must be of public concern. A recent writer has said: "The problem of securing the best lighted and ventilated rooms in new tenement-houses is of paramount and increas

1 Matter of Paul, 94 N. Y. 497; N. Y. L. 1883, chap. 93; N.Y. Cons. Act, 1882, § 666; N. Y. San. Code, § 3; chap. 908, 1867; chap. 504, 1879; chap. 399, 1880; chap. 272, 1884; chap. 448, 1884; chap. 588, 1880; chap. 84, 1887; L. of 1892, chaps. 238 and 329. Definition of tenement-house, N. Y. L. 1887, chap. 84; R. S. Ohio, 2573; Rose v. King, 49 Ohio, 213.

ing importance." It demands attention alike from law-makers, philanthropists and sanitarians. Nor is it devoid of interest even to that portion of a community not included in these terms, who can afford a choice of healthful homes; while the general commingling of the various elements of the population in public conveyances and highways increases the dangers of disease diffusion.

When the law was passed there already existed many thousands of tenement-houses, built without legislative or other restriction, abounding in dark, unventilated rooms, with inadequate water supply and wretched plumbing; privy vaults everywhere polluted the air; lots had acquired high value in the distinctively tenement quarters, which led to overcrowding in order that landlords might get from the many, in the form of rent, the even ordinary commercial interest on the amount invested, which the few could not afford to pay. Much of the tenementhouse population had come from rural districts of foreign countries, and, consequently, was uneducated in the sanitary regulations and restrictions necessary for the protection of the populous communities. As sailors and minors and poor debtors have been said to be under the tutelage of the law because helpless and exposed beyond other men, so the tenants of these houses, in one sense, become as it were the wards of the city, save only that so far no attempt has been made by public law to regulate or adjust the rents.

1 Chief Inspector Collins' Report, Jan. 2, 1891; Annual Report of N. Y. City Bd. of H. for 1890, p. 49. In New York city a Bureau of Systematic Vaccination was organized under the Law of 1874, chap. 635. By chap. 504, Laws 1879, a special fund called the Tenement-House Fund, of $10,000, is to be appropriated each year; and each year a summer corps of physicians is appointed to visit the tenement-houses and give advice and prescriptions. Moreover, there is a night medical service provided (chap. 588 of L. 1880), and a physician is sent at once to any sick person whose address is given at the nearest police station; see N. Y. Cons. Act of 1882, §§ 297-301.

The house-to-house inspection of New York City Board of Health showed 237,972 families in 32,390 tenement-houses in 1888. This calculation is increased in the annual report for 1890, published March 5, 1891, p. 21, to 37,316 tenement-houses and a population of 1,259,788 persons. The report of this Board, 1874-5, pp. 55, 56, shows the great diminution in the death rate of children under five years of age. After the enactment of the Tenement-House Law of 1867 for nine years there was a steady falling off. The special object of the attention of the authorities for the protection of these young children and these people are forcibly portrayed in this report. In 1884, January 2, the legislature appointed a commission to inquire into the character and condition of tenement-houses in the city of New York, with power to subpoena witnesses and require the production of books and papers and to report evidence with their recommendations. Two reports were made in 1885 to the legislature, the preliminary report in the spring of the year, and the final report later, but the rec

The definition' of a tenement-house is fixed by the statutes, and the Board of Health, " to include every building or portion thereof which is rented, leased or let or hired out to be occupied as a home or residence of three or more families living independently and doing their cooking upon the premises, or by more than two families upon any floor, so living and cooking, but having a common right in the halls, stairways, yards, water-closets or some of them." The definition was from 1867 until 1887 limited to "more than three families," but after 1887 to "three or more families." The first regulations of these houses were for the ventilation of the sleeping rooms, for fire-escapes, for the repair of roofs to prevent dampness, for the repair and protection of stairways, for a proper provision and construction of water-closets and privies, for the prohibition of the use of a vault or underground room as a dwelling, for whitewashing and cleaning the walls and ceilings twice a year, for the height of ceilings, and for posting the name and address of the owner or agent of the house. The law further prescribed the space on a city lot to be occupied by tenement-houses. the rear of the lot a clear open space of ten feet was to be left, and between the rear and front buildings there must be ten feet if the build

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ommendations of the commission were not fully before the legislature until 1886, and the Law of 1887, chapter 84, had its origin in, and embodied most of these recommendations. The ages under five years are taken as the test, because the frightful mortality at this tender age had shown the irresistible drain of vital strength in tenement-house life, when unprotected. In 1890, the same constant improvement is shown year by year, and further reason is given for it, when we learn of the great improvement in the character of the houses. It was estimated that dwelling and tenement-houses were built in 1890 to accommodate ninety-five thousand persons in New York city, on greatly improved plans, so that the report states this large number of citizens will have the benefit of the best plumbing which the sanitary knowledge of the time could procure and with no apprehension from sewer gas." Report, 1890, p. 52. The report adds, "the effective sanitary work accomplished in this city under the plumbing regulations of this department has led many of the other cities of this country and some of those abroad to adopt similiar regulations." The complicated health administration in London has precedence in time to that of New York, and is directed to the same objects. In Liverpool, Manchester and other English cities our admiration is excited by their system, and in some details, in the management of the poorer class of boarding-houses and tenements, their more perfect work. Perhaps the successful and improving administration of Glasgow is nearer to our own in system and for comparison.

1 See Annual Report 1890, p. 20; chap. 84, 1887; N. Y. Cons. Act, 1882, § 666; chap. 908, 1867; N. Y. San. Code, § 3; § 498, chap. 275, N. Y. L. 1892, three families above 1st story; family is defined, N. Y. L. 1892, chap. 655; N. Y. L. 1867, chap. 908; N. Y. Cons. Act, 1882, tit. 7, §§ 647, 666; chap. 399, N. Y. L. 1880; N. Y. Cons. Act, 661; N. Y. L. 1887, chaps. 84, 288.

ings were to be one story high, fifteen feet if the buildings were of two stories; if of three stories, twenty feet, and if more than three stories high, the distance must be twenty-five feet. The Board of Health was authorized to make further regulations as to cellars and ventilation. Any violation of the act was declared a misdemeanor punishable by fine and imprisonment and also by a penalty of $10 a day for every day the violation continued, which penalty was to be sued for by the Board of Health. Provision was also made for vacating a house if unfit for human habitation by reason of infection or want of repair. A great advance was made by the enactment of 1880, that no one continuous building shall be built for, or converted to, the purposes of a tenement or lodging-house in the city of New York, upon an ordinary city lot, and no existing tenement or lodging-house shall be enlarged or altered, or its lot be diminished so that it shall occupy more than sixty-five per centum of the said lot, and in the same proportion if the lot be greater or less in size than twenty-five feet by one hundred feet; but this provision shall not apply to corner lots, and may be modified in other special cases by a permit from the Board of Health.'

The necessary consequence of this law was that, an application to the Board of Health was necessary to secure the additional space desired by the owners of property proposing to build, and a continual improvement of plans was required until new models of tenement-houses came into existence. No dark rooms were permitted, and new and sufficient air spaces were required, as conditions precedent to the approval of the plan for the occupation of over sixty-five per cent up to seventy-eight per cent of the lot. The same law gave a right of injunction to the Board of Health to restrain any violation, and when by the law of 1881 it was enacted that "the drainage and plumbing of all buildings, both public and private, hereafter erected in the city of New York, shall be executed in accordance with plans previously approved, in writing, by the Board of Health, and the same right of injunction was extended to this subject, this legislation seemed nearly complete. In 1887 the recommendations of the tenement-house commission were substantially embodied in the legislation of that year, which corrected many of the defects, and supplied a number of omissions discovered in the preceding twenty years. In 1890 the Department of Public Works in the city of New York adopted a regulation which prevented the use of

1 N. Y. Cons. Act. §§ 661, 1089, 501, 537; chap. 450, 1881; chap. 84, 1887; chap. 288, 1887; chap. 399, 1880. The rule of practice of the Board of Health was to allow 78 per cent of lot if the plans were approved.

the water service until the Department of Health had duly certified to the Department of Public Works, that the plumbing of a building had been finished in accordance with approved plans. The comment upon this procedure is to be found in the subsequent report of the Board of Health that "many whose violations of law were habitual now do model plumbing in consequence of this regulation." In 1892 there was something of a retrograde movement in the limitation of the law excluding the stables in use on tenement-house premises prior to January, 1892, and the transfer of powers and duties of the Health Department (which is not mentioned in the title of the bill) to a new Building Department created in this city.'

This history and lengthened consideration of the tenement-house laws of New York has been given partly because they present a useful, and it would seem an interesting, example of such legislation, generally consistent and constantly advancing through this period, in a somewhat condensed and comprehensive form; and again, because they have not infrequently been misunderstood. These buildings are still amenable to other laws, and the additional requirements, we have noticed, leave still room for the enforcement of the Sanitary Code and the exercise of special powers relative to the abatement of nuisances or the prevention of diseases and the care for public health and safety. Under these laws the Board of Health is not guided by the Sanitary Code, but the statutes themselves and the judgment of the Board of Health determine the proceedings.

For a different purpose, and with regulations looking rather to the cubic air spaces for beds of sleepers, and to light and ventilation as well as safety, are the lodging-houses proper. In them, huddled together, single persons, fleeing from the inclemency of the weather, obtain, for the smallest price, refuge for the night, and in times of pestilence some of these houses have been nests of disease. Still another class of houses comes under the description of having more than three families living independently, and occasionally, but rarely, of having more than two families on a floor; and yet they are subject

1 See chap. 258, N. Y. L. 1892, amending § 661, N. Y. Cons. Act; chap. 275, L. 1892, tit. 4, § 506. This law, which has a peculiar history, has two singular omissions: 1. Its title does not embrace the transfer of jurisdiction and power from the Board of Health. 2. There is no power given of enforcement of the provisions of section 501, relative to plumbing, if the law be maintained and section 506 remains unaltered. The provisions of section 506 expressly except section 501. Other provisions of this bill are in confusion. As to title of a local bill, see Const. St. N. Y., Art. III, § 16.