number of occupants to each room does not exceed 2, but is 29 per 1,000 with 3 to 5 occupants, 32 per 1,000 with 6 to 10 occupants, and 79 per 1,000 when there are more than 10 occupants to each apartment. Crowd-poison is, therefore, a distinct evil of these alley houses, coupled, as it is, with insufficient light, impure air, and greater chance for the spread of contagion.

So far it has been impracticable to determine the exact amount of sickness and mortality which prevails in our alley houses. By far the largest number of inmates when sick are treated in hospitals, and these institutions often fail to record the exact address, while in many instances the applicants for treatment give the address of their employers.

"It is no secret," says Miss de Graffenried, "that many of the alleys hide criminals. Our records reveal three openly disreputable houses. In one dwelling resides a woman with a jail history. Other houses are tainted with the suspicion of being 'fast,' and men in them are supported by women who have no visible income. Tenants, not immoral themselves, profit by the traffic in sin. In another family the oldest unmarried daughter has two illegitimate children. Three cases of drunkenness are chronicled. One woman, upright herself so far as the evidence goes, besides her own numerous offspring, cares for the two youngest children of a sister in the penitentiary, whose three daughters and two sons are in prison, while still another son is at the reform school-seven out of nine in that family behind the bars."

The 13 alleys which formed the basis of the foregoing analysis were distributed as follows: Nolan's court in the southeast; Armory place, Willow Tree alley, and Clark's alley in the south west; while the remaining 9 are situated in the northwest. The geographical distribution seems quite impartial and the report affords a fair indication of what may be expected should every alley house in this city be subjected to the same critical investigation. Doubtless a worse showing would have resulted had the canvasser confined her inquries to certain notorious districts of the city, whereas in fact these districts have been merely sampled.

From the results of this preliminary investigation the objections to our alleys may be summarized as follows:

(1) The existence of blind alleys or cul-de-sacs shutting off small communities from the outside world and which are calculated not only to promote sickness, but also immorality and crime.

(2) Insanitary conditions of the alleys and alley dwellings, which menace not only the health of the immediate inhabitants, but also of the people residing in the same block.

(3) The undue prevalence of immorality and crime, since it may be taken for granted that the majority of alley tenants suffer positive deterioration from witnessing the uncurbed vice around them.

(4) High rents in proportion to the income of the families, especially in consideration of the accommodations offered and the actual value of the property.

At the first glance it would appear that the best remedy for existing evils lies in the abandonment of every alley house in this city and the substitution of large sanitary flats at a reasonable rental. The wisdom of such a radical measure is doubtful, however, and for the following reasons: The financial success of large sanitary tenements depends upon the interest on the money invested, and the capitalist, unless he is at the same time a philanthropist, would feel obliged to order their construction on cheap ground in undesirable parts of the city, with a

consequent concentration of people under one roof and possibly even more effectually removed from elevating environments than now.

An aggregation of a large number of families in flats means crowd poison from increased sources of pollution of the air; greater danger from the spread of infectious and contagious diseases; greater danger to human life in case of fire-in brief, an accentuation of all the evils incident to urban life. If, on the other hand, these flats comply with all sanitary requirements as regards air space, ventilation, heating, lighting, yard space, etc., the rent payable on each room would be greatly increased.

Apart from the fact that hygiene demands that the dwellings for wage-earners should be just large enough to accommodate one family, the degrading effects of tenement houses are well known and have been graphically described by Octavia Hill, of London, who says:

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What life in blocks is to the less self-controlled hardly any words of mine are strong enough to describe, and it is abhorrent accordingly to the tidy and striving. Regulations are of no avail; no public inspection can possibly for more than an hour or two secure order; no resident superintendent has at once conscience, nerve, and devotion single handed to stem the violence, the dirt, the noise, the quarrels. No one who is not in and out day by day, or, better still, night after night, no one who does not watch the swift degradation of children belonging to tidy families, no one who does not know the terrorism exercised by the rough over the timid and industrious poor, no one who does not know the abuse of any appliance provided by the benevolent or speculative landlord, can tell what life in blocks is where the population is low class.

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Sinks and drains are stopped, yards provided for exercise must be closed because of misbehavior, wash houses or staircases become the nightly haunts of the vicious, the Sunday gambling places of boys; the yell of the drunkard echoes through the hollow passages, the stairs are blocked by dirty children, and the life of any decent, hard-working family becomes intolerable. People become brutal in large numbers who are gentle when they are in smaller groups and know one another.

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Hence the enormous importance of keeping a large number of small houses wherever it be possible, for the better training of the rowdy and the protection of the quiet and gentle. Well-meaning landlords should pause before they clear away small houses and erect blocks with any idea of benefiting the poorer class of people.

The committee of the Civic Center on housing of the people, consisting of Miss K. P. Hosmer and Messrs. G. A. Weber, G. W. W. Hanger, Henry Gannett, with George M. Kober as chairman, January 12, 1897, after setting forth the facts presented, submitted the following recom mendations:

(1) The speedy conversion of all alleys containing a sufficient number of human habitations into minor streets and places.

(2) When impracticable to extend or cut through the blind alleys from north to south or from east to west and to widen them at least to 30 feet, they should be condemned as unfit for human habitation.

(3) All alleys and alley houses should be subjected to a searching official investigation; the houses should come up to a reasonable sanitary standard and dwellings unfit for human habitation should be condemned.

(4) The attention of capitalists should be drawn to the fact that no class of realty pays as well as alley property in this city and that there is a splendid field for investment in the erection of sanitary and comfortable alley houses on a business and humanitarian basis.

The committee also extended an invitation to a number of publicspirited bodies for a conference of their respective committees and a joint consideration of the question.

When the central relief committee was appointed by the District

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Commissioners one of the duties imposed upon it was the investigation of the general conditions of the poor of the city with a view to the formulation of a plan for permanent relief. A subcommittee, with Surgeon General Sternberg as the chairman, was appointed and known as "the subcommittee on permanent relief and sanitary dwellings for the poor." Bishop Satterlee is one of the members of the subcommittee, and he and General Sternberg gave careful thought and study to the subject, based upon a personal investigation of some of the alleys and dwellings, and on January 27, 1897, submitted a preliminary report to the Commissioners, of which the following is an abstract:

Our investigations show that a large proportion of the indigent population of Washington are housed in tenements located in the alleys of the city; that many of these alley houses are unfit for human habitation; that a majority of them are not supplied with water and have no sewer connections; that many of the houses, the yards attached to them, and the box privies in these yards are in a very insanitary condition; that typhoid fever and other infectious diseases cause a considerable mortality in these alley houses as a result of such insanitary conditions; that the sanitary inspection service of the health department is entirely inadequate and that it is not in the power of the District Commissioners or the health office of the city to remedy these evils under existing laws and circumstances.

This state of affairs is a disgrace to the National Capital, and in our opinion calls for legislation by the Congress of the United States by which the District Commissioners may be enabled to condemn and destroy tenements which are unfit for human occupation, to condemn and pay for buildings and ground required for the purpose of widening alleys and opening blind alleys comformably to existing laws, to construct branch sewers, and introduce water and gas, so that sanitary tenements may be erected in these minor streets or alleys which can be rented to the poor as low or lower than are the insanitary dwellings now occupied by many of them.

We concur in general with the recommendations recently made by a committee of the Civic Center of this city, and desire to call special attention to the following extract from the report of this committee submitted January 6, 1897:

"The attention of capitalists should be drawn to the fact that no class of realty pays as well as alley property in this city, and that there is a splendid field for investment in the erection of sanitary and comfortable alley houses on a business and humanitarian basis."

For the purpose of securing prompt action in accordance with this recommendation the committee suggested a plan for the organization of a sanitary improvement company.

In February, 1897, the Civic Center, in conjunction with the Board of Trade of Washington, the Central Relief Committee, and the Woman's Anthropological Society, held a public meeting at the Foundry Methodist Episcopal Church on the subject of housing the wage earners, which was addressed by Dr. E. R. L. Gould, of New York, Bishop Satterlee, General Sternberg, Mr. John Joy Edson, and others. Another meeting was held under the auspices of the Board of Trade March 26, 1897, at the Builders' Exchange, which was addressed by Mr. S. Walter Woodward, General Sternberg, Dr. E. R. L. Gould, of New York, Prof. B. T. Janney, and President Whitman, of the Columbian University.

In the meantime sufficient stock had been subscribed to justify the organization of a company, and on March 23, 1897, the first meeting of subscribers to the stock was held in the rooms of the Board of Trade. At this meeting a committee of three, consisting of Messrs. C. C. Cole, A. S. Worthington, and Nathaniel Wilson, was appointed to prepare articles of incorporation and to take such steps as may be necessary toward the organization of a company.

At a meeting held April 2, 1897, the above-named committee recommended that a charter for said company be procured under the laws of the State of Virginia, as the general incorporation law of the District of Columbia did not admit of the formation of a corporation for the purposes in contemplation.

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