From these palaces it is but a step, as it were, to gaunt neighborhoods where great parts of the population are crowded in the most inhuman way into wretched tenement houses. It is an undeniable fact that more than fifty blocks on Manhattan Island--each of which blocks is not much larger than the space covered by the Astor mansions--have each a teeming population of from 3,000 to 4,000 persons. In each of several blocks 6,000 persons are congested. In 1855, when conditions were thought bad enough, 417,476 inhabitants were crowded into the section south of Fourteenth street; but in 1907 this district contained fully 750,000 population. Forty years ago the lower sections only of Manhattan were overcrowded, but now the density of congestion has spread to all parts of Manhattan, and to parts of the Bronx and Brooklyn. On an area of two hundred acres in certain parts of New York City not less than 200,000 people exist. It is not uncommon to find eighteen men, women, and children, driven to it by necessity, sleeping in three small, suffocating rooms. [Illustration: THE ASTOR MANSIONS IN NEW YORK CITY. Occupied by the Late Mrs. William Astor and by John Jacob Astor.] But the New York City residences of the Astors are only a mere portion of their many palaces. They have impressive mansions, costing great sums, at Newport. At Ferncliffe-on-the-Hudson John Jacob Astor has an estate of two thousand acres. This country palace, built in chaste Italian architecture, is fitted with every convenience and luxury. John Jacob Astor's cousin, William Waldorf, some years since expatriated himself from his native country and became a British subject. He bought the Cliveden estate at Taplow, Bucks, England, the old seat of the Duke of Westminster, the richest landlord in England. Thenceforth William Waldorf scorned his native land, and has never even taken the trouble to look at the property in New York which yields him so vast a revenue. This absentee landlord, for whom it is estimated not less than 100,000 men, women and children directly toil, in the form of paying him rent, has surrounded himself in England with a lofty feudal exclusiveness. Sweeping aside the privilege that the general public had long enjoyed of access to the Cliveden grounds, he issued strict orders forbidding trespassing, and along the roads he built high walls surmounted with broken glass. His son and heir, Waldorf Astor, has avowed that he also will remain a British subject. William Waldorf Astor, it should be said, is somewhat of a creator of public opinion; he owns a newspaper and a magazine in London. * * * * *