New York has, thus far, grown without any control or supervision, until its population is estimated at 1,000,000 of persons. Of this number, at least one-half are of the laboring and dependant classes, compelled to live under such conditions as they find in their homes, without any power, either to change or improve them. Following the natural law which governs the movements of such a population, the wealthier or independent class spreads itself with its business arrangements over the larger proportion of the area, and the poorer or dependent class is crowded into the smallest possible space. [Sidenote: Tenant-House Packing] Already New York has covered about 8 of its 34 square miles with the dwellings of a population not far from 1,000,000, and all its commercial and manufacturing establishments. And the result is, as might have been anticipated, the dependent class, numbering fully one-half of the people, is crowded into tenant-houses which occupy an area of not more than two square miles. Such crowding amounts literally to packing. For example, it is estimated that there are three contiguous blocks of tenant-houses which contain a larger population than Fifth Avenue; or, again, if Fifth Avenue had front and rear tenant-houses as densely packed as tenant-houses generally are, there would be a population of 100,000 on that single avenue. A single tenant-court in the Fourth Ward is arranged for the packing of 1,000 persons. [Illustration: GOTHAM COURT, CHERRY STREET, 1865--LONGITUDINAL ELEVATION _Arranged for the Packing of 1,000 Persons_] [Illustration: SECTION OF CITY 240 BY 150 FEET, OCCUPIED BY 111 FAMILIES, AND BY STABLES, SOAP FACTORY, AND TANYARD] A resident of the same Ward reports that: “On a piece of ground 240 feet by 150, there are 20 tenant-houses, occupied by 111 families, 5 stables, a large soap and candle factory, and a tan-yard, the receptacle of green hides. The filth and stench of this locality are beyond any power of description.” In general, it may be stated that the average number of families to a house among the poor is 7, or about 35 persons. [Sidenote: Avoidable and Inevitable Disease] It is necessary also to make a single explanation, to render more apparent the bearing of the facts developed. For the purposes of sanitary inquiry, the causes of disease are divided into those which are inevitable, and those which are avoidable or removable, and hence it follows that diseases and deaths are divided into those which are inevitable and those which are preventable. For example: Of unavoidable causes of disease, we have vicissitudes of weather, accidents, old age, physical degenerations, etc.